Faculty Member, School of Educational Studies
About
Shabana Mir, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in Social Foundations & Qualitative Inquiry at the Oklahoma State University's College of Education. She teaches such courses as Qualitative Research, Comparative Education, and Anthropology of Education.
Shabana has her Ph.D. in Education Policy Studies, with a minor in Anthropology and a concentration in Comparative and International Education from Indiana University. Her dissertation, "Constructing Third Spaces: American Muslim Undergraduate Women’s Hybrid Identity Construction" is under an advance contract with the University of North Carolina Press. Based on the first ethnographic study of Muslim female undergraduates’ campus experiences, this dissertation was awarded the 2006 “Outstanding Dissertation Award” by the American Anthropological Association’s Council on Anthropology and Education. Through the experiences of American Muslim undergraduates, she interrogates American culture, pluralism, identity construction and marginality in educational cultures.
Shabana's varied academic career took her to the U.K., Pakistan, and the U.S., where she studied, worked and taught. She has an MA in English Literature from Punjab University, an MPhil in School Development from Cambridge University, in addition to her Ph.D. She possesses native fluency in English and Urdu along with varying degrees of facility in Punjabi, Arabic and Farsi. She has taught Educational Foundations at Eastern Illinois and Indiana Universities. She is also an international guest speaker
PUBLICATIONS
“The construction of headcoverings.” Material Religion, (Invited response). 2010.
“I didn’t want to have that outcast belief about alcohol:” Muslim Women Encounter Drinking Cultures on Campus.” Educating the Muslims of America, Y. Haddad and Jane Smith, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
“Diversity, self, faith and friends: Muslim undergraduates on campus.” Muslim Voices in School: Narratives of Identity and Pluralism, Ozlem Sensoy and Christopher Stonebanks, eds. Sense Publishers.
“Not too ‘College-Like,’ Not too Normal: American Muslim Undergraduate Women’s Gendered Discourses.” Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Vol. 40, Issue 3, pp.237–256.
“Single, Muslim and female.” The Washington Post Newsweek, 9/8/08.
“Education in the Middle East: Challenges and Opportunities.” Comparative Education: The Dialectic of the Global and the Local, R. F. Arnove and C. A. Torres, eds., pp. 357-383. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. 2007.
Invited book review of Concentric Circles: Nurturing Awe and Wonder in Early Learning. Islamic Studies, Winter 2007, Vol. 46, No. 4, pp. 574-576.
Invited book review of All-American Yemeni Girls. Journal of Religion, July 2007, Vol. 87, Number 3, pp. 469-470.
“‘Where you stand on dating defines you:’ American Muslim Women Students and Cross-Gender Interaction on Campus.” American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Vol. 24, Summer 2007, Number 3, pp. 69-91.
“American Muslim Women on Campus” in Anthropology News, May 2007, pp. 16-17.
Entries in Encyclopedia of Islam in North America, J. Cesari (editor). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
“Dress” (pp. 196-198).
Svend A. White and Shabana Mir. “Headscarf” (pp. 279-283).
“Progressive Muslims” (pp. 515-517).
“Puberty” (pp. 517-518).
Marcia Hermansen and Shabana Mir (2006) Book chapter: “Identity Jihads: Muslim youth and spirituality.” Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality: Perspectives from the World's Religious Traditions, K. M. Yust et al, eds., pp. 423-436. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Book review, The Muslim Veil in North America in American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Vol. 21, Fall 2004, Number 4, pp. 110-112.
“The Dilemma of Choice.” Q-News, F. Alam, (ed.), pp. 38-39, 2004. London.
“Muslim Women in the Mosque.” Q-News, F. Alam, (ed.), pp. 38-39, 2003. London.
“Khwaja Ghulam Farid” in Encyclopedia of Modern Asia, Vol. 2, pp. 364-365. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 2003.
INVITED SPEAKER
Roundtable keynote speaker at AMSS (Canada) annual conference (2007)
Invited guest lecture series as part of Distinguished Overseas Scholars Program; lectured on gender, scholarship, religion and research methodology at International Islamic University, Islamabad (Summer 2007)
“The Gender Gap in Islamic Religious Scholarship” at College of William and Mary (2007)
“Islamic law and gender justice” at Islamic Law in the West Conference, American University (2007) (video: http://www.wcl.american.edu/secle/video_2007.cfm)
“Religion, clothing and college culture” at University of Georgia Women’s Studies Institute (2007)
Retreat Leader, AMILA Annual Ramadan Retreat (2006)
“Women in the Quran” at College of William and Mary (2006)
Invited public lecture. “Principles of Progressive Islam” Center for Global Studies, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. 11/29/05.
“American Muslim Women University Students: The Significance of Clothing.” Harvard University Pluralism Project conference (2004)
“I didn’t want to have that outcast belief about alcohol: American Muslim women on campus.” Conference guest speaker and Fellow, Institute for Social Policy Understanding (2004)
“Gender inequity in Muslim organizational contexts” at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2001)
“Teachers' Role in Educational Reform” at Institute of Leadership & Management forum and The Punjab School teachers’ workshop (Pakistan) (2000)
AFFILIATIONS
Comparative and International Education Society
American Anthropological Association
Association of Muslim Social Scientists
LANGUAGES
English, Urdu, Punjabi: native fluency
Arabic: Advanced skills
Persian: Intermediate skills
“Foreign, Female and on the Job Market” in Chronicle of Higher Education, July 17, 2002, 1c. Washington, DC.
Book review, Windows of Faith. American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Vol. 18, Number 4, 2000, pp. 195-199.
Umar and the Bully (award-winning children’s storybook). Leicester, UK: The Islamic Foundation. 1996.
FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS
Stretching the Ordinary: American Muslim Women on Campus. University of North Carolina Press. (Advance contract). (2011).
“Just to make sure people know I was born here:” American Muslim undergraduate women’s construction of Americanness. Discourse. (2010).
Contact Information
| Address: | Willard Hall 213 |
