Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant: Language Socialization, Education, and Social Transformation in a Context of Socioeconomic Inequality

本研究将探讨儿童宗教教育在传播伊斯兰虔诚新规范中的作用。该研究所位于一个正式的世俗国家，目前正在经历一场流行的宗教复兴。该项目旨在了解改革派伊斯兰团体如何利用非正式的社区古兰经学校来塑造虔诚的孩子。这些学校是向在政治和经济上被边缘化的社区传教的重要场所，这些社区长期以来因缺乏适当的虔诚而受到指责。研究者将研究在学校里教授的虔诚如何影响孩子们、他们的家庭和他们的邻居之间的日常互动，并促进伊斯兰复兴向新社区的传播。本研究运用语言社会化的研究方法，为日常社会互动中道德主体的形成提供了新的视角。关注社区学校在道德和宗教传教方面的作用，将进一步加深我们对儿童作为社会变革推动者的理解。通过对儿童所在的古兰经学校的调查，本研究解决了道德与宗教人类学中的关键问题：1)个人如何在社区中承担作为道德主体的责任；2)道德社区的规范如何变化？不仅在课堂上，而且在周围的社区进行研究，该项目将观察孩子们如何学习明确的道德话语并被吸引到日常生活的道德实践中。因此，这项研究超越了对比宗教与世俗主义、伊斯兰教与西方的标准框架，让我们更深入地了解在重大宗教转型时期穆斯林内部变化的动态。

This research will investigate the role of children's religious education in the spread of new norms of Islamic piety. The research is located in a formally secular state that is currently undergoing a popular religious revival. This project seeks to understand how reformist Islamic groups use informal neighborhood Quran schools to mold pious children. These schools are important venues for proselytizing politically and economically marginalized neighborhoods long stigmatized for a lack of proper piety. The researcher will examine how the piety taught in the schools affects everyday interactions among children, their families, and their neighbors, and contribute to the spread the Islamic Revival to new communities. This research uses methods in the study of language socialization to provide new insight on how moral subjects are formed in the context of everyday social interactions. The focus on the role of neighborhood schools in moral and religious proselytization will further our understanding of children as agents of social change.By examining children's neighborhood Quran schools, this research addresses key questions in the anthropology of morality and religion: 1) how do individuals take on responsibility as moral subjects within a community and 2) how do the norms of a moral community change? Conducting research not only in the classroom, but also in the surrounding community, this project will observe how the children both learn explicit moral discourses and are drawn into the moral practices of everyday life. This research thus goes beyond the standard frameworks contrasting religion and secularism, and Islam and the West, to give us greater insight into the internal dynamics of change among Muslims during a time of major religious transformations.