Anonymous case study 1

A particular problem that was encountered and has been overcome concerns a cohort of male and female Muslim masters level students.

One of the requirements for the course they were enrolled on is to be able to engage in a critical manner. For the female cohorts this created a cultural barrier as they could not engage in a critical manner with the male students.

For the university this initially posed a dilemma, in thinking about how best to teach these students. The institution had to consider that imposing the western model on them would be disregarding their cultural beliefs, but, if they were not taught how to engage in a critical manner they could potentially fail the course.   This meant providing a solution where neither of these events occurred.

This solution was to separate the female students out at certain points to enable them to engage in a critical manner amongst each other. All of the students completed critical written responses and presented their ideas as a group, allowing them all to dip in and out as needed. In this way the university was able to give them the tools to gently move them towards public engagement without compromising their cultural beliefs.