Dr Kevin O'Grady | 01 July, 2019

The CORE report recommends attention to the conceptual category of religion. [i] This is welcome. What do we mean by the word? The discussion needs opening, at both professional and classroom levels. It won’t be an easy one, as the field of religion is so varied that religion is hard to define.

According to CORE, religions are worldviews, and worldviews are philosophies of life.[ii] At the same time, the report recommends greater attention to individual lived experience and how worldviews work in practice.[iii]

Is this a conceptually clear account, or is there a tension between emphasising beliefs or philosophies on the one hand, but experiences and practices on the other? Which should be RE’s primary focus, and how should the foci relate? This month’s Research of the Month is chosen for suggesting some promising answers to these questions. It’s a book by the US scholar Christian Smith, Religion: What it is, how it works, and why it matters. [iv]

The definition of religion given by Smith has been described by one reviewer as ‘the best theoretical and analytical definition I know’.[v] It reads as follows:

‘Religion is a complex of culturally prescribed practices that are based on premises about the existence and nature of superhuman powers. These powers may be personal or impersonal, but they are always superhuman in the dual sense that they can do things which humans cannot do and that they do not depend for their existence on human activities. Religious people engage in complexes of practices in order to gain access to and communicate or align themselves with these superhuman powers. The hope involved in the cultural prescribing of these practices is to realize human goods and avoid bads, especially (but not only) to avert misfortunes and receive blessings and deliverance from crises.’[vi]

Thus, the primary focus is on practices, but the practices are seen as based on beliefs or ideas. As he develops the argument, Smith offers supporting points. Religions also have secondary aspects including the forms of identity, community or aesthetic expression associated with the primary practices. Participants don’t necessarily hold the ‘established’ related beliefs, so religion consists in the cultural meanings handed on; these are realities apart from individual experiences, and it is as religiousness rather than religion that individual experiences matter hugely.

What might Smith’s analysis mean for RE teaching? To sketch it out, teachers would engage pupils in an enquiry into a range of religious practices. Firstly: what happens during these practices? For what goods do they aim? There would then be two secondary layers of enquiry, one into how repeated religious practices flow into aspects such as social identity, aesthetic expression and power, another into religiousness at the individual level.

This form of RE might flow from a clear conceptual account of religion, but it has limitations. It doesn’t include a philosophical element, so pupils don’t exercise a right to be critical about truth-claims that may be associated with the practices and meanings. It doesn’t include a reflexive element where pupils reflect on their own viewpoints, how these affect their own views of what’s studied and how their own ideas and values may have developed through their studies. Still, the approach could be compatible with both elements. The study of non-religious worldviews might have to come from a different angle, because it may not be possible to view these primarily in terms of practices. Nevertheless, I would certainly recommend Religion: What it is, how it works, and why it matters as stimulus to further thinking and discussion regarding the conceptual category of religion within RE.

[i] RE Council of England and Wales, Religion and Worldviews: The Way Forward. A National Plan for RE, London (RE Council of England and Wales): 2018, page 31.

[ii] Ibid., page 4.

[iii] Ibid., pages 30-31.

[iv] We’ve reported part of the book at What is religion?

[v] You can read Jose Casanova’s review of the book at https://academic.oup.com/jcs/article-abstract/61/1/126/5303792?redirectedFrom=fulltext

[vi] Christian Smith, Religion: What it is, how it works, and why it matters, Princeton and Oxford (Princeton University Press): 2017, page 3.

About

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

See all posts by Dr Kevin O'Grady

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.

See all posts by Dr Kevin O'Grady