An ethnographic eye on religion in everyday life
Jenny Berglund
Research Summary
This article considers pitfalls associated with teaching about religions. The main pitfall considered is the risk of presenting religions as stereotypical monolithic systems: that all who belong to a particular religious tradition think and act in the same way. The writer calls this sort of stereotyping the ‘robotic tendency’ because it has a habit of reducing practitioners to robot-like beings that always perform identical actions. She argues that the ‘ethnographic eye’ can help educators to avoid stereotypes and the robotic tendency when teaching about religions. The ‘ethnographic eye’ means close attention to human thoughts, feelings and actions in everyday life.
Researchers
Jenny Berglund
Research Institution
Södertörn University, Sweden
What is this about?
The article is about learning to teach about religions (in this case, Islam) without neglecting the fact that within any religion, there are varieties of belief and practice that have to be taken into account. The writer tells and reflects on the stories of two teachers who were asked to investigate Islam in their own schools and local environments, then think about the ramifications of what they had learned for their future teaching. Both teachers were offered surprises and both were forced to consider that the lived reality of Islam in their immediate environments was more complex and differentiated than their previous picture, built up through text-books and media presentations. The writer argues that this more differentiated account, as well as being more accurate, avoids a rigid ‘us and them’ view and so lessens prejudice. Moreover, it helps teachers to examine their own understanding and its bases.
What was done?
As part of a continuing teacher education course on Islam, two teachers were asked to pay close ethnographic attention to the practice of Islam within their own schools and local environments, then writing an assignment about what they had discovered and how it would affect their future teaching. The article presents summaries of the process gone through by the teachers and their subsequent reflections on how their teaching needed to change in the light of what they had learned.
Main findings and outputs
Agnes
Agnes is a primary school teacher who initially believes that Islam is absent from her school. There are no Muslim pupils, but there is a book in the library stating that Muslims do not eat pork. She approaches the kitchen staff, finding to her surprise that two of them are Muslims. Their attitudes are complex, e.g. one of them has not informed their school that her children are Muslims, they eat all kinds of food at school but avoid pork at home. They mention an Ethiopian Christian colleague of theirs who avoids pork.
Stellan
Stellan is a secondary RE teacher. There are many Muslim pupils in his school. He causes an argument in a lesson by stating that Muslims do not celebrate the Prophet’s birthday. He decides to ask students about this, is informed by one student that he does indeed celebrate the Prophet’s birthday, telephones his parents to discuss it and is invited to the next such celebration. Other Muslim students tell him that they do not celebrate it. As well as building up notes on the celebration, Stellan consults background literature, finding that the celebration, especially associated with Sufism, is considered unlawful by some scholars.
Discussion
An ethnographic approach informs teachers on variations in religions. People manage different beliefs (e.g. dietary restrictions) differently. Cultural context and other factors influence this. In future these teachers will continue to ask questions about text-book presentations and examine local practices. Other research suggests that European Muslims’ religion is becoming increasingly individual.
Relevance to RE
The article has strong relevance to RE. Policy should reflect the presence of a local dimension in religious belief and practice and require the challenging of stereotypes. Curriculum planning should include the same points. There are implications for pedagogy, regarding the need to include the knowledge, views and experiences of students and their families, to accept that these may be different and to examine internal differences within religions (the article mentions the need for sensitivity in these respects). The article is itself a story of teacher development. RE teachers might usefully repeat the investigations of Agnes and Stellan in their own environments, perhaps in groups, in conjunction with academic researchers or as an element in initial teacher education or higher degree study.
Generalisability and potential limitations
The research has high credibility. The writer is a highly regarded, influential expert. The writing is characterised by clarity, balance and originality. A strength is its appeal to local, specific, individual experience, yet this is well integrated with wider scholarly references. Good ethnography resists simplification, accepting difference and individuality, and the article ‘rings true’ in these ways. In this sense, the findings appear to be secure. As individual findings, they cannot be generalised, but this is in the nature of ethnography. However, the principle of careful attention to lived reality (the ‘ethnographic eye’) ought to be generalised: that is, it ought to be and often is emphasised as an ingredient of professionalism in RE. The limitations of the research lie in its Swedish context, but again, the writer reaches out to wider literature and the article gives a basis to those wishing to repeat its methods in their own settings.
Find out more
British Journal of Religious Education 36.1 pages 39-52