Beyond Compliance: Muslim Educators’ Philosophical Identity as a Shaper of UDL* Engagement in Irish Educational Settings

Irish educational policy has been positioning Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as the inclusive pedagogy of choice, reflected in successive National Council for Special Education (NCSE) policy advice documents recommending UDL as a framework for inclusive education (National Council for Special Education, 2019, 2024) and in the systematic embedding of UDL principles within national curriculum frameworks since 2015 (Flood, 2026). This evolving policy direction raises a question almost entirely absent from Irish educational research: what happens when UDL’s philosophical assumptions are not shared by the educators being asked to engage with it?

A meta-analysis of 102 studies across 40 countries established that teacher beliefs about inclusion are a key determinant of whether inclusive education policy translates into sustained classroom practice (Dignath et al., 2022). Ireland, where UDL remains an emerging rather than an established pedagogical framework, is precisely the kind of context in which belief-level variables are likely to operate as the binding constraint. Yet the belief-level variable that may matter most — the philosophical and theological worldview of educators — does not appear in this literature. A key Irish study of teacher perceptions of inclusion identified systemic and attitudinal barriers with no account of philosophical identity as a shaping factor (Shevlin et al., 2013). That gap remains unaddressed.

UDL was developed in the United States, grounded in cognitive neuroscience, constructivist learning theory, and broadly liberal-humanist assumptions about the individual learner. These assumptions are not theologically neutral. Ireland’s Muslim population has grown from under 4,000 in 1991 to 81,930 in the 2022 census (Central Statistics Office, 2023), and Muslim educators have entered Irish schools and universities, bringing philosophical and theological traditions constitutive of how they understand human difference, knowledge, and teaching purpose. No research has examined how educators with non-secular worldviews experience UDL’s philosophical premises. UDL 3.0 (CAST, 2024) explicitly foregrounds learner identity and systemic bias, and published scholarship calls for research extending across diverse educational contexts, geographic regions, and stakeholder perspectives (Gronseth et al., 2025). This proposal responds to that call.

Research Questions

1. How do Muslim educators in Irish educational settings experience and navigate the relationship between their faith-derived philosophical identity and the epistemological and normative premises of UDL?
2. What does Maqasid al-Shariah, as a framework of Islamic educational philosophy, offer for understanding how UDL’s assumptions about human cognition, diversity, and educational purpose relate to Islamic epistemological and ethical foundations?
3. What does understanding philosophical identity as a shaping factor in UDL engagement imply for the design of professional learning and policy guidance aimed at supporting authentic UDL implementation among educators with non-secular worldviews?

UDL as Ideologically Situated

Slee (2011) establishes that inclusion is never philosophically neutral but always expresses particular values about human difference, social belonging, and teaching purpose. Apple (2004) argues that social and economic values are already embedded in educational institutions — in the design of the institutions themselves, in the formal body of knowledge schools select and preserve as curriculum, in the modes of teaching through which that knowledge is transmitted, and in the principles, standards, and forms of evaluation by which learning is judged. A critical approach to curriculum does not treat this knowledge as neutral or natural but instead examines the social interests that are embodied in the knowledge form itself. Applying this framework here: UDL is not a neutral implementation tool but a framework whose premises about cognition, diversity, and the purpose of universal design carry commitments grounded in secular-liberal humanism. A large-scale validation of the full UDL conceptual model confirmed that three philosophical constructs — growth mindset, self-efficacy for inclusive instruction, and autonomous motivation for teaching — collectively predict preservice teachers’ UDL practice, with self-efficacy emerging as the strongest predictor (Griful-Freixenet et al., 2021). This finding establishes empirically that UDL engagement is constitutively philosophical, operating through educators’ habits of mind rather than through technique alone, and thereby provides direct empirical warrant for investigating the philosophical level at which Muslim educators’ relationship to UDL is formed.

Muslim educators in Irish educational settings do not encounter a neutral implementation framework; they encounter an ideologically situated one. Brantlinger (2004) establishes that work to reduce barriers in schools is always personal, professional, and political — never value-neutral. Drawing on this, Nusbaum’s (2013) ethnographic study concludes that inclusive education needs to be discussed and taught as an ideological commitment rather than a technical practice. Rogers-Shaw et al. (2018) extend this argument into an epistemological register: UDL represents not merely a set of values but a fundamental reorientation of how knowledge, learning, and the teaching transaction itself are understood, moving away from individualistic and behaviouristic frameworks toward learner-centred epistemological foundations. This framing positions UDL and Islamic educational philosophy as ideologically situated frameworks in genuine encounter, the relationship between which requires rigorous examination rather than assumed alignment or conflict.

Faith, Belief, and Philosophical Identity

The framework Muslim educators bring to that encounter is not professionally constructed but faith-derived. For Muslim educators, professional beliefs about knowledge, human nature, and teaching purpose are not freely constructed. They derive from faith and are integrated into the professional self as what this study terms philosophical identity. The derivation chain is: faith as personally interpreted → derived beliefs about knowledge and teaching → philosophical identity. This construct is informed by Korthagen's (2004) layered model of teacher professional development, in which the educator's innermost layer, termed MISSION, represents the deepest level of personal calling and purpose that animates professional life. Philosophical identity addresses a structurally prior question: not what are you trying to achieve in teaching, but through what framework of reality, knowledge, and human personhood are you teaching? The psychology of religion literature confirms the structural depth of this distinction: Huber and Huber's (2012) Centrality of Religiosity Scale establishes that religious identity is not a peripheral value preference but a structured, multi-dimensional framework that, for highly religious individuals, constitutes a central organising system in personality with demonstrated relevance across specific life domains. Islamic educational philosophy possesses its own structured set of epistemological and anthropological concepts — including 'ILM, FITRA, and TARBIYAH — that constitute this framework for Muslim educators (Baba et al., 2015; Succarie, 2024). How these concepts shape Muslim educators' orientation toward inclusive practice such as UDL has not yet been examined in the literature, and this gap is precisely what the present study intends to explore.

Mezirow, Tawhid, and the Transformative Possibility

Mezirow (1991) characterises foundational commitments as meaning perspectives — deep, stable frameworks through which experience is interpreted — which do not change through information alone. This explains why standard professional development cannot reach the level at which Muslim educators’ relationship to UDL is formed, and what becomes possible when genuine dialogue occurs at that level. The Islamic theological principle of tawhid — divine unity — holds that all dimensions of a Muslim’s life constitute a single integrated expression of their orientation toward God (al-Attas, 1980). When Muslim educators see a principled connection between UDL and their faith-derived obligations, the resulting engagement is qualitatively different from compliance: it is faith-integrated professional motivation whose benefits flow to all learners and institutions.

Islamic Educational Philosophy and the Maqasid-UDL Framework

Maqasid al-Shariah provides the principled vocabulary for this inquiry: its objectives — extended in contemporary scholarship to encompass human dignity and community flourishing (Auda, 2022; Ibn Ashur, 2006) — map productively, though not perfectly, onto the concerns of inclusive education. Auda’s (2022) composite framework of Seven Elements provides the analytical structure through which UDL’s premises are systematically examined in Phase 1. The dialogical encounter between this framework and educators’ lived beliefs draws on Gadamer’s (2004) fusion of horizons: two interpretive frameworks brought into genuine contact, with outcomes that neither could achieve alone. The Maqasid-UDL framework is a philosophical test of commensurability and a replicable template for parallel studies across other philosophical traditions equally absent from current inclusive education scholarship.

This study employs a three-phase qualitative design within an interpretivist framework. Muslim educators’ faith-derived beliefs and philosophical identities are understood as real, structured, and consequential for practice, accessed through reflective accounts of lived experience.

Phase 1 · Year 1, Months 1–10Philosophical Analysis

Phase 1 develops the Maqasid-UDL commensurability framework through critical engagement with Islamic educational philosophy and UDL scholarship. Drawing on Auda’s (2022) Seven Elements composite framework, UDL’s premises are systematically examined for convergence, partial commensurability, and productive tension with Maqasid foundations. Phase 1 is complete when: the Maqasid objectives relevant to education are identified and their educational implications articulated; UDL’s core principles have been examined through each of the Seven Elements; the framework exists as a stable analytical scaffold ready for Phase 2 interpretation; and the gap between formal Maqasid tradition and the range of lived Muslim belief is explicitly acknowledged. NCSE policy advice documents (National Council for Special Education, 2019, 2024) and associated Irish curriculum and policy materials are analysed as contextual material within this phase, establishing the institutional horizon within which Muslim educators encounter UDL.

Phase 2 · Year 2, Months 13–24, extended into Year 3IPA Interviews

Phase 2 is the primary empirical phase of the study. Semi-structured interviews of 60 to 90 minutes are conducted with 6 to 8 Muslim educators working in Irish educational settings, within an IPA framework designed to access participants’ meaning-making in depth. (Smith et al., 2022) argue that IPA studies use purposive sampling, selecting participants who can provide access to a particular perspective on the phenomenon under study, rather than represent a wider population. Given IPA’s idiographic commitment, this study follows that logic by prioritising depth of experience over demographic breadth. Participants are purposively selected for analytical variation across four dimensions: philosophical orientation toward Islamic tradition, ranging from formally grounded to culturally embedded; educational sector, spanning primary, post-primary, and tertiary settings; career stage; and relationship to UDL, whether through formal training, institutional exposure, or limited prior engagement. (Smith et al., 2022) acknowledge that IPA sample size is determined partly by the organisational constraints of the research context. Muslim educators constitute a small and dispersed professional population across Irish educational settings, making purposive recruitment at larger numbers impracticable without compromising sample homogeneity. A sample of 6 to 8 is therefore adopted, prioritising the depth of idiographic engagement that IPA requires over broader coverage. Recognising that full variation across all four dimensions cannot be guaranteed at this sample size, philosophical orientation and educational sector are treated as the primary sampling axes, since these bear most directly on the study’s central question.

Three participant types are included: educators actively implementing UDL; educators who have encountered UDL but not yet integrated it; and educators implementing barrier-removing practices without identifying them as UDL. The third type is methodologically significant: if faith-derived commitments are already producing inclusive practice through a different philosophical justification, this constitutes direct empirical evidence of commensurability at the lived level. Recruitment proceeds through Muslim educator networks, Islamic educational institutions, diversity and inclusion offices at Irish universities, and snowball sampling. Analysis follows the full IPA process: exploratory noting, identifying experiential statements, constructing personal experiential themes, and developing group experiential themes through cautious cross-case pattern analysis.

Phase 3 · Year 3, Months 25–36Dialogical Matching

Phase 3 brings the Maqasid-UDL framework into genuine dialogue with Phase 2 IPA findings, drawing on Gadamer’s (2004) fusion of horizons. The outcome is genuinely open: the framework may illuminate the data; the data may challenge the framework; partial fit may emerge; or the gap between formal and lived Islamic tradition may itself prove to be the central finding. The integrated Maqasid-UDL-Practice framework produced through this encounter constitutes the study’s primary theoretical contribution.

Ethics and Positionality

Full ethical approval will be sought from the relevant ethics committee at Trinity College Dublin in Year 1, Month 2. Key considerations include: explicit informed consent for religious identity disclosure; anonymity protection through pseudonymisation and omission of identifying contextual details; positionality management through reflexive journalling and supervisory debriefing; mitigation of interview power dynamics arising from shared Muslim identity; and avoidance of essentialising Muslim identity by attending explicitly to variation across participant types. The candidate’s Islamic Studies background provides scholarly grounding for Phase 1 but does not authorise adjudicating participants’ accounts of their faith.

This study is the first empirical investigation of Muslim educators’ philosophical identity in relation to UDL in an Irish context. No existing Irish or international study has brought Islamic educational philosophy into systematic dialogue with UDL at the philosophical, empirical, and policy levels simultaneously.

Conceptual Originality

The Maqasid-UDL commensurability framework is a novel theoretical instrument. It subjects UDL’s epistemological and normative premises to rigorous examination through a non-Western, non-secular philosophical tradition, producing knowledge that neither UDL scholarship nor Islamic educational philosophy alone could generate. This extends emerging comparative scholarship — where Confucian educational philosophy has been found to align productively with UDL in Chinese early childhood settings, with teachers enacting UDL principles through Confucian pedagogical reasoning without formal UDL training (Arndt & Luo, 2019) — by bringing the inquiry to a level of philosophical rigour, empirical depth, and policy specificity that exploratory comparative studies have not yet achieved.

Methodological Originality

The three-phase design — philosophical analysis, IPA interviews, and Gadamerian dialogical matching — establishes a replicable methodology for placing other non-secular traditions in dialogue with UDL. Catholic social teaching, Ubuntu philosophy, and Buddhist educational ethics are equally absent from current inclusive education scholarship; this study demonstrates how they might be investigated.

Societal Relevance

Ireland’s Muslim population reached 81,930 in the 2022 census (Central Statistics Office, 2023), with Muslim educators present across primary, post-primary, and tertiary settings. The NCSE (2024) recommends embedding UDL across all educational levels. The question of how educators with non-secular worldviews engage with UDL is therefore a practical policy question, not only a scholarly one. When philosophical identity and UDL can be brought into principled alignment, the resulting professional motivation is qualitatively different from compliance — and its benefits extend to all learners, institutions, and the national inclusive education framework. This research aims to make that alignment visible and to provide a language for policy and professional learning that supports it.

Dr Joanne Banks (Associate Professor, School of Education, Trinity College Dublin; banksjo@tcd.ie) has agreed to be named as supervisor for this TRDA application. Dr Banks’s research programme on UDL in Irish education — including Flood and Banks (2021), which is foundational to this study’s policy context — makes her the natural supervisory lead for this inquiry. Her expertise in inclusive education research in Ireland and her familiarity with the proposal ensure that the supervisory relationship is well positioned to begin at the outset of the programme.

The applicant welcomes co-supervision as standard within TCD’s structured PhD programme and looks forward to the supervisory structure confirmed by the admissions process following interview.

• al-Attas, S. M. N. (1980). The concept of education in Islam: A framework for an Islamic philosophy of education. Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM).
• Apple, M. W. (2004). Ideology and curriculum (3rd ed.). RoutledgeFalmer.
• Arndt, J., & Luo, N. (2019). The Intersection of Chinese Philosophical Traditions and UDL. 233–241. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429435515-31
• Auda, J. (2022). Re-envisioning Islamic scholarship: Maqasid methodology as a new approach. Claritas Books.
• Baba, S. B., Salleh, M. J., Zayed, T. M., & Harris, R. (2015). A Qur’anic Methodology for Integrating Knowledge and Education: Implications for Malaysia’s Islamic Education Strategy. American Journal of Islam and Society, 32(2), 1–30. https://doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v32i2.262
• Brantlinger, E. (2004). Ideologies discerned, values determined: Getting past the hierarchies of special education. In L. Ware (Ed.), Ideology and the politics of (in)exclusion (pp. 11–31). Peter Lang.
• CAST. (2024). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 3.0. CAST. https://udlguidelines.cast.org
• Central Statistics Office. (2023). Census of population 2022 profile 5—Diversity, migration, ethnicity, Irish Travellers and religion. Central Statistics Office. https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cpp5/censusofpopulation2022profile5-diversitymigrationethnicityirishtravellersreligion/
• Dignath, C., Rimm-Kaufman, S., van Ewijk, R., & Kunter, M. (2022). Teachers’ beliefs about inclusive education and insights on what contributes to those beliefs: A meta-analytical study. Educational Psychology Review, 34(4), 2609–2660. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-022-09695-0
• Flood, M. (2026). The emergence of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in Irish curricula as an approach to inclusive education in the Republic of Ireland. REACH: Journal of Inclusive Education in Ireland, 38(2). https://reachjournal.ie/index.php/reach/article/view/611
• Flood, M., & Banks, J. (2021). Universal Design for Learning: Is it gaining momentum in Irish education? Education Sciences, 11(7), 341. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11070341
• Gadamer, H.-G. (2004). Truth and method. Continuum.
• Griful-Freixenet, J., Struyven, K., & Vantieghem, W. (2021). Toward More Inclusive Education: An Empirical Test of the Universal Design for Learning Conceptual Model Among Preservice Teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 72(3), 381–395. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487120965525
• Gronseth, S., Flood, M., & Galvin, T. (2025). What is next for Universal Design for Learning? UDL 3.0 and implications for diverse settings. International Journal for Universal Design and Universal Design for Learning, 1(1), 237–247. https://doi.org/10.34874/PRSM.ijududl-vol1iss1.4993
• Huber, S., & Huber, O. W. (2012). The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS). Religions, 3(3), 710–724. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel3030710
• Ibn Ashur, M. al-Tahir. (2006). Treatise on Maqasid al-Shariah (M. E.-T. El-Mesawi, Ed.). International Institute of Islamic Thought.
• Korthagen, F. A. J. (2004). In search of the essence of a good teacher: Towards a more holistic approach in teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20(1), 77–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2003.10.002
• Mezirow, J., 1923-. (1991). Transformative dimensions of adult learning (1st ed). San Francisco : Jossey-Bass, 1991.
• National Council for Special Education. (2019). Policy advice on special schools and classes: An inclusive education for an inclusive society? Progress report. National Council for Special Education.
• National Council for Special Education. (2024). An Inclusive Education for an Inclusive Society: Policy Advice Paper on Special Schools and Classes (NCSE Policy Advice Paper No. 7) [Policy advice paper]. National Council for Special Education. https://ncseproductionsa.blob.core.windows.net/assets/2025/10/An_Inclusive_Education_for_an_Inclusive_Society_NCSE_Policy_Advice_Paper_7-69038f933a9b2.pdf
• NCSE. (2024). NCSE publishes landmark policy advice paper on Special Schools and classes. https://ncse.ie/press-release-policy-advice-2024
• Nusbaum, E. A. (2013). Vulnerable to exclusion: The place for segregated education within conceptions of inclusion. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 17(12), 1295–1311. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2013.826292
• Rogers-Shaw, C., Carr-Chellman, D. J., & Choi, J. (2018). Universal Design for Learning: Guidelines for Accessible Online Instruction. Adult Learning, 29(1), 20–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/1045159517735530
• Shevlin, M., Winter, E., & Flynn, P. (2013). Developing inclusive practice: Teacher perceptions of opportunities and constraints in the Republic of Ireland. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 17(10), 1119–1133. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2012.742143
• Slee, R. (2011). The irregular school: Exclusion, schooling and inclusive education. Routledge.
• Smith, J. A., Flowers, P., & Larkin, M. (2022). Interpretative phenomenological analysis: Theory, method and research. SAGE Publications.
• Succarie, A. (2024). Examining the Implications of Islamic Teacher Education and Professional Learning: Towards Professional Identity Renewal in Islamic Schools. Education Sciences, 14(11), 1192. (doi:10.3390/educsci14111192).

Educator, researcher, and author with over two decades of professional experience spanning Islamic theological education, school leadership, national education policy, and inclusive education research. Awarded Distinction in the M.Ed. in Diversity and Inclusion at Trinity College Dublin (2025), with doctoral research proposed at the intersection of Islamic philosophical tradition, Universal Design for Learning, and Muslim educator identity in Irish educational settings. Holds a Bachelor of Shariah (NFQ Level 8, NARIC Ireland) enabling direct engagement with classical Arabic fiqh sources. Grounded in three disciplinary formations — Islamic jurisprudence, inclusive education, and qualitative research — and currently active in both Irish and Malaysian research contexts.

Education

Research Experience

Professional Experience

Publications

Award

This proposal was awarded the School-based Trinity Research Doctorate Award for the 2026–27 academic year by the School of Education, Trinity College Dublin.

Notified 18 May 2026 by Prof Keith Johnston, Director of Teaching and Learning Postgraduate, School of Education. Award terms and conditions

Hasrizal Abdul Jamil · PhD Research Proposal · School of Education, Trinity College Dublin
Submitted to the Trinity Research Doctorate Award, 28 April 2026
hasrizal.com