The connection between these keywords has not only been hotly debated in Austria in recent years, but also in most other European countries. Austria with its over 100 years old Islam law had a head start compared to other European countries, which actually should be put on a new basis with a widely discussed revision of the Islam law. However, in many other European countries the clarification of the relationship to Islam cannot look back on a so long and elaborated tradition. Traditionally, Austria’s interest in other countries’ experiences is focused either on pluralistic Great Britain to other German-speaking countries. In contrast, look at the north of Europe, is rather rare. Yet international comparative studies of education have repeatedly shown that a look at the Scandinavian countries can indeed be very stimulating and revealing.

The department “Theory and Empiricism of Education” takes this fact as an opportunity to organize a workshop with one of the internationally outstanding researchers in Education Science, Mette Buchardt from Aalborg University, Denmark. The focus is on the connection between Islam and the Danish educational system. In Denmark’s traditionally strongly social democratic and egalitarian welfare state society, as in many other European countries, too, national conservative and right-wing populist voices have gained influence in recent decades. The questions to be discussed are: How does Danish society and policy deal with these diverging ideals, interests and strategies? What educational concepts exist to support Muslim migrants and their children when arriving in Danish society? In which ways are Islamic religious education provided in Danish schools and who offers and operates it? How is the training of teachers and imams organized and which tasks are assigned to the faith communities in the Danish education system and which are not? And: Can we draw parallels or differences to Austria and what can be learned from the comparison, for science, politics, practice? Mette Buchardt, Professor, Department of Culture and Learning, Professor, The Faculty of Humanities, Centre for Education Policy Research (CfU) and member of FLOW - (Global flows of migrants and their impact on North European Welfare States), is a guest at our institute this semester and will lead this workshop by introducing basic contexts and empirical research on Education - Islam - Denmark.

We are looking forward to a lively comparative discussion afterwards, discussing the Austrian situation in relation to the Danish one.

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