The Rise of Madrasah Education in Hong Kong: Exploring the Change of Learning under Integrated Education for Muslim Minorities

This research project focuses on the emerging Madrasahs (Islamic learning institutions) in Hong Kong. While ethnic Muslim students receive modern education in daytime conventional schools, this ethnographic study explores the rise of the Madrasah and how ethnic Muslim youths remain faithful to the Islamic tradition by studying and memorizing the Qur’an in the Madrasah after daytime schooling. While the Madrasah as an Islamic institution has been increasingly subjected to global policing due to suspected links of terrorist attacks in the Post-9/11 era, the rising number of Madrasahs in Hong Kong is understudied. Unlike the security concerns and stereotypical concepts on the Madrasah in the West, this ethnographic study firstly traces the demographic expansion of ethnic minorities and socio-political transformations in explaining the rise of the Madrasah in Hong Kong in the last decade. Secondly, is to understand how ethnic Muslim students and their parents perceive the importance of the Madrasah education in terms of religious piety, moral education and family honor. Third, it explores the emerging challenges faced by Muslim students and educators in conventional schooling. Subsequently, policy implications would be derived in urban planning, multicultural policy and teaching resources driven by the research of the Madrasah in Hong Kong. 

Project Year: 2012-2013

Funding Source: General Research Fund, Research Grants Council

Project Team Member: Ho Wai Yip

Project Detail: Here