ABSTRACT
The title of this chapter was chosen to capture the nuances of early socialisation as an active process in early childhood centres which explicitly acknowledged and claimed the primacy of God in the life of adults and children. Socialisation has been described as a process where norms, values, skills and knowledge are produced and reproduced with aim of passing on a culture (Lembrer & Meaney 2014). Novices are socialised into particular ways of knowing and being according to generational priorities. In the context of this study, the development of children’s Muslimness through internalisation of the Islamic belief system and its related practices is viewed as a complex process. Practicising Muslim adults carefully select values, norms and expectations and package them in ways that makes sense for the care and education of young children in a religious sense and at a particular historical time. This is not a one-way process.
