Global terms: Blog Categories

Should RE teachers be confident?

Dr Kevin O'Grady | 01 June, 2019

Gert Biesta isn’t sure. He thinks that the benefit of research is to offer ‘informed uncertainty’ to them; teaching is a journey with pupils into the unknown. So, in response to a short presentation from me that showed how engaging with reports on Research for RE had built teachers’ confidence, he wondered whether that is a good thing or not.

This conversation happened during the AULRE[i] conference of May 9-10 at Newman University, Birmingham. We’re planning a series of blogs that reflect on this conference, in which the other writers and myself are asked to weigh up what the AULRE conference offers to teachers. It’s a good question, since AULRE wishes to become an association for a broad range of RE professionals and (I’d argue) the research presented at its conference needs to reach teachers to develop RE. If it can, it has tremendous potential. I’ll try to show why by drawing on a few of my conference experiences.

First, back to the confidence dispute. Having had time to think about it, I don’t disagree with Gert, the issues just need spelling out. This definition of positive emotional energy from the sociologist Randall Collins helps:

“. . . a feeling of confidence, courage to take action, boldness in taking initiative. It is a morally suffused energy; it makes the individual feel not only good, but exalted, with the sense of doing what is the most important and most valuable . . . Emotional energy has a powerfully motivating effect on the individual; whoever has experienced this kind of moment wants to repeat it.” [ii]

That’s what kept me going for thirty years as a teacher. Arguably, the contested nature and content of RE make this kind of confidence particularly needed. I do think that RE teachers need to have confidence, but it’s the confidence to face difference, uncertainty and ambiguity with pupils, so that they grow up able to relate to the world as it is. We need to be professionally robust and epistemologically humble.

The AULRE conference had three keynote sessions, all of which visited this same kind of territory, as all three speakers resisted the narrow accountability model that continues to dominate English education. Joyce Miller spoke on the CORE report and its reception, regretting that some commentators had seen an overemphasis on content knowledge and lack of attention to pupil self-awareness and reflexivity. [iii] David Aldridge considered a pedagogy of belonging; an alternative to technicist models, emphasising attentive listening, slowness and love. I was particularly provoked by Pat Hannam’s address, on education, RE and the future of the world. She illustrated the crises of environmental degradation, children’s unhappiness and policy drift (namely the Ofsted definition of ‘good’ education which alludes to neither the world nor children) and underlined our responsibility to bring children to action. It was commented that they may be doing so already without us, and whilst this may be true, it doesn’t remove our responsibilities as educators.

It was an excellent conference, and many more examples could be given, but it’s time to come back to the question of how teachers might benefit. Well, I hope it’s clear that visionary thinking is happening in our subject. At one level, I’d like teachers to be aware of it, participate in it and help it to build RE’s future; at another level, I’d like it to have to connect with the everyday reality of school. The two levels can be bridged, of course, and I’ll just mention one more AULRE conference example, Frances Lane’s presentation on using research communities of practice to support trainee and beginning teachers. It’s at this kind of interface where I see Culham St Gabriel’s research strategy developing in the future, as well as supporting later stage teachers to become researchers via master’s and doctoral work which informs classroom practice.[iv] If you are interested in making this kind of professional journey, you might well find inspiration and possible starting points at the AULRE conference, so do take confidence and get in touch if we might support you to attend. Kevin@cstg.org.uk

 

 

[i] The Association of University Lecturers in Religious Education now describes itself as the network for learning, teaching and research in religion and education. See http://aulre.org/

[ii] Randall Collins (2004), Interaction Ritual Chains, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pages 39, 49, 121, 134, 105-9, 108, quoted in Christian Smith (2017), Religion: what it is, how it works and why it matters, Princeton: Princeton University Press, page 223.

[iii] See my May blog at https://www.reonline.org.uk/news/kevins-blog-religion-worldviews-and-big-ideas-where-do-you-stand/

[iv] We do already support doctoral researchers to present at AULRE through a bursary – again, those interested are welcome to email me.

About

Dr Kevin O'Grady is Lead Consultant for Research at Culham St Gabriel's Trust.

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Some take-aways from the AULRE conference 2019

Katie Clemmey | 20 May, 2019

At every conference I attend, you will find me with a neat notebook and pen poised to take down as many ideas as I possibly can from the sessions I select. I find it useful afterwards to go through and highlight the key ideas that will stay with me either for immediate use or for me to think about more and maybe even read up on! This year’s AULRE was no different and with 18 pages of notes I thought I would try to distil some of it here:
  • We need to teach the pupils about people. Pupils are also people.
This came from Joyce Miller’s opening keynote. She was talking about avoiding the use of the easy label in RE. Let’s stop talking about people being Christians or Muslims, Sikhs or Hindus and so on. People of faith have jobs, families, hobbies, communities, wider interests…..and so do our pupils. Let’s recognise that people are more than a label. We need to avoid our pupils feeling that they are not a part of the RE landscape. Avoid the disconnection they can feel and make them see that just like, for example, Christians, they have a view on matters in RE too.
  • We teach children, not just RE.
This theme was one that came up in papers by Julian Stern, Elizabeth Russell and Pat Hannam. RE isn’t just about teaching our subject and for many of us, it is not the primary focus. Teaching has an ethical aspect and we want to positively impact on the lives of the young people in front of us. We need to care about them. Our key motivation for teaching may vary but the day to day is always about children.
  • Collaborating with others leads to impactful innovation.
This came from a paper by Frances Lane about a module for her NQTs. By insisting they work in small RE teams and clearly identifying a joint project, they were encouraged to support, problem solve and innovate their way through their NQT year. I bet they had fun doing it too!
  • Stop using the word ‘explore’.
As a learning objective that is. We don’t often head out to explore anywhere in RE! Thanks to Nigel Fancourt, Liam Guilfoyle and Jessica Chan for reminding me of this. There must be better verbs for what we are doing in class?
  • Brainwashing might work, and be quick, but it is not what we want to do.
Dave Aldridge also gave us an introduction to time travel (yes, really!) but it was this point about brainwashing that I found most striking. Yes, we could, but we don’t. The kind of knowledge that could be imparted this way is probably not the kind of thing we want to teach.

About

Katie is a Senior Lecturer in RE at Canterbury Christchurch University. She runs the RE PGCE Secondary programme there having taught RE in schools for 11 years. Katie has undertaken research around embedding University practice in primary schools and around using strategies for talk in RE. She is currently engaged in a research project with Bob Bowie and Farid Panjwani into using Hermeneutics in RE. Katie is also on the executive committee for AULRE.

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Learning from research in a time of change

Dr Kathryn Wright | 15 May, 2019

 

Last week I attended the AULRE 2019 conference in Birmingham. AULRE is an association of members interested in learning, teaching and research in religion and education. This year around 70 delegates attended, this included university lecturers, PGCE tutors, advisers, consultants and teachers.

Not surprisingly, responses to and critique of the Commission on RE (2018) report flavoured many of the keynotes and papers presented. Joyce Miller stressed the importance of the inclusive nature of the report which she argued comprehensively presents a vision for all. She made a case for understanding the socio-political context of RE, re-examining the content of the subject through overarching conceptual categories and embracing the term ‘worldview’ as a way of providing meaning to the subject for all. She hinted at ways in which a Buddhist worldview might be explored through the vision of the Commission. I found this inspiring and hope Joyce will go on to consider other ways in which the Commission’s vision may become a reality. This has the potential to transform curriculum design in our subject and impact on classroom practice.

I attended a number of parallel papers, and one common theme running through them was the importance of the teacher’s context, career journey and own worldview when considering how they understand the subject of RE. For example, one researcher talked about how teacher’s understanding of the subject might be more relational or more subject focussed. Some teachers may have a stronger sense of vocation, some are influenced by policy change, but others are not. Professional learning was regarded as important in terms of implementing policy changes. If teachers do not engage with professional learning the research found that teachers were not aligned to policy changes and would often continue as before. There is a huge overlap between subject construction and the identity of the teacher. This provides some important questions for policy makers who want to bring about change. For example, it shows the importance of professional learning when a new agreed syllabus is introduced or when new approaches to teaching and learning are advocated such as the RE:searchers project or a resource like Understanding Christianity. In addition, if the recommendations from the Commission are to be taken forward, it shows how important the engagement of teachers is in this process.

One piece of research suggested that an understanding of the aims of RE is rarely static for a teacher. One important point made was that teachers are influenced by socio-cultural factors as well as ontological (beliefs about the subject) and epistemological (knowledge of the subject) ones. When beginner teachers embark on their careers the epistemological factors are very strong as they learn about the subject, but as they progress through their career the socio-cultural factors often become much stronger. In fact, it was argued that sometimes the epistemological factors have no bearing on the teacher at all once they are an established teacher unless they engage with research. This raised some important questions for me about the importance of interaction between researchers and teachers and the value of action research especially during times of change.

 

References:

Keynote: Dr Joyce Miller: Religion and worldviews- the way forward?

Parallel Paper given by Dr Elizabeth Russell

Parallel Paper given by Alexis Stones

About

Dr Kathryn Wright is CEO of Culham St Gabriel's Trust

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A reflection – the birth of Hussain ibn Ali

Zameer Hussain | 11 April, 2019

Shia Muslims have a big emphasis on celebrating the birthdays of their revered personalities, in particular the Ahl-ul-Bayt (the family of Prophet Muhammad). Such occasions are seen as days of blessings and happiness. It is common for Shia Muslims to dress well, go to the mosque and celebrate the birth of such personalities, through poetry and taking lessons from their lives. One of the 10 obligatory acts, or branches of religion (Furu ad-Deen), that Shia Muslims practice is Tawalla. This is to show association, love and devotion towards the Ahl-ul-Bayt. Celebrating their birthdays and mourning deaths is an expression of Tawalla.

However, the birth of Hussain ibn Ali has a slightly different feel. Imam Hussain is the 3rd Imam according to Shia Muslims and is the grandson of Prophet Muhammad. He is most famous for the Day of Ashura where he was brutally yet heroically martyred in the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD. This is arguably the most important day for Shia Muslims in the year, particularly for their identity.

Reconciling the happy occasion of the birth of Imam Hussain with his impending tragedy is a challenge. When a baby is born, it is one of the happiest moments in one’s life. However, according to reports, when Imam Hussain was born, there was sadness too. Gabriel descended to Prophet Muhammad to congratulate him on the birth of his grandson. This was then followed by consolation as they informed the Messenger of how Hussain’s life would end, which caused the whole family to weep.

For Shia Muslims today, his birth will always have an undercurrent of grief as we know what was to become. On the birthdays of the Ahl-ul-Bayt, we do not feel sad at all and it is a reason to smile. On the birthday of Imam Hussain, we are still very happy that such a monumental figure in the history of humankind was born. However, a tear in the eye cannot be stopped because we know in 5 months’ time when the month of Muharram arrives, we will be crying in grief over his tragic death. Shia Muslims do not shy away from showing emotion in expression of their beliefs and sometimes these emotions can conflict.

The birthday of Imam Hussain is a paradoxical day as my face smiles but my heart aches.

This is why the great grandson of Prophet Muhammad, Imam Jafar Sadiq, the 6th Shia Imam (of the Twelver Shia branch), says:
“Never has a mother been so reluctant to give birth than the birth of Hussain.”

About

Zameer has been involved in Religious Education and interfaith work since 2013. This has included leading RE departments and supporting teachers nationally with subject knowledge.

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A reflection – something off my chest

Zameer Hussain | 01 November, 2018

One of the most common things we are asked as Shia Muslims is “do you beat yourselves?”
I would like to answer this from my own perspective.

All human beings express themselves in different ways that are symbolic. The same applies to expressing grief – it symbolises something close to us. It is a personal choice that allows you to externally show your internal feelings. Shia Muslims strike their chests in a rhythm to poetry, in order to create a cathartic atmosphere that juggles grief, pride, relief, pain and several other contradictory emotions.

When I strike my chest, I am reminding myself that the holy chest of Imam Hussain [1] was trampled upon by the hooves of horses. I am reaffirming my loyalty to him and telling the world that my chest is worthless compared to Imam Hussain’s chest that was filled with Divine treasures. This chest torn to pieces, after all, was the chest of God’s final Messenger. When I remove my shirt to do this, I am reminding myself that the holy shirt of Imam Hussain was torn to pieces. I am saying that my body should have been violated, not Imam Hussain’s.

Muslims believe that when we are judged by God on the Day of Resurrection, our body parts anthropomorphise and bear witness for us.[2]
The tongue will testify to our lies we uttered.
The ears will testify to the vain talk we listened to.
The legs will testify to the immoral gatherings we walked to.
However, I am relying on my hands to testify that they struck my chest in grief for the beautiful son of Zahra.[3]
I want my chest to tell its Creator that a fraction of the pain of Imam Hussain was felt by it through my hands.
This way, maybe my body that I have used to disobey my Lord will salvage itself.

When we strike our chests, we are not harming ourselves. This is an unjust accusation that lacks emotional intelligence. We are creating poetic art through emotional and religious expression in its purest form. In fact, there is a paradox at play: striking my chest heals the pain and anguish I feel for Imam Hussain’s tragedy. I am healing when I do this. Ironically, when I strike my chest, it seems to hurt those who hate me more than it actually hurts me.

When someone cries, we know they are sad about something.
When someone wears black, we know they are probably mourning.
But when I strike my chest, the world knows I am expressing my love for Imam Hussain.

I will never be ashamed of beating my chest for him. It is my identity as his mourner. I am proud of my identity. It is an honour to offer this to the Messenger and Zahra as a show of love towards their beloved.

As the poet says:
“Had they any love for the Messenger’s house,
They would have joined us in striking our chests.”

1. Hussain Ibn Ali was the grandson of the Prophet, and was martyred in the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE. He is the 3rd Imam for Shia Muslims
2. “That Day, We will seal over their mouths, and their hands will speak to Us, and their feet will testify about what they used to earn.” (Quran 36:65)
3. A name of Fatima, daughter of Prophet Muhammad.

About

Zameer has been involved in Religious Education and interfaith work since 2013. This has included leading RE departments and supporting teachers nationally with subject knowledge.

See all posts by Zameer Hussain

Study of Religion: re-defining the object of enquiry

Dr Philip Wood | 28 December, 2017

RE teaching aspires to place religions into a historical context. This is important because it prevents students from essentialising: just because a Scripture says x, or members of a tradition have done x, it does not follow that all members of a tradition will do the same. A historical context for the development of religion also encourages adherents of a given tradition to view their own tradition more critically. Notions of right behaviour can be more adaptive and flexible, and more engaged with other traditions, if adherents do not believe in a single truth, written in a Scripture that is never understood anew in changing circumstances.

However, research in the field of the Study of Religions has stressed an additional sense in which cultural context is important. Authors such as J.Z. Smith and W.C. Smith have emphasized that ‘religion’ itself is an unstable category, which has been shaped through political processes and is defined in different ways in different contexts. Concepts of ‘religion’ may be related to one another genealogically, but what they share, according to these theorists, is that they are determined by the assumptions and political expediency of the powerful over the less powerful.

A recent work in this school of the study of religion is Brent Nongbri’s ‘Before Religion’. Nongbri is trained as a classicist, but his work is also informed by his ethnic background: his father is a Khasi, one of the peoples of the uplands of north-eastern India. Nongbri draws on this background to illustrate how ‘religion’ is not a universal category. He describes asking his father the Khasi word for ‘religion’, and discovering that it is identical to the term for ‘custom’. This discovery stimulates his argument that Khasi ‘religion’ is something that is willed into being by translation, and the expectations of Anglophone dictionary writers and observers.

Religion has, of course, been defined in many ways by scholars. Members of the RE community may be familiar with the six-fold definition used by Ninian Smart, who was also famous for introducing the concept of phenomenology into the teaching of RE in the 1970s. Smart argued that religion was characterised by doctrine and philosophy; myth; a tradition of law and ethics; rituals; an emotional connection to the sacred and the presence of distinct hierarchies. Smart stressed that none of these characteristics were necessary for a tradition to be a religion, but that most religions included most of these features.

Nevertheless, the study of religion has been plagued by its difficulty in pinning down its subject matter precisely: it has been accused of becoming a discipline that has failed to find anything to study. But such accusations miss the point: instead of focusing on individual religious traditions (Islam; Christianity; Sikhism etc.), the study of religions has found a new focus in problematizing the term ‘religion’ itself. ‘Religion’, Nongbri or J.Z. Smith would argue, cannot be used as a term of analysis (an etic term) because its definition is too contested to be useful and we cannot be sure that we are comparing like with like. The Talmudic scholar Daniel Boyarin provocatively suggests that the only honest definition of religion is ‘something that looks like Protestant Christianity’. In other words, it is a term that purports to be neutral, but actually compares quite different traditions to the advantage of one tradition and the disadvantage of the others. The dice are loaded towards the assumptions of the Anglophone cultures that write the dictionaries and scholarship.

On the other hand, the study of religion has re-focussed its efforts around tracking the ways that ‘the powerful’ have used the definition of the word to re-forge the world in their own image. Nongbri’s work in particular has rebelled against the idea that traditions have a true religious belief, which is embedded in Scripture and which, like Protestant Christianity, can be privatised without intruding on the state. He emphasises that the notion of a true core belief (‘Christianity is the religion of love’; ‘Islam is the religion of peace’) is indebted to Romantic-era notions of the ‘true spirit’ of different national cultures. We might find it appealing to imagine ‘good’ versions of Islam and Christianity, with things we dislike as later accretions, this does not do justice to the formation of religious traditions as fluid entities that change and transform as they are passed between generations.

For each era, Nongbri suggests that we can examine how one set of expectations about what religion is has determined the responses of the less powerful. Thus, to give one example, he suggests that, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European expectations that religions should have a holy book determined the discovery of Hindu scriptures, which then determined how the caste system was embedded in law in British India. That is not to say that India did not host traditions that we might call religion before this date, but that the imagination of these as a single tradition called Hinduism, rooted in a set of common scriptures, was facilitated by European scholars, administrators and law-makers, together with Brahmin informants. His wider point here is that the comparative category of ‘religion’ is not a neutral term: the category itself acts as a lens through which the expectations of one culture can be used to organize the behavior of another.

Nongbri is not solely making a point about cultural and religious history here. He is also warning students of religion against using ‘religion’ as a comparative category without at least recognizing the uses to which the word has been put. He prompts them to ask whether, on reading any text that uses the term ‘religion’, whether a word like custom or culture might do just as well. He does not advocate abandoning the term entirely, but he asks instead for a more reflective usage: what is gained by describing x as religion, rather than as something else? The use of the term ‘worldview’ in the recent Commission on RE could be seen as a step in the right direction from Nongbri’s point of view. The term has the merit, from this point of view, of not privileging belief in god(s) or of assuming the restriction of ‘religion’ into a separate sphere from ‘politics’.

About

Philip Wood (@DrPhilipWood) is a historian of the Middle East. He has published on the development of political and religious ideas in late antiquity and is interested in the reception of these ideas in contemporary contexts. He teaches at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations in London, part of Aga Khan University. He completed his doctorate at Oxford, and formerly taught at Cambridge and SOAS.

See all posts by Dr Philip Wood

Religions and Worldviews in ‘Religious education for all’, the interim report of the Commission on Religious Education

Dr Philip Wood | 13 December, 2017

The Commission on RE is to be congratulated for such a wide-ranging report. I write my comments fully aware that it is much easier to criticise than it is create such a document.

The Commission articulates the need for RE to allow students ‘to reflect on their own worldview and consider the worldviews of those with different opinions’ and to give ‘a nuanced understanding of key social and political issues’ (1). This is not to be done through the presentation of religion in an essentialised manner (5), and the text emphasizes the need to consider how ‘communities maintain continuity in different times and contexts as the surrounding culture changes’ (8b).

However, I am wary that many teachers and students seem to interpret this as a study of the relationship between (religious) communities, as part of the wider promotion of cohesion. Students emphasise that RE discourages bullying of those who are different, because it generates empathy with other worldviews, and generates tolerance in a pluralistic environment (27). One teacher described how RE played a role in ‘celebrating diversity’ (73). And Ernst and Young stressed the role of RE in making students into effective members of diverse workplaces (28).

All three of these ideas are indeed social goods, but I worry that they correspond too closely to an instrumentalised view of RE as something that promotes cohesion by emphasizing the positive side of religion. In teaching CPD for Islam, I wonder whether teachers’ reluctance to teach anything that might be seen as negative may also impede their ability to historicise religious developments or to examine the social consequences of the behaviours mandated by religions. The need to contest Islamophobia is, of course, very understandable, but I argue that this is better done by differentiating between the unfair stereotyping of Muslims as a population and the possibility of critiquing Islam as a worldview.

After reviewing textbooks for Islam in RE for a forthcoming publication, I was struck by the failure to present the diversity of Islamic belief and practice. This was not just a matter of group divisions (eg. Sunni and Shia), but also issues like the wearing of the veil, of male and female circumcision, the creation of human images or the consumption of alcohol. As Shahab Ahmed has recently argued, this diversity of practice (in the past and the present) is often sacrificed to a single normative vision, created by those recognised as spokesmen for a majority.

This majoritarian bias can silence the voices of others, and RE needs to ensure that teaching recognises that a diversity of texts and precedents that are used to authorise behaviour. This censorship has real effects in the classroom. For instance, the sociologist Kathryn Spellman reflects on how Muslim students may seek to present themselves as real Muslims (by wearing the hijab, for instance) and cause other students to categorise anyone who does not do the same as non-Muslim.

My review also highlighted the absence of any discussion of the social consequences of ideas. RE tends to concentrate on how practices are justified and embedded into a worldview. But I think its remit should also include how communities are created and policed through these practices. One textbook I read (Steve Clarke, Religions to Inspire for KS 3. Islam, 57ff.) describes a Muslim girl meeting non-Muslim classmates for the first time and explaining that her father would never allow her to wear revealing Western clothes. She tells them that she prefers not to socialise with non-Muslims and that she can only eat halal food. One of the students in this teaching example observes ‘isn’t that a bit racist’, to which she says, ‘It’s not like that…it’s just that people from western backgrounds have different values’.

This textbook should be applauded at one level for discussing the social reality of differences in religious practice, and allowing students to reflect on what such encounters might feel like. But the learning objective here seems limited to an observation of the differences that exist between religious communities. I think this is exactly the kind of area where there needs to be an examination of how ‘communities maintain continuity in different times and contexts.’ Religious worldviews in diaspora contexts can act to preserve migrant social networks from contacts with outsiders, partly because of the wish to marry second-generation migrants with spouses from the homeland. And this in turn means that social contact (and therefore interpersonal trust) with members of other groups is discouraged. It is precisely these sorts of social consequences that I think ought to be considered in RE, and the sociology of religion and the sociology of migration provide rigorous academic contexts for doing so.

Several commentators quoted in the Commission stressed the lack of RE teachers’ subject knowledge (eg. 105, 251), and this compounds an inability to engage with material that has political and social significance. But I would be wary of giving religious authorities themselves a monopoly on the provision of CPD to enhance subject knowledge. Though they will have important theological knowledge and be able to discuss their ‘community’s’ presence in British society, it is necessary to combine their observations with the perspectives of sociologists of religion. We can, with theologians, ask how a discourse functions within a worldview, but, as sociologists and historians of religion, we also need to consider how discourses function etically, how traditions preserve communal boundaries and the vested interests that benefit from these boundaries. To my mind, this would be an example of ‘understand[ing] how worldviews work and their impact on individuals, communities and society’ (119e).

I was impressed by the Commission’s willingness to consider Communism or nationalism as worldviews alongside ‘religion’ (20). To mind, this is crucial to our ability to acknowledge that worldviews have a political and social impact. This in turn is a key reason to engage with the worldviews of others: they are our co-citizens and the sum of our worldviews will constitute the society that we share. However, we need to be cautious about accepting all claims that adherents make about what the social and political impacts of their ideas are. Precisely because we are accustomed to think about politics as a matter of choice, I think that including ideologies like Communism alongside ‘religions’ carries the implication that all worldviews should be chosen by informed citizens rather than inherited by bearers of tradition. Furthermore, an understanding that different worldviews have different social and political consequences is as much a part of assessing their validity as their moral or theological claims about themselves.

About

Philip Wood (@DrPhilipWood) is a historian of the Middle East. He has published on the development of political and religious ideas in late antiquity and is interested in the reception of these ideas in contemporary contexts. He teaches at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations in London, part of Aga Khan University. He completed his doctorate at Oxford, and formerly taught at Cambridge and SOAS.

See all posts by Dr Philip Wood

RE and Social Integration: A Response to the Casey Report

Dr Philip Wood | 21 March, 2017

The Casey report on social integration, released in December 2016, is a significant document for those who teach and write about RE. Here I respond to it with three suggestions for how RE can help social integration.

The report aims to consider what divides ‘communities’ and how far these anxieties and prejudices can affect the life chances of British citizens. It is a controversial document that has received criticism for the forthright language it has used in describing ‘regressive religious attitudes’ as part of its analysis of British society.

Casey discusses religion explicitly. She emphasizes religion’s role as a force for good, in caring for the sick, educating children and addressing issues of social justice. But she also points to the difficulty of drawing together communities with entrenched views (8.11). Casey argues that religious discourses, especially Islamic discourses, have been used to enforce gender segregation and restrict marriage choice (7.17); Female Genital Mutilation (7.20) and intolerance against homosexuals (7.28-34).

Casey gives particular attention to schools in her analysis. She observes the difficulty that some schools have in getting the support of parents and ‘community leaders’ to allow children to attend extracurricular activities, such as swimming or visiting the theatre (7.38). And she noted the large amount of time spent by some students (especially Muslims) in ‘unregulated’ educational environments that encourage binary visions of the world and prevent free enquiry, often enforced through corporal punishment (7.48-59).

Casey’s flagship recommendation is that there should be much better provision for English language to allow migrants to access resources and participate in civil society (Recommendation 1). But she also suggests that it is in schools where students should learn ‘British values’ (Recommendation 4). I am sceptical that Britain has a monopoly on democracy, the rule of law or respect for different faiths and beliefs, or that articulating these as learning outcomes for schools is a positive move. At least in theory, I would prefer an educational system that aspired to a disposition towards learning (criticality, empiricism), rather than prescribing a political opinion as an outcome. For instance, someone who is sceptical about democracy may have simply come to an alternative conclusion on the basis of available evidence, rather than being a failure of the education system.

Casey doesn’t give explicit consideration to RE in her report, but I think RE, and the humanities more broadly, could play an important role in addressing some of the problems in integration that she raises, and do so better than her appeal to ‘British values’. Many of the regressive ideas that she raises have religious justifications that are reinforced in places of worship, at home or over the internet. For children who are members of transnational families, these ideas may also spread unchallenged in countries of origin. But schools can contest these ideas by several means.

The first is to observe that religious scriptures are capable of multiple interpretations that are suited to different contexts. Recognition of multiple interpretations in religious traditions has been a laudable strand in RE over the past two decades, but more could be done still be done in this direction. In particular, an awareness of the diversity of religious traditions in medieval times would help to dispel the suspicion that liberal ideas are simply concessions to the West. This is one reason why an awareness of historical contexts and the changing content and emphasis of religious traditions is such an important part of subject knowledge for RE teachers. To take Islamic examples (simply because I know these better), ninth and tenth century Syria and Iraq provide examples of religious sceptics, rationalists and freethinkers (as well as writers of homosexual poetry) who do not receive space in current curricula.

The second is to expose students to multiple ideas of the principle of ‘the good’, some of which are framed in terms of ‘religion’ and others that are rooted in ethical systems that are justified (semi-)independently from religion. This might include a Kantian requirement that religious goods must also be justifiable from abstract ethical principles. Or it could include the Rawlsian thought experiment (the Original Position hypothesis) that one should design a state or society that would benefit you if you were born again as a random member of that society. Again, RE syllabi are already good at drawing on a rubric of ‘religion and belief’. But it is worth highlighting that the effective delivery of RE is not restricted to the ability to hold individual human actions to account, but also to hold the tenets of one moral system to account by testing it against a second moral system, which proceeds from different starting points. This ability to entertain different positions is crucial to sympathy for other citizens’ moral arguments and the ability to be critical of one’s own moral presumptions.

The third way in which I think that RE can help to build an integrated society is to ask the kinds of questions of ‘regressive’ religious practice that Casey asks to students. For instance, we could ask how religion is used to justify forced marriage. Such a question could open out into other broader questions: how does religious adhesion affect the choice of marriage partner? What are the wider effects upon society? These are questions that can be approached from different perspectives (theology, history, sociology) and have no obvious right answers.

Obviously, this needs to be done with careful ‘scaffolding’, to make clear that answers need to be evidenced and without polemic. But if one role of RE is to help students have the kinds of cultural literacy that will allow them to be active citizens in a plural society, this ought to include the ability to critique practices that are justified by religion and to think about the wider social and economic contexts in which certain ideas flourish and others wither away. An analysis of how and why religion is used to legitimate conservative ideas such as in-group marriage, differentiated gender roles and bans on theatre could lead to a wider understanding of the role of religion in defining ‘communities’, and those who benefit from and suffer from this process. At present, I think RE could benefit from a keener focus on religion as a force that defines group boundaries, rather than just as a collection of narratives, ritual practices and ethical ideas, and I believe that this is something that schoolchildren could engage with. Of course, there is an argument that a focus on similarities between religious traditions will ultimately soften differences, but I fear that this underplays the fact that some religious scriptures explicitly endorse inter-group boundaries or engage in polemic.

Michael Metcalf comments that the Framework for Excellence in RE does not ‘respect and recognize pupils’ existing identities …or the communities they already belong to’. I do think that it is important for teachers to be aware of the home backgrounds of their students and the presumptions and knowledge they bring to a class. But I would emphasise that to respect ideas is to critique them, and I would be wary of treating any set of ideas differently because of the role they play in substantiating individuals’ identities. If RE can help students to see the diversity of religious traditions and notions of the good, as well as criticising the use of religion to generate stereotype and exclusive social boundaries, then I think it can play an important role in forming the civil society of the future.

About

Philip Wood (@DrPhilipWood) is a historian of the Middle East. He has published on the development of political and religious ideas in late antiquity and is interested in the reception of these ideas in contemporary contexts. He teaches at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations in London, part of Aga Khan University. He completed his doctorate at Oxford, and formerly taught at Cambridge and SOAS.

See all posts by Dr Philip Wood

Syncretism: A useful concept?

Dr Philip Wood | 22 December, 2016

In the twentieth century, syncretism was commonly used to describe the borrowing of practices between religious traditions. Thus the veneration of ancestors in versions of African Christianity or the similarities between Greco-Roman gods and Catholic saints could be referred to as syncretic.

This usage was widely followed in scholarly circles, but it inherited a polemic that had been articulated in the Protestant Reformation. Here Catholic ‘traditions’ could be contrasted with pure ‘religion’, derived solely from Scripture. Many of these traditions were ascribed to syncretic borrowings from other religions. For some, this has meant that Catholicism was not a form Christianity at all (I have heard such opinions in Belfast quite recently).

The genealogy of the term syncretism in this kind of polemic has led Charles Stewart and Rosalind Shaw to suggest that scholars abandon it as a term of analysis (i.e. as an emic term). They observe that the identification of syncretism tends to be undertaken by those who are advocating an anti-syncretism, and the purging of a religious tradition from foreign elements. In this sense, we can see anti-syncretism as a phenomenon like nationalism, where a commentator identifies a package of identities, behaviours and ideas as ‘pure’ or ‘orthodox’, and deviations from this are labeled inferior and impure.

Stewart and Shaw observe that if we use a term like syncretism in scholarship, this seems to imply that ‘pure’ religious traditions are a possibility. Thus to describe practices as a ‘Hindu-Christian syncretism’ implies that Hinduism and Christianity are both coherent, discrete systems. In practice, all believers constantly adapt new ideas that they encounter, both from religious and non-religious sources. In particular, religious converts often bring the same questions to their new faith that they asked of their previous faith. And in so doing, their new religion expands its remit.

Stewart and Shaw’s critique is particularly important for teachers of RE in secondary school. The time restrictions involved in teaching the subject, as well as the role of SACREs in determining curricula, can often prioritise ‘purist’ scriptural approaches to religious traditions. This can result in the imagination of these traditions as discrete units. One problematic consequence of this approach gives short shrift to the hybridization of religious practice.

However, there has been an interesting rebuttal to Stewart and Shaw from the anthropologist David Gellner. He suggests that scholars ought to be interested in the origins of religious ideas, precisely because so much weight is placed on the scriptural justification of religious practice in traditions such as Buddhism, Christianity or Islam.

Gellner puts forward a usable definition of syncretism that attempts to avoid its polemical genealogy: ‘an unsystematic combination of different traditions that their creators intended to keep apart’. He gives the example of the Buddhist priesthood of the Newar region of Nepal, which can only be occupied by members of the Brahmin caste. This is a region dominated by a Hindu king, and Hindu stories are widespread. Gellner suggests that the use of a Hindu-derived idea (caste) by a Buddhist priesthood who cannot justify this idea from their own Scripture is inherently unstable, and persists because of low levels of literacy among the Newar peasantry.

He contrasts this example of syncretism, with synchronism. He defines this as the evolution of complementary systems, where different religious traditions fulfill different roles. In his Newar example, he argues that Buddhism is only concerned with morality and soteriology (in this case, the achievement of Nirvana). But other features of religious life (the religious explanation of the household or the nation; belief in the sacred nature of the environment) are not justified by the Buddhist priesthood. Here the Newar follow the same kind of Hindu ideas popular elsewhere in Nepal.

I find Gellner’s approach a useful compliment to Stewart and Shaw. Stewart and Shaw’s work reminds us that the identification of syncretism has polemical roots. The language of religious studies is not neutral. It bears the imprint of a Protestant usage and of ‘reformers’ and unifiers in other traditions that have sought to differentiate alien impurities from an imagined authentic truth. But Gellner reminds us that different religions attempt to do different things, and that borrowings between religious traditions (especially non-Abrahamic religious traditions) may be stable and not in conflict. In particular, we should remember that ‘religion’ does not have to define the boundaries of a community, as it tends to do in Abrahamic traditions. At the same time, Gellner also carves out a space for scholars to recognize that scripture matters too, and that many religious traditions make claims about their origins in scripture that are widely discussed and defended. Contradictory religious beliefs of different origins can endure in the same society, or the same individuals. But where religious identities become more rigidly policed, where the religious identification of individuals is expected to align to their practices and beliefs, this leads to the closing down of hybrid religiosity and an emphasis on the scriptural origins of true religion.

References

Stewart and R. Shaw (eds.), Syncretism/ Anti-syncretism: The Politics of Religious Synthesis (London/ New York: Routledge, 1994).

Gellner, ‘For syncretism: The position of Buddhism in Nepal and Japan compared’, Social Anthropology 5 (1997), 277-91.

Barnes, ‘Misrepresentation of religion in modern British (religious) education’ British Jnl of Educational Studies 54 (2006), 395-411.

About

Philip Wood (@DrPhilipWood) is a historian of the Middle East. He has published on the development of political and religious ideas in late antiquity and is interested in the reception of these ideas in contemporary contexts. He teaches at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations in London, part of Aga Khan University. He completed his doctorate at Oxford, and formerly taught at Cambridge and SOAS.

See all posts by Dr Philip Wood

Teaching about Religion without ‘Religious Education

Dr Philip Wood | 23 August, 2016

We should do without Religious Education. I do not mean to argue that religion is false and deserves no place in society, or that students do not need religious literacy to understand their own society or other societies. Merely that ‘RE’ is not the best way to achieve these goals because it endorses a division between religion and other forms of culture and invites students to believe that religion should not be subjected to the same kinds of analysis as other traditions.

A common theme of this site has been the relationship between RE and the Christian religious instruction embodied in the 1944 Education Act and its predecessors. Nicky Morgan’s statement in February clearly invoked the wishes of ‘parents and the local community’ to allow for the prioritisation of religion over ‘non-religious world views’. This sentiment lies in tension with the legal duty of the state to provide equal respect to ‘different religious convictions and non-religious beliefs’ and to the educationalists’ mantra that RE ‘reflect the complex lived reality of religion and belief’. What are schools to do where parents and students do not wish to accord equal respect to different worldviews, or expect that ‘orthodox’ tradition should take priority over ‘heterodox’ ideas or practice?

Phenomenological relativism seems to offer a solution to this impasse that will avoid giving offence. But the phenomenological approach to RE can be in danger of simply describing different behaviours that are seen as religious. The need to cover a breadth of content (and give space to different ‘world religions’) can mean that teachers sacrifice the key issue of how social actors construct their religious legitimacy in different contexts.

There is a danger that the inclusive philosophy of RE curricula simply lifts inclusive meanings from different religious traditions in order to promote cohesion and mutual sympathy. But in so doing we may not do justice to the fact that many religious traditions are exclusive. Indeed, Jan Assmann, the historian of memory, has observed that Abrahamic monotheisms have been so successful precisely because they have possessed mechanisms to exclude outsiders and their ideas and to preserve scriptures in writing and ritual. In order to understand why these traditions are important, we need to acknowledge that they carry inside them rules to exclude members of other races or beliefs from their community, and that this has historically played a role in their success.

A slightly fuzzy approach to the issue of religious difference is obviously attractive in a multicultural environment like much of modern Britain. Multicultural theorists like Bhikhu Parekh, created a peer by the Blair government, have argued that minorities have legitimate claims to preserve their cultures over multiple generations and that these must be sustained by governments without the pressure of assimilation. In this model, different religious traditions can remain discrete from one another and unassimilated, but students from one tradition will have the opportunity to observe how different traditions endorse similar values.

In a contribution to this site, Daniel Moulin argues that when cultural difference is examined in the curriculum, students engage with openness and respect. For Moulin, this acts as a challenge to the discourse of the clash of civilizations. He gives the example of fashionable young professionals dancing to a band that draws its members from many different ethnicities to illustrate the possibilities of a living multiculturalism, where distinct traditions can all be drawn upon and enjoyed.

The problem here is that Moulin assumes that ‘no mainstream religion teaches that we should treat members of other religions with nothing other than total respect’. Unfortunately, this is wrong. A good example is the Deobandi Muslim institutions studied over the past decade by Philip Lewis, but one could find parallel examples in other religious traditions too. Lewis notes the strong condemnation of sharing the customs of the kufar (the infidels) in Deobandi thought. He notes the criticism of Muslims who give or receive cards on Christmas or Valentine’s day and the advice given by some imams that Muslims should not befriend or socialize with non-Muslims. He argues that this strong presentation of inter-confessional boundaries is linked to a Manichaean view of history, where Muslims have always been persecuted by the powers of the day and have a duty to transmit pure belief to the next generation, without criticism or deviation.

Lewis’ findings are in harmony with another study conducted by Jonathan Scourfield in Cardiff. Scourfield’s team found that parents exercised close control of their children’s social lives (much closer than those of their non-Muslim peers), to the extent that they rarely met non-Muslims outside school (even in a diverse city like Cardiff). In interviews with parents and children, family values and moral behavior were identified very closely with Islamic values, to the extent that non-Muslims were seen as lacking any moral compass. Interviews with children also revealed a clear sense of the dangers of alcohol and sexuality, which divided them as Muslims from the world around them. One eight year old even told them that [if you marry a Christian] ‘Allah will punish you and you’ll go to hellfire and you burn.’

The interpretations of religious scholars (in the first study) and the behavior of parents (in the second) endorse a vision of the world that is starkly divided according to religious lines and where this affects the social connections of children and adults. Similar results emerge from a series of other ethnographies, where multicultural society is seen as highly threatening for the ability of conservative Sunni Muslims to reproduce social and religious norms from generation to generation. A key fear is that girls will marry non-Muslims, which prompts threats of damnation in the next life and ostracism in this.

While the revelers in Moulin’s example are at ease with the co-existence of different cultural traditions, in the long-term, co-existence leads to the blending of cultures. Likewise, friendship that crosses cultural and religious boundaries may lead to marriage. This is extremely problematic for exclusive traditions that seek to bring up children without confusing outside influences.

One would like to imagine that it would possible for people to learn about other religious and cultural traditions that were once foreign to them and use them to enrich their own lives. But there are cases where learning about other traditions is feared to be a way of diluting a pure heritage that must be transmitted unpolluted to the next generation. For instance, Shiraz Thobani’s study of Islam in the British RE curriculum observes the resistance to multicultural teaching by Muslim parents in the 1980s and 90s. As one parent put it: ‘If you give multiple messages of who God is to children then this will affect their religious and moral health’.

The critical study of religion is important because it has the potential to allow students to see how religions have developed in their historical contexts and to see the diversity within religious traditions. It also offers students the potential to understand how religions have emerged out of one another and taken time to develop into the forms we encounter them now. A notion of how religious traditions are interlaced and the products of mutual exchange should be an antidote to Manichaean visions of the world. The idea of a religious tradition that is pure from alien influence is harder to maintain if students see that many religions are born from the mixture of older traditions in new contexts.

But there is a grave danger that religious groups will feel themselves to be targeted if RE becomes a tool for questioning religious sentiments in a way that seems critical. In particular, criticisms of specific religious traditions can seem to put students ‘on the spot’ to address public concerns without necessarily having the knowledge to do so. Children acquire an emotional connection to a religious community long before they can understand the theological content of doctrine or its evolution across time. And this is a reality that needs to be acknowledged.

In an environment where one person’s neutral criticality is another’s ad hominem attack, a solution to the problem is to teach religion outside RE. We can study the reign of Constantine in the fourth century; the Arab conquest of the Near East in the seventh century or the reign of Henry VIII as part of history. We can study the effects of segregation or exclusive marriage or the provision of charity within politics or sociology. And we can examine the rights and wrongs of violence or abortion within the context of ethics. If we presume, a priori, that there is a distinctively Christian or Muslim form of reasoning, or distinctively Muslim or Christian forms of government or city structure then we close down a number of possible readings of the evidence by presuming the primacy of religion over other forms of culture. It may be, for instance, that Muslims and Christians writing philosophy in an Aristotelian tradition have more in common with one another than with their co-religionists.

In sum then, I am arguing that we owe a duty to our students to draw their own conclusions from the evidence. Part of this obligation includes treating religion on an equal footing with other kinds of cultural tradition, as much as treating all religions equally. This also means that one role of education about religion is to investigate it as critically as we investigate any other form of cultural production. Where specific religious traditions are invoked to defend social practices, the purpose of an education system must be to empower young people to judge all practices by their results, rather than on their ‘authenticity’ within a specific belief system.

B. Parekh, ‘Cultural pluralism and the limits of diversity’, Alternatives 20 (1995), 431-57.

P. Lewis, ‘New Social Roles and Changing Patterns of Authority Amongst British ˋUlamâ’, Archives des sciences sociales des religions 49 (2004), 169-87

J. Scourfield et al., Muslim Childhood: Religious Nurture in a European Context (Oxford, 2013)

S. Thobani, Islam in the School Curriculum. Symbolic Pedagogy and Cultural Claims (London, 2010)

F. Panjwani, ‘Educational reform’, Critical Muslim 15 (July 2015)

P. Barnes, ‘Misrepresentation of religion in modern British (religious) education’, British Jnl of Educational Studies 54 (2006), 395-411

About

Philip Wood (@DrPhilipWood) is a historian of the Middle East. He has published on the development of political and religious ideas in late antiquity and is interested in the reception of these ideas in contemporary contexts. He teaches at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations in London, part of Aga Khan University. He completed his doctorate at Oxford, and formerly taught at Cambridge and SOAS.

See all posts by Dr Philip Wood