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Research

Ethnic diversity, Christian hegemony and the emergence of multi-faith religious education in the 1970s

Prof Stephen Parker & Prof Rob Freathy

Research Summary

This article provides a reconstruction of the processes leading to the formation of the widely influential Birmingham Agreed Syllabus of Religious Instruction (1975). This is contextualised within one of the most significant periods in the history of race relations in the United Kingdom. The authors discuss how this syllabus, and other landmark reforms in religious education (RE) in English schools from the late 1960s, responded to ethnic diversity by promoting supposedly culturally pluralist, multi-faith approaches to RE.

Researchers

Prof Stephen Parker & Prof Rob Freathy

Research Institution

University of Worcester

What is this about?

The research inquired into the multiple causes of a crucial moment of curriculum change in religious education. Given the stated importance of this particular syllabus to English RE history, it seemed important to us to understand how it came about.

What was done?

The research utilised historical methodologies to reconstruct a moment in curriculum history.

Main findings and outputs

  • That the history of the subject can help us to understand the nature and purpose of RE in the present.
  • That curriculum change in RE is often highly controversial, and sometimes bound up with notions of national and religious identity.
  • That RE is often seen by policy-makers as a vehicle for social cohesion.
  • That the influences upon developments in RE are multiple.

Relevance to RE

As background to a masters level study of RE policy, or to get to grips with how RE came to be as it is.

Generalisability and potential limitations

The paper needs to be read in conjunction with other related work by the authors to contextualise this important period in the recent history of the subject.

Find out more

Parker, S.G., Freathy, R.J.K. (2012) Ethnic diversity, Christian hegemony and the emergence of multi-faith religious education in the 1970s, History of Education: journal of the History of Education Society, 41: 3, 381–404.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0046760X.2011.620013

 

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