Several related questions underpin much of the discussion about the growing presence of Muslim immigrants and their children in the United States. Will these immigrants and their children become loyal Americans? Will they instead emerge as a permanently disloyal opposition and a potential source of jihadist attacks? Or, in a question that assumes what could be called the liberal version of this concern: Should they be required to adopt a radically liberalized version of Islam in order to conform to the norms of the host society? Is Islam incompatible with democracy?
Our Boston University team has focused on one facet of the question: Islamic secondary schools. We have done this as part of a broader study of American schooling. The study was designed by sociologist James Davison Hunter of the University of Virginia to explore “the relationship between schooling and the formation of moral sensibilities and habits among the young.” For our part of this study, my graduate students—three of whom are Muslim—and I visited seven schools in different regions of the country. These represent about one in four Islamic high schools in the United States. (The great majority of the three hundred or so private Islamic schools, serving about 32,000 students, are elementary grades.) We interviewed students, staff, and parents and observed daily practices in classrooms and beyond.
