Faith and Inclusive Teaching during Ramadan
When working as an Associate Lecturer on the residential BA Graphic Branding and Identity course at LCC, I have become increasingly aware of how religious identity intersects with other aspects of students’ lived experiences, and how these intersections influence their engagement with learning. This reflection emerged particularly during Ramadan, when I observed that Muslim students were navigating their faith while managing the demands of a studio-based course in a shared learning environment.
Ramadan can significantly affect students’ daily rhythms like energy levels, eating and sleeping patterns, and participation in activities. In our course context, students often fast during long contact hours and are balancing attendance and participation with the physical and emotional demands of religious observance. What became evident was that not all students observing Ramadan communicated their needs with the same level of comfort or confidence.
This variation in response made me reflect more deeply on how intersecting factors such as cultural background and confidence within the institutional system may affect how students advocate for themselves. While some students approached staff to request changes to tutorial timings, a private space for prayer, or flexibility in attendance, others remained silent, despite signs of fatigue or disengagement. These differences cannot be attributed to one single factor such as religion alone, but to the complex interplay of identity and experience.
Rekis (2022) provides a helpful lens for understanding this complexity through the concept of epistemic injustice. Rekis argues that students with minoritised religious identities often face subtle forms of exclusion. In this context, silence is not necessarily a sign of disengagement, but may be shaped by institutional cultures that don’t always make space for diverse expressions of need.
In response to these reflections, we as the course team set up a small multi-faith prayer and reflection space during Ramadan in a corner of the studio typically used for private tutorials. Its presence enabled students to practice their religion or take a moment to rest discreetly during class time. We also adjusted our tutorial scheduling to allow more flexibility during Ramadan, recognising that students may not be at their most alert or productive during typical session hours.
This experience has reinforced my understanding of inclusive teaching as an active, ongoing, and relational process. It requires attentiveness not just to general policy or accommodation, but to the nuanced and individual ways students inhabit their identities. Moving forward, I intend to continue creating spaces, both physical and pedagogical, where students feel empowered to express their needs without fear of judgement.
References
Rekis, J. (2022) ‘Religious Identity and Epistemic Injustice: An Intersectional Account’, Hypatia, 37(1), pp. 107–124.
3 replies on “IP – Blog Post 2: Faith”
Antonia thank you for this thoughtful blog post which evidences a sensitive engagement with students who are observing Ramadan. I am quite moved by how your team made personal interventions to support and accomodate students’ expressions of faith during this time, for example, in how you redesignated a corner of the studio as a prayer space. This act of making visible, is also an act of solidarity and care. It is one I imagine helps empower those students who find it difficult to articulate their different needs due to religious observance. I am interested in how to build communities that embrace and create space for difference in our teaching contexts. In this context I was thinking about the Communities of Practice research and model by Etienne Wenger and how this could be developed to be more intersectional and to take account more of the role that epistemic injustice plays in who builds community and how community is built. I was also wondering how non-religious students experience these interventions and whether they appreciate the space they also created for their spirituality or different world views?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts again @katriona beales and for pointing me towards the Community of Practice model – we use it in our MA tutorial settings to distill peer feedback, but such a great idea to use it for identity building for elements outside the curriculum.
I am really inspired by your writing and description of setting up a small multi-faith space during Ramadan. I experienced a very similar need among students last year and I wish that we had been more accommodating. It especially resonates with what you were saying in your other blog post, about helping to shape students’ sense of belonging. It seems as though you are putting your ideas into practice and I truly respect the humility, compassion and openness with which you are writing about and approaching the creation of inclusive spaces.