AAISC8 - Islamic Schooling Renewal: A Focus on Assessment; Why, What and How We Assess in Australian Islamic Schools?

Australian Islamic Schools aspire to foster wholeness - spiritual, intellectual, physical, moral, ethical, imaginative, and social aptitudes. But pressures to perform academically create two challenges for our schools: a) standardised test scores unknowingly become the marker of success and b) assessing that which cannot be measured (e.g. morality and spirituality) is left open-ended. The conundrum is this: Australian Islamic Schools are undoubtedly graduating students with high academic performance but how do we measure impact on fostering wholeness? This year’s conference aspires to raise the difficult question we often don’t collectively get to explore: do we assess what matters most and if so, how? 

This year’s conference extends our collective commitment to drawing from the Islamic Worldview to think about education in Australia anew. The focus on assessment will allow us to hone in on a critical area of our work in schools rarely problematised. Our aim is to push thinking and encourage renewed practice that holds true the very aspirations we have for Australian Islamic schooling. 

Call for Abstracts

CITE invites abstracts of original and critical research papers, or classroom-based examples addressing the broad theme of Islamic Schooling Renewal: A Focus on Assessment – Why, What and How We Assess in Australian Islamic Schools? Academics, educators, school leaders and school cohorts are welcome to submit.

CITE invites:
a) short descriptions of proposed interactive educator workshops that showcase school and/or classroom-based examples of Islamic Schooling Renewal: A focus on assessment programs in practice.
b) abstracts for critical research papers on conceptual or empirical research related to assessment in Islamic schools.

Topics of interest for abstract submission include, but are not limited to:
1. Islamic Worldview in relation to assessment
2. Assessing moral, spiritual, and ethical development
3. Early years assessment
4. Opportunities within Australian assessment and evaluation policy and practice
5. Research and practice related to alternative assessment and evaluation
6. Assessment and evaluation in Islamic Studies
7. Assessment and evaluation in Arabic Studies
8. Key debates on standardisation of assessment and evaluation
9. Student, parents, community perspectives, expectations, and aspirations related to assessment and evaluation
10. Rethinking school evaluations and teacher appraisals in relation to the
Islamic Worldview

These themes provide a broad spectrum of topics for abstract submissions that can contribute to the conference's vibrant and diverse discussions on assessment, why, what and how we assess in Australian Islamic schools.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words must be submitted together with an author(s) or school’s biography by 15 May 2025.

Abstracts should be submitted to cite@unisa.edu.au in Word format and written in the following order:

1. Author(s) full name,

2. Affiliation,

3. Email address and contact number,

4. Title of abstract,

5. Body of abstract (max 300 words),

6. Author’s biography (150-200 words)

Email subject should be titled: AAISC8 Abstract Submission.
Use plain text (Times New Roman, 12point, double spaced) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline).

We will acknowledge receipt and respond to all abstracts submitted.