ABSTRACT
The case study research that is reported in this chapter explored equity issues in relation to life-experiences, opportunities and constraints for Muslim women in teacher training, with a focus on subject experiences within physical education. The research was motivated by the fact that, despite Government efforts, ethnic minority students are still under-represented in higher education and the teaching profession (DBS (1989) Circular 24/89; EOC, 1989). In England’s second largest city, where part of this case study was located, it is predicted that by 2001, ethnic minorities will constitute one in three 16-yearold pupils in the schools, yet only 5 per cent of the City’s teaching force. The data presented in this chapter pinpoints the complexity of overlays of disadvantage experienced by Muslim women, including interactions of ‘race’ (used, as by Siraj-Blatchford, 1993, in inverted commas to acknowledge the problematic nature of the term yet the significance of racism), ethnicity, religion, culture and gender. In the research a qualitative study with a group of Muslim women in initial teacher training, in one higher education institution (HEI) provided a ‘micro’ perspective of a particular group and situation. An accompanying questionnaire survey of all other higher education institutes in England and Wales offering initial teacher training with an element of physical education, was used to give a ‘macro’ perspective on the issues being explored. Research based in higher education is rare. Most sociological researchers pursue critical investigations of other sites in preference to their own. Siraj-Blatchford (ibid.: 35) has highlighted that ‘the experiences of black students (Asian and African-Caribbean) in higher education have been largely ignored’. The data generated in this research can be seen to extend our knowledge and understanding of ways in which institutional and subject cultures, traditions, policies and practices, variously impact on particular and invariably marginalised, groups. We see the challenges that arise if teacher training is to embrace in policy and practice, conceptualisations of gender that acknowledge multiple identities and differences.
