Baha'i
Buddhist worldview traditions
Christian worldview traditions
Contextualising the diversity of worldviews
Hindu worldview traditions
Humanist worldview traditions
Jain
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jewish worldview traditions
Muslim worldview traditions
Pagan
Rastafari
Sikhi worldview traditions
Soka Gakkai
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Zoroastrian
Research

Teachers need to become conscious of their own worldviews

Ruth Flanagan

Research Summary

For increasing numbers of teachers, religion may seem alien. This may impact on their choice of teaching content: subconsciously, they may elect to teach aspects of religious and non-religious worldviews close to their own worldviews, ignoring aspects with which they disagree. Teachers’ lack of subject content knowledge is often held up as a major problem, but questions also need to be asked about how their own worldviews relate to their subject content knowledge. Teachers should be supported to become ‘worldview-conscious’.

Researcher

Ruth Flanagan

Research Institution

University of Exeter

What is this about?

  • What influences teachers to choose subject content?
  • Do their own worldviews prompt them to emphasise some religious and non-religious worldview content, and ignore other religious and non-religious worldview content?
  • How can teachers be supported to become more conscious of their own worldviews and how these might influence their attitudes to lesson content? How might this process enrich teaching and learning?

What was done?

The researcher analysed a wide range of literature (RE policy, pedagogy and curriculum, research on teachers and RE teachers, philosophy, educational studies and philosophy). She applied insights from Ricoeur’s hermeneutics to the problem of teachers’ possible worldview biases in relation to subject content. She then made recommendations for teachers to develop worldview-consciousness – a form of self-awareness, in relation to one’s own background values and orientations – that will enrich RE / R&W teaching and learning. These follow below.

Main findings and outputs

  • To examine worldviews, teachers need to wrestle with philosophical questions of life which can enhance their own teaching and learning; this is important for pupils, but it is equally important for teachers: to examine others’ worldviews includes reflecting on one’s own.
  • Teaching about worldviews involves teaching about different valuations of rationality. To do so, a person must be aware of what he or she values as rational, and why (what background influences he or she has).
  • One’s own worldview may be held unconsciously, and support needed to bring it to consciousness. Teachers could reflect on their own definition of a good life. Once it is conscious, they can guard against only emphasising those features of others’ worldviews that are similar to their own, when teaching.

Relevance to RE

The findings are relevant to existing discussions about neutrality and impartiality in RE (teachers can be impartial to the extent that they are self-aware). They are also relevant to the move from RE to R&W; if it is true that everyone has a worldview and that the examination of personal worldviews is a part of the subject, teachers cannot be immune from the process.

Generalisability and potential limitations

The research does not present a data set whose generalisability can be assessed – but the questions raised should, at least, give all teachers pause for thought and reflection.

Find out more

Ruth Flanagan (2019): Implementing a Ricoeurian lens to examine the impact of individuals’ worldviews on subject content knowledge in RE in England: a theoretical proposition, British Journal of Religious Education, DOI: 10.1080/01416200.2019.1674779

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01416200.2019.1674779?journalCode=cbre20

 

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