Religious Studies at UCLA and in the US

I recently read an article in the LA Times (Pearce 2015) that outlines the difficultly of teaching religious studies at schools in the US. In response to the numerous Islamic terrorist attacks that have taken place in the past decade or so, most recently in Paris and San Bernardino, Islamophobia in the US is at an all time high. This has particularly manifested itself in schools where parents fear religious indoctrination in the classroom. The aforementioned article reports on the closure of all schools in Augusta County, Georgia when an angry parent body responded negatively to a Religious Studies assignment where students were asked to copy the Shahada (the Islamic statement of faith) in order to encourage an appreciation of the importance of calligraphy to the religion.

The keeping home of 10,500 students that this caused was, in my opinion, something of an overreaction. I can appreciate parents’ fears of indoctrination in schools where religious studies is taught with an overly dogmatic syllabus. However there is an equal danger that by whitewashing the importance of religion, students will not appreciate both the historical and contemporary relevance it has to the world we currently occupy.

As someone who is not remotely religious, there is little I like less than preaching (this includes the preaching of atheism). I maintain that everyone has a right to their own beliefs and practices and it is not anybody’s duty to change that. In addition to this, and despite going to a secular high school, I feel that religious studies is an essential aspect of gaining a holistic education. Through this I believe students will be equipped to make their own decisions regarding religion and to respect the faith of others. It was in this light that during my first quarter at UCLA I enrolled in a class entitled Judaism, Christianity, And Islam: Interrelated Religious Traditions.

I would like to suggest the model in which this class was taught be used in all schools where parents fear either an over- or under-consideration of religion. Rather than taking an overly theological approach, the three Abrahamic religions were studied through a historical and analytical examination of the texts that dictate their doctrines. Alongside this came a deep consideration of how these religions impacted the development of human civilisation and the tensions that have arisen between the three since their creation. I found the process to be a deeply rewarding and enlightening experience. This was extended by my final research paper which examines the causes, commonalities and differences in fundamentalism across the three religions. Through this I was able to look further at the extremist sects which, particularly in the case of Islam, have been inaccurately generalised to define an entire religion.

It is no surprise that, in a country whose constitution separates Church and State, religious studies is such a contentious issue. Indeed as a geographer abroad, examining this tension has been particularly interesting. Despite the US being a secular country, I have never experienced people (both on and off campus) so deeply entrenched in and proud of their religious beliefs. This surprisingly contrasts with my experiences in the ‘non-secular’ UK where I feel religion, while still hugely important, is not such a visible component of people’s lives. I truly believe that if students were taught about religion in a similar manner to my class last quarter they would have a much more well-adjusted, critical and comprehensive understanding of religion, free of overzealous dogma or cynicism.

A public display of religious expression, not an unusual sight in the US

References

Pearce, M. (2015) ‘Public schools struggle with lessons about Islam amid renewed fears of terrorism’ (WWW), Los Angeles: LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-na-islam-schools-20151220-story.html; 20 December 2015).

Comparing UCLA and UCL class content through IDS 191

A key development critique covered at UCL in last year’s GEOG2014 (Development Geography I) class was the neocolonial argument. Since joining UCLA I have revisited the topic in my International Development Studies 191 class: China’s Trade with Africa: Neocolonial or Win-Win? The class follows a question proposed by Howard W. French in his book China’s Second Continent (2014).

As discussed in a previous post this class aimed to answer the above question by examining and writing a group paper describing China’s relationship with a specific African country, in my case Tanzania. For the sake of brevity I will not delve too much into the details of this paper (which can be found here) other than to say that we found Tanzania, while having an asymmetrical trade relationship with China, not to be dependent on the Asian giant. In addition, while Chinese infrastructure projects in Tanzania may be evocative of neocolonial administrative power, we argue that these should instead be seen as investment projects in response to Tanzania’s promising pool of natural resources. Thus while China can be seen as benefitting from easy access to these reserves, Tanzania also benefits greatly from an efficient and reliable partner to monetise them.

As well as providing a chance to study a particularly salient issue in Geography, this class has also been an excellent opportunity to explore how Geography is taught differently here at UCLA compared with UCL.

The most interesting difference I came across was the structure and content of the class. In GEOG2014, neocolonialism was contained within a single lecture with Africa being given as a mere case study. IDS 191 on the other hand affords 10 weeks (thirty hours) to examining one question. This is not the only example: UCLA IDS 192 (Africa’s Changing Classes) and IDS 102 (Gendered Development) both focus on themes that are covered by UCL's GEOG2014 in single lectures. I believe this to be an exemplary difference between the two universities. Indeed UCLA IDS is an entire department devoted to studying a field that UCL Geography covers in only two modules. I must also add that, beyond a detailed understanding of Sino-Tanzanian trade, I do not feel this class has offered any more than what was covered in a single lecture on neocolonialism last year.

I therefore believe that, at least when comparing the two universities’ Geography departments, UCL teaches a greater breadth of content at a faster pace than UCLA. While UCLA’s lower division courses do offer more breadth than its higher division classes, for example GEOG 4 (Globalization: Regional Development and World Economy), comments made by students suggest this comes is at the expense of depth. Indeed such classes are mostly taken as a prerequisites for others such as IDS 191.

It is important to state that these observations are limited to this one class, complemented by other class syllabuses and student comments. I hope that next quarter’s GEOG 141 class (Uneven Development Geographies: Prosperity and Impoverishment in Third World) will add further insight into this comparison between the two universities and their Geography departments.

References

French, H.W. (2014) China’s Second Continent, New York: Alfred A. Knopf.