Educational administration and leadership curricula for modern nation-building in Muslim countries: modernisation, national identity and the preservation of values and culture

Many Muslim countries are undergoing postcolonial and development conditions, some relatively new nation states, including the establishment and improvement in educational systems. The purpose of this chapter is to determine what kind of teaching in educational leadership is necessary to these modernisation and nation-building efforts that are able to preserve national identity, traditions of distinctive social institutions and culture in an educational globalisation context consisting primarily of imported curriculum, instructors and branch universities that many believe imperils their values, identities and organisations and the knowledge upon which they rest (e.g., Stewart-Harawira, 2005; Stiglitz, 2002). Focusing on three aspects of the issue as it relates to teaching educational administration and leadership, this chapter proposes foundational principles for culturally appropriate practices: 1) the nature and limits of modernization for developing Muslim states, including the recent multiple modernities theory; 2) ways in which many features of modenisation are compatible with Islam and Arab culture, and the advocation of multiple modernities theory (e.g., Eisenstadt, 2005); and 3) the leadership qualities and skills that allow for effective ways to meet the nation-building and modernisation challenges requiring educational administration and leadership progammes that are informed by historical narratives and contextual experiences as well as global and cross-cultural knowledge and practices (Kymlicka, 2000 ; Moorosi and Bush, 2011; Parolin, 2010; Zajda, Daun and Saha, 2009)

The first section provides a critical review of the debate over modernisation and to what extent it is associated with cultural changes and educational administration and leadeship. A number of postcolonial authors have explored the negative effects that colonising globalised education using an Anglo-American style of modernisation have on national identity, including Thiong’o (1986) on the colonisation of mind, Spivak’s (1987) subaltern identity, and Memmi (2003) on the destruction of spirit that affects social relations and social institutions as well as the uncritical adoption of Western curricula and education systems (Foskett and Maringe, 2010; Giroux 2002). There has also been a growing body of literature on this critique in the Middle East, notably by Said (1978, 1993) in his Orientalism thesis and concerns about globalised education in the region (e.g., Fox, Mourtada-Sabbah and al-Mutawa, 2006) as well as critiques by Habermas (1979, 1984) through his concept of colonisation that can be extended internationally, and Bourdieu (2013) from a critical theory perspective. It also presents some examples of modernisation in non-Western societies such as Malaysia, Turkey, and the UAE where leaders of those countries were able to advance economic development without sacrificing national identity (Hefner and Horvatich, 1997).

The second section examines the extent to which forms of modernisation and Islam are compatible culturally to allow for the preservation of national integrity of identity and cultural practices (Habermas, 1987; Habermas and Ben-Habib, 1981; Inglehert and Baker 2000; Mignolo, 2011; Zaidi, 2011) through the recent multiple modernities thesis (e.g., Eisenstadt) and Islamic modernisation studies (e.g., Abdurrahman, 2009), in contrast to modernisation theories that assume a Western or Anglo-American hegemony is inevitable (e.g., Luhmann, 1991; Parsons, 1966; Wallerstein, 1974 ). For teaching educational administration this means identifying features of modernisation and their culturally appropriate use that are in harmony with Islamic spiritual values concerned with the collective well-being of the society and which can help fulfill national aims and the development of education.

The final section discusses the leadership qualities and skills that are needed to fulfill the role of education in modernisation and nation-building that contributes appropriately to economic development, social cohesion, and national solidarity (Green, 1997; Zajda, Daun and Saha, 2009) and in promoting and advancing national and Islamic culture. Education administration, like other fields, has been challenged to modify its approaches or develop new ones that are grounded in contextual understanding of historical and indigenous character (see Bourdieu, 2013). Such advances have been made recently in this direction, by Dimmock and Walker (2005), for example, on principles of international and comparative educational administration that recognise national and cultural differences. A small body of literature in English has emerged discussing those character and personality traits as well as expertise and skills needed for nation-building and modernisation in Muslim countries that derive from Islamic and international knowledge (e.g., Ali, 2005; Beekun and Badawi, 2009; Elkaleh and Samier, 2013; Shah, 2015).