DR. WISAM KH. ABDUL-JABBAR

Muslim Immigrant/Refugee Students and the Inter-Intracultural Ethics: A Survival Guide in Diaspora

This study argues that the curriculum, and post-multiculturalism in Canada as a whole, has become a battleground between competing identity groups with compelling claims on inclusion. Against this backdrop, it seeks to negotiate the position of Muslim immigrant/refugee students in diaspora beyond this current tension, through the discovery of universals, and beyond the ethics of hospitality and tolerance. It asks the following questions: if the battle for curriculum privileges continues, how can and do immigrant Muslim students respond to diasporic challenges? If this tension continues to make teachers hesitant about discussing cultural and identity differences, how can immigrant Muslim students create a third space between the extremes of complete rejection and absolute assimilation? How can they transcend these unresolved post-multicultural tensions? This study proposes two responses. First, it proposes engaging in difference through dialogue informed by inter-intracultural competencies and conflict resolution skills, as opposed to a curriculum indoctrinated by dialectics. Second, it advocates educating immigrant/refugee Muslim students about the universal values and ethics within their own communities and religion that are geared towards cultural adjustment and co-existence. This study offers a survival guide in a battleground over the curriculum. 

​

Wisam Kh. Abdul-Jabbar received his PhD (funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) from the University of Alberta, where he was awarded The Bacchus Graduate Research Prize for scholarly excellence in International and Multicultural Education. He was also awarded the University of Alberta President’s Doctoral Prize of Distinction among other awards such as the JDH McFetridge Graduate Scholarship and the Andrew Stewart memorial Graduate Prize for outstanding accomplishment and potential in pursuit of new knowledge. He received an MA from Lakehead University and another MA from California State University in Humanities in an interdisciplinary program. Dr. Abdul-Jabbar held a postdoctoral fellowship (also funded by SSHRC) at the University of Calgary, where he received the University’s letter of endorsement for the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship. His research considers how Multiculturalism and Diaspora Studies resonate with educational practices. It explores convergences of seemingly differing cultures with the aim of infusing intercultural dialogue into curriculum theorizing. Currently, he is an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta. He is the author of Negotiating Diasporic Identity in Arab-Canadian Students - Double Consciousness, Belonging, and Radicalization (Palgrave, 2019). He has an upcoming book on Medieval Muslim philosophies and the intercultural Curriculum with Routledge. His previous articles have appeared in journals by Cambridge University Press, Duke University Press, California University Press, SAGE and Routledge.