Browsing by Author "Aishah Hanim binti Abd Karim"

Teachers’ workload has increased significantly today. Their main responsibilities are not only confined to teaching, but also include co-curricular activities, providing extra classes in preparation for examinations, and also administrative tasks, to name a few. The main purpose of this qualitative research was to explore Muslim Malaysian teachers and mental health practitioner’s perspective of both mental illness and well-being. The study also aimed to explore (i) the teachers and mental health practitioner’s understanding and current knowledge of mental illness and well-being, (ii) to understand the factors that contributes to mental illness as well as mental well-being, (iii) to understand the teachers’ coping strategies, and (iv) to explore the relationship between spiritual practices and mental well-being. Six Muslim Malaysian teachers were involved in this study. All of them were teachers at the government public schools and they had experienced mental illnesses during their career. The six teachers, together with an organizational counselor and a mental health practitioner were interviewed using semi-structure interview protocol. The interviews took place at different times and settings. Content and inductive analysis was used to interpret data for all participants. Findings of this study showed that emotional state and thoughts was the theme generated for the first research question. Seven themes, namely attitude changes, financial crisis, work incompetency, work pressures and demands, students’ attitudes, family and societal support, and physical illness were found for the second research question. Medical treatment, religion, positive thoughts, and family and societal support were the four themes generated for the third research question. The themes religion and positive thoughts were generated for the fourth research question, which was the relationship between spiritual practices and mental well-being. Finally, the study revealed the importance of spiritual practices such as performing the five daily prayers, zikr, salawat syifa,’ and reading the Qur`an in bringing the feeling of peace and calmness in these Muslim teachers’ lives, hence helping them to cope and become productive teachers.

Today many Muslim adolescents are involved in social ills such as having premarital sex, addicted to drugs and alcoholism, all of which are forbidden in Islam. Theoretically, studies have shown that those adolescents involved in these activities usually do not have a good bonding with their parents during early childhood. Consequently, it does not give them a good foundation of their proper identity. This research is related to this issue in the sense that it is an exploratory study of Muslim children’s understanding of their self-identity. It was conducted in a public preschool in a low socio-economic community in Setapak, Kuala Lumpur. The subjects were two pre-schoolers’ aged five years old whose understanding of self-identity in relation to gender, religious practices, moral values and racial identity were investigated. The subjects were also examined for the reasons of their conformity to adults’ rules and regulations. This study was based on Erikson’s theory of psychosocial identity and Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. It was conducted using semi-structured interview protocols using pictures related to gender, various religious practices and racial identity. The findings showed that the five-year-old children were able to recognize their identity in relation to gender, religious practice and racial group. They were also able to distinguish between good and bad values. It was also found that children conformed to adults’ instructions because they were afraid of being punished. This study is important not only to parents and teachers, but also to policymakers and curriculum developers, who should be able to assist children in creating and shaping positive identities. It is recommended that future studies be conducted to extend the age group of the respondents and include other individuals such as parents and teachers’ perspectives.