The Multi-Faith Secular: Changing the Discourse on Religious Accommodation in Schools

In the 2007 Ontario Provincial Election there was a great uproar of the idea of funding faith based schools as comparable to Roman Catholic schools. The Liberals, who opposed the idea, defeated the Conservatives (or rather John Tory), who were pushing this concept on a principal of fairness. Yet what is often missed in that analysis was that many parents in the province were actually saying that they wanted to keep their kids in public schools – but
to have the schools and the education system recognize that religion, faith, and spirituality were deeply intertwined with their childrens’ identities.

To their credit, the Ontario Ministry of Education, previously led by Kathleen Wynne, consulted with best practices and made religious accommodation a tenant of the Ontario Inclusive Education Strategy. Unfortunately, religious accommodation is a deeply legal term that doesn’t speak to the shifting nature of a new generation of Canadian students and spiritual identity – and the discourse of religious accommodation doesn’t protect schools and boards when they make an “accommodation” based on a public backlash.

An example of this was the recent manufactured controversy over Friday Prayers in Valley Park Schools in the summer of 2011 when Toronto District School Board trustees and leadership were put on the defensive on issues ranging from gender discrimination, proselytizing, to the secular nature of education.

The entire public education system in Canada needs to accept that how people make meaning (read here: people not just Muslims) in their lives, is as much a part of their identities as issues of race, class, culture, sexual orientation, gender, and disability.

The entire public education system in Canada needs to accept that how people make meaning (read here: people not just Muslims) in their lives, is as much a part of their identities as issues of race, class, culture, sexual orientation, gender, and disability. For example, the University of Toronto, in creating their Multi-Faith Centre for Spiritual Study and Practice states that while the institution is secular in nature, it recognizes that their students, staff, and faculty bring their whole selves wherever they go.

The problem with religious accommodation as a framework is that it waits for students, or in some cases staff, to make a request rather than putting the responsibility on the board and school from designing institutions that take into account the need for students to authentically express themselves.

The problem with religious accommodation as a framework is that it waits for students, or in some cases staff, to make a request rather than putting the responsibility on the board and school from designing institutions that take into account the need for students to authentically express themselves.

To do this, school boards will have to be brave and forge into uncharted territory because the mere mention of topics of spirituality – or faith images of domination by one faith – and forced conversions are conjured up. Muslim students are the most visible example, as their needs, combined with the rampant culture of ‘Islamaphobia’, makes for splashy front-page headlines.

Yet I would argue that every student makes meaning and has a right to explore that meaning.  As educators, we need to get over our fears and push forth a more inclusive and equitable framework that embeds meaning-making as a part of identity.

To create spiritually inclusive schools, we will need to create a set of ground rules about spirituality in public education settings, and by extension public society. We will need to wade into the thorny issues of:

• faith and sexual orientation
• faith and gender equity
• opposition of different faiths
• freedom of religion and freedom from religion
• people switching world views after getting exposure to others
• people who don’t define their meaning-making in one category or another

No one person has the solution here but differing and contrary viewpoints are needed to find a solution for a challenge that is not going away. The Multi-Faith Secular is more than creating a prayer space in schools it’s about creating a space for questions of meaning that every human contends with. As educators, we owe our students a better future than lumping them into categories of religious and secular, a framework that will fail them in a global multi-faith world.

The author’s view does not represent the views of the University of Toronto.

Related Education Canada articles:

• Nationalist Histories and Multiethnic Classrooms
• Myths and Delusions: english Language Instruction in Canadian Schools

Meet the Expert(s)

Nadir Shirazi

Nadir Shirazi is President of Multifacet Diversity Solutions Ltd. www.multifacet.ca an educational organization that specializes in religious accommodation, and managing spirituality identity in schools. He has worked with organizations such as MARS, and the Ontario Principals Council. Nadir is also Program Coordinator at the University of Toronto's Multi-Faith Centre. The author’s view does not represent the views of the University of Toronto.

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