Muslim Fathers and Mistrusted Masculinity in Danish Schools

Description

This book seeks to provide a deeper understanding of Muslim migrant fathers’ experiences of home-school cooperation in Danish schools by identifying and contradicting a phenomenon of “mistrusted masculinity.” This term refers to a negative stereotype of Muslim migrant men that figures in political and media rhetoric where they are portrayed as controlling and patriarchal. Throughout the ethnography, migrant fathers confront this stereotype and express how they must navigate around this negative image in their struggle to be acknowledged as good fathers by their children’s schools. Jørgensen uses Geertzian “thick description” of micro-interaction between fathers and Danish teachers to explore the complex interplay of often-untested assumptions, misunderstandings, and untoward effects.  Acknowledgement Contents Chapter 1: Introduction A Dangerous Man Where They Came From? The New Role of the Father A “Race-Blind Ideology” Parenting in the Welfare State Contesting Home-School Cooperation Theoretical Underpinnings Methodology Gendered Potentialities Anonymity Structure of this Book References Chapter 2: Social Alertness Concerned About Inclusion An Intersubjective Tension Tabooing “Foreignness” and Ideals on Diversity “The Black” and “the White” Class Constructing the “Bilingual” Tabooed Divisions The Language Test The “Language Logic” Becoming Redundant Pushing the Lines of Becoming Conclusion References Chapter 3: Fathers and School A Gendered Space The Mother Myth The Awkward Spaces of Fathering A Gendered Contact Lists Fathers Becoming Redundant “Come, We Also Need You” “Gender Givens” and Different Horizons of Experience Conclusion References Chapter 4: Struggling Along Expanding “the Flexible” Parents Becoming Dependent Logics of the “Technological-Turn” Within Home-School Cooperation Struggling Along Ontological Uncertainty The Well-Being Group—And the Good Supporting Parents Becoming Absent Conclusion References Chapter 5: The Constraining Jobs Constraining Jobs and Everyday Rhythms Absence on the Parent Intranet Providing Mobility A Precarious, Invisible Job Market Divorce as Reinforcing Absence Becoming Mystified Invisible Fatherhoods Conclusion References Chapter 6: Construction of the “Dangerous Man” The Political Subjectivity Representations of the “Foreign, Muslim Masculinity” A Negative Controlling Image of the Oppressing Patriarch Absence in the Integration-Strategies “A Patriarchal Belt”? Moving Between Scales Conclusion References Chapter 7: Mistrusted Masculinity Mistrust as a Way of “Being-in-the-World” Community of Experience Uncanny Suspicions I am a Good Man—I am a Gardener! Corporal Punishment Coercive Concerns and Ideals on “Seizing Freedom” Normativity and the Appropriate Youth “It’s Best for Our Children to Know Where We Come From” Being a War Refugee The Rule of the Game Conclusion References Chapter 8: Concerned Fatherhood Concerned Fathers The Solution Is Within An Assemble Role as “the Strict Father” Emergent Fatherhoods “He Was so Different in Many Ways” Conclusion References Chapter 9: Conclusion Overcoming Mistrusted Masculinity Mistrusted Masculinity Social Alertness Concerned Fatherhood Shaking Loose of Being Defined by Lacks “Show Us That We are Important!” References References Index