Decolonising Education in Islamic West Africa: Secular Erasure, School Preference and Social Inequality

This book examines perceptions and experiences of Quranic schools in West Africa, outlining a much-needed postcolonial approach which considers the place of Islamic education within African decolonial debates about educational pluralism.

To overcome the challenges of problematic Eurocentric and colonialist stereotypes about religious actors and faith-based schools (which persist within comparative and international education scholarship and global policy agendas), the author harnesses decolonial theory and uncovers through fine-grained ethnography how parents and young people today engage with classical Quranic schools, Islamic schools, and French-medium secular education. Chapters thereby expose the fault lines around gender, descent-based or caste identities, and socioeconomic inequality, and their influence on individuals pursuit of knowledge. Drawing on an impressive body of supporting literature from history, anthropology, linguistics, African studies and Islamic studies, the book unpacks the characteristics of the Islamic West African context of Senegal, rendering its populations Sufi Muslim worldview accessible to researchers concerned about achieving the Education for All agenda.

Advocating for a need to embrace greater plurality of African and Islamic perspectives, the book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and post-graduate students in the fields of development and African studies, the sociology of education, international education, anthropology and religious education. Policy-makers and practitioners involved in postcolonial and decolonial debates will also benefit from this volume more broadly.