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Research

Current teaching practice for religious education in Hong Kong: implications for ‘learning from religion’

Mei-Yee Wong

Research Summary

The human development (HD) model for religious education (RE) emphasises how students develop personally from studying religion. However, detailed teaching practices for ‘learning from religion’ are not fully understood. In this research, lesson observations, school documents and interview data were collected from two Christian primary schools in Hong Kong (HK) . Two lessons were analysed as examples of the teaching for student development in RE lessons. This study found that the teachers helped their students engage with religion by giving them opportunities to associate religion with their lives through religious and moral-related contents. The use of daily life and religious experiences with discussions was the pedagogical approach for moving RE from just ‘the teaching of religion’. Moreover, various opportunities for student reflections to enhance personal and moral development were observed. It is suggested that future studies should consider examining the theory of the adopted model and its classroom practice, which can aid understanding regarding the role of RE for student development and its global identity.

Researcher

Mei-Yee Wong

Research Institution

The Education University of Hong Kong

What is this about?

  • The human development model of RE includes learning from religion as well as learning about it, but how to do so is not well understood.
  • Therefore, examples are presented from two Hong Kong schools, where teachers engaged students by making links to their own religious or moral concerns, or daily life experiences.
  • Student reflection to enhance personal and moral development was observed during these lessons.
  • The model outlined may help to show the role of RE in student personal development, and help the subject to be clear on its own identity.

What was done?

  • A Protestant primary school and a Catholic primary school were selected for the study.
  • Multiple sets of data were collected, including lesson observations supplemented with documents and individual interviews. Lesson observations and analysis revealed teaching practices, individual interviews revealed the participants’ opinions on current practices and the observed situations, and documents (e.g. textbooks and teaching plans) provided demographic information to contextualise the observed lessons.
  • The lessons were video-recorded, transcribed and analysed. All post-lesson student and teacher interviews lasted from 30 minutes to one hour and were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed.

Main findings and outputs

  • First, the observed lessons differed from the original ideas in the HD model, and although the ‘engagement’, ‘exploration’, and ‘reflection’ stages were present to various extents, the third stage, ‘contextualisation’, was not observed (because the schools were Christian schools and the lessons about Christianity, it may not have been needed).
  • Second, the lessons started from the engagement stage and ended with the reflection stage.
  • Third, using questions, and asking students to reflect on their pasts and plan for a future moral life assisted their personal growth.
  • Fourth, life and values-related elements in activities and discussions were identified as vital opportunities for achieving the goal of reflection. They ‘transcended the lesson’. They included asking students to think about how they would act in different future situations.

Relevance to RE

The research is quite timely, because though these issues are far from new, there is concern that an emphasis on knowledge in RE might weaken the subject’s potential to contribute to pupils’ personal development. This research shows, again, that engagement with religion and pupil personal development are interdependent within RE. Teachers can think about how to engage pupils with religion by thinking about (for example) the situations described in parables, and how they might act in similar situations in the future. The research is primary-focused, but more controversial situations could be chosen for secondary level.

Generalisability and potential limitations

The researcher recognises that the sample is small, but the pedagogy offered is nevertheless there for teachers to try out, evaluate and refine.

Find out more

Mei-Yee Wong (2019) Current teaching practice for religious education in Hong Kong: implications for ‘learning from religion’, Journal of Beliefs & Values, 40:2, 133-145, https://doi.org/10.1080/13617672.2018.1548827

https://doi.org/10.1080/13617672.2018.1548827

 

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