Browsing by Author "Loonat, Sumeya"

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    Decolonising DMU: Developing an anti-racist pedagogy of tomorrow
    (2021-07) Crofts, Melanie; Basra, Hardeep; Towlson, Kaye; Loonat, Sumeya
    This session will provide an update of the work of Decolonising DMU which, at its heart, adopts a ‘whole systems’ approach to the entrenched inequalities prevalent in higher education institutions. Although a lot of work has been done at DMU to embed inclusive teaching practice there are still significant challenges to address the ‘whiteness’ of the curriculum and disrupting mainstream pedagogic approaches. In order for teaching practice to be truly inclusive a critical rethink of the entire curriculum and learning and teaching approaches is required. This workshop will give staff an opportunity to share ideas about how to decolonise the curriculum and learning and teaching practises. It will enable staff to discuss tangible steps HE teachers can take to challenge what is considered ‘central’ in their learning and teaching environment, giving the opportunity for diverse voices and experiences to be explored in their teaching, both in design and/or delivery. Specifically, the session will focus on three key areas: 1) It will draw upon the recent work undertaken to critically review and transform the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice, as a basis to get new teachers in HE to conceptualise and position their teaching as truly inclusive and to consider anti-racist approaches to learning and teaching. It challenges existing scholarship of learning and teaching and pedagogic approaches claiming HEIs are reinforcing whiteness through knowledge, norms and behaviours which does not fully prepare academics to consider anti-racist practices or the impact of their teaching on diverse students. 2) It examines the development of anti-racist pedagogy through the power and composition of the reading list. It will acknowledge the perceived pedagogic authority and impact on students’ learning that reading lists have and speak to their role in connection, identity and belonging. Tools for decolonising the reading list will be offered, enabling a co-creative and discursive approach to this decolonising development. 3) Lastly, it explores the intersectionality of race and language within a teaching and learning context. There are significant barriers faced by students of colour in higher education and the mainstream framing of these students is usually viewed through a deficit model which is harmful as it perpetuates negative stereotypes and hinders progress to address racial inequalities. This session considers alternative approaches which enhance the student sense of belonging through the use of language and habitual learning and teaching practices. The aim of the breakout sessions will be an opportunity for staff to ask questions about the 3 areas and how they might adopt some of the good practice into their own teaching practices. The breakout rooms will be designed more as a conversation and to raise issues/questions about the areas in question.
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    Struggling for the anti-racist university: learning from an institution-wide response to curriculum decolonisation
    (Taylor and Francis, 2021) Hall, Richard; Ansley, Lucy; Connolly, Paris; Loonat, Sumeya; Patel, Kaushika; Whitham, Ben
    Increasingly, institutions are amplifying work on race equality, in order to engage with movements for Black lives and decolonising. This brings universities into relations with individual and communal issues of whiteness, white fragility and privilege, double and false consciousness, and behavioural code switching. Inside formal structures, built upon cultures and practices that have historical and material legitimacy, engaging with such issues is challenging. The tendency is to engage in formal accreditation, managed through engagement with established methodologies, risk management practices and data reporting. However, this article argues that the dominant articulation of the institution, which has its own inertia, which reinforces whiteness and dissipates radical energy, needs to be re-addressed in projects of decolonising. This situates the communal work of the institution against the development of authentic relationships as a movement of dignity.
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    The Impact of the Current Student Loans Regime on Muslim Student Engagement and Retention in English Higher Education.
    (De Montfort University, 2025-02-05) Loonat, Sumeya; Hall, Richard; Maryam, Yusraa
    There is much interest in the potential for an alternative funding system for higher education students in England to support the spiritual and worldly needs of British Muslim students. At present those who wish to study in English universities and HE providers are still tied to a financial system that is contentious for many because it is predicated upon paying back interest, known as riba. From Arabic, riba points towards financial arrangements that are a form of usury, and are seen to be exploitative. This is haram, or forbidden, for practicing Muslims. The relationship between access to (and progression through) academic study and engagement with finance is contentious where it reveals the tensions between Islam as a deeply-spiritual, faith-based way of life (in Arabic, deen), and the reality that this way of life is lived, materially, in a worldly existence (in Arabic, dunya). The extent to which these tensions both play out for Muslim students and impact their lived experiences of HE has received limited attention. Although recent UK Governments have promised an alternative system, and have even engaged in consultation on the issue, there is a need for richer educational research on the impact of this system on Muslims who are trying to adhere to Islamic teachings This report engages with this gap, and discusses one Academic Innovation Project (AIP), funded at De Montfort University (DMU) in the 2023/24 academic session. This project developed, cross-institutionally, the outcomes of a third-year, DMU Education Studies dissertation undertaken in 2022/23, by Yusraa Maryam (with Richard Hall as her supervisor). This dissertation undertook a small scale, qualitative investigation of the experiences of Muslim students who saw interest-bearing loans as a barrier to their higher learning. In the AIP, Yusraa and Richard, working with Sumeya Loonat, extended and enhanced this pilot. Sumeya, a DMU PhD student and a British Muslim female, acted as a research mentor to Yusraa, and this enabled the team to ground this student-led research around retention. At its heart lay a desire to explore the factors that shape retention for Muslim students who see student loans as a barrier to their retention and ability to stay the course. Thus, we focus on the outcomes of in-depth interviews with 12 British Muslim undergraduate and postgraduate taught students, which were designed to evaluate the impacts of interest-bearing loans on Muslim students retention in one University in English HE. The analysis of these interviews highlighted how the struggle between the spiritual deen and the worldly dunya shaped much of what was reported by these students, with money challenging and conditioning faith. In this, the complex ways in which individuals engage with student finance were related to their spiritual intentions, and this then shaped their educational experiences and choices. Whilst the role of family was important in engaging with their studies, this struggle had an affective, emotional impact. In managing these outcomes, the students demonstrate very deep layers of inner faith, commitment, drive and hope for the future. These are also moulded in family and in community. At the same time, our participants made a plea for the recognition of the significance of this issue for students like them by University senior leaders. At the core of this work, we note that these students are engaged in a struggle for recognition, and in this they deserve to be heard.