Hearts and Minds: Hizmet Schools and Interethnic Relations

Dr Parillo started by saying that the book was lead by his curiosity to find out how successful these schools were in different countries, continents, diverse religious affiliations, different cultures, histories and demographics and these elements would cross into the missions of the schools.Therefore Vincent added that he wanted to look at Muslim majority countries and  went to Bosnia, Albania and Kazakhstan. Secondly saying Muslim majority does not do justice to the book, so they ventured out to radically different histories and cultures. Next was Poland, Romania with countries that are Christian in terms of their dominance but really secular and  multicultural countries a little like Canada and the United States.

Dr Parillo continued  “The students, teachers, administrators and parents were anonymous if they want to remain so. We picked who I and Dr Ensari wanted to interview and madr sure we didn’t select people who would tell us what they wanted us to hear, so there was a whole big important business about the selection process as well as how it was conducted and what we we ended up doing.  We interviewed about three dozen different educational administrators of elementary school and colleges. We interviewed well over two dozen or more teachers at all different levels of, youth about 140- 150 students from the fifth grade on through post graduate alumni, we also interviewed a great many parents”

Vincent remarked that this book is the voices of the parents, the voices of the teachers and their administrators. The parents chose these schools because they were good in education and because they were safe, there were no gangs and no bullying.

Keywords: hizmet, hizmet schools, parents, students, teachers, inter- ethnic understanding, education, Romania, Poland, Kazakhistan, Canada, Bosnia, The United States, diverse, religious affiliations, cultures, histories.