Viewing archives for Teaching methods and pedagogy

Research Summary

This article is an educational justification for the British Government-funded project, Resilience (2009-2011), on addressing contentious issues through RE, which was carried out by the RE Council of England and Wales. A number of issues relating to the inclusion of religiously inspired violent extremism in the curriculum are raised. How do you define extremism? What are the political and educational issues and how should they be dealt with?A solution is offered which focuses on human rights in two ways: the right to freedom of religion and belief, and the promotion of pupils’ moral development through human rights issues. It is suggested that the work of the moral philosopher Kwame Antony Appiah is relevant to this; in particular, his concept of ‘honor’ which can be used by teachers as the basis for teaching about violent extremism and related topics in the classroom. The research is clearly of strong relevance to RE teachers, because issues of religiously inspired violent extremism will have to dealt with with pupils, whether as part of the planned curriculum or through questions raised by pupils.

Researcher

Joyce Miller

Research Institution

University of Warwick

What is this about?

• This is about the UK government-funded project Resilience, carried out by the RE Council of England and Wales, on addressing controversial issues through RE (including extremism).
• The project had critics – whose criticisms are noted – but the notion that RE should address extremism is defended.
• It is argued that a human rights-based approach offers RE a way to do this well, focusing on the right to freedom of religion and belief and the promotion of pupils’ moral development.
• Ideas from the moral philosopher Kwame Antony Appiah are joined to this argument, in particular, his concept of ‘honor’.

What was done?

This is a research essay, reviewing different materials and ideas on RE and religiously-inspired extremism, elements of human rights policy and moral philosophy in order to draw out recommendations for RE curriculum and pedagogy.

Main findings and outputs

• There is a tendency to treat words such as ‘fundamentalist’, ‘radical’, ‘terrorist’, ‘extremist’ and ‘violent extremist’ as if they are synonymous, when they are not. Care must be taken: a person with a radical religious perspective is not necessarily a terrorist, for instance.
• Teachers will have to deal with political issues, too, including the representation of extremism and religion in the media.
• Educationally, dealing with extremism should be a whole school matter but there is little doubt that RE will have a high profile because of widespread concerns over ‘Islamic’ terrorism.
• This puts RE teachers in a difficult position, especially because of criticisms that RE’s role should not be reduced to serving the state. Guidance is needed and teachers must respond in a balanced, critical way.
• A human rights approach will help. Firstly, people’s freedom of belief must be respected, though secondly, pupils have the right to critical discussion of religions and world-views, including engaging with the social and political dimensions of religions. Human rights declarations support these principles, state that they should be adhered to in schools, and have many countries as signatories, including the UK.
• Kwame Antony Appiah discusses honour. Practices such as slavery, binding girls’ feet and duelling vanished because they were eventually condemned as unworthy of respect. The idea of honour is potentially useful to RE pedagogy. In considering beliefs, practices and issues, pupils could be asked to evaluate whether they are honourable, dignified and worthy of respect.

Relevance to RE

The research arises out of concerns over RE’s place in the curriculum of the twenty-first century and how the subject might contribute to the future social well-being of the UK. Furthermore, it offers a possible approach to dealing with religious extremism within RE, for teachers to consider – this is evidently an area where many colleagues would appreciate ideas and guidance. The author recognises that the issues are far from easy and her suggestions are courageous and well-considered.

Generalisability and potential limitations

The discussion is generalisable to all RE teachers, since we are all highly likely to have to deal with the issues it raises in the classroom – and also in the sense that it offers an approach to questions of religion and extremism which colleagues could consider and try.

Find out more

REsilience, violent extremism and religious education, British Journal of Religious Education 35.2 pages 188-200 (published online 23 November 2012), 10.1080/01416200.2012.740444

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01416200.2012.740444

Research Summary

The research arises out of the author’s wish to generate a deeper level of meaningful discussion between his RE pupils. The context is Roman Catholic RE: however, its guidelines include the need for respect for and dialogue with non-Roman Catholic pupils, many of whom are present and in daily contact with their Catholic peers. An action research experiment was designed and conducted, aimed at assessing increasing the amounts of cumulative talk and exploratory talk during dialogues between the two kinds of pupils. Cumulative talk involves building on what others say whilst exploratory talk involves engaging critically with it. A set of paired pupil dialogues on RE themes were set up. Certain teacher interventions (e.g. introducing the topic of religion and science) were found to improve the quality of talk. The findings should interest RE teachers, because they suggest that the quality of pupil discussion can improve when pupils have the opportunity for dialogues with those whose beliefs are different to theirs, also suggesting that some topics particularly suit this approach.

Researcher

Antony Luby

Research Institution

Aberdeen City Council Roman Catholic RE service

What is this about?

• How can quality talk be achieved, or improved, in the RE classroom?
• Specifically, how can levels of cumulative talk (building on what others say) and exploratory talk (engaging critically with it) be increased?
• What potential does inter-faith dialogue have, to promote critical reflection and deep learning?

What was done?

An action research experiment is reported. Paired dialogues between 20 Roman Catholic and non-Roman Catholic pupils were set up, exploring e.g. views on God or the beginning of the universe. The dialogues were analysed for levels of on-task, cumulative and exploratory talk, by both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The effects of teacher interventions (e.g. introducing new dialogue themes) were also measured.

Main findings and outputs

• Overall, a high level of on-task conversation was noted. In terms of the themes most likely to generate cumulative or exploratory talk, three were initially identified – religion and science, values and historical proof.
• Texts on religion and science and historical proof were now introduced into the dialogues. Do other dimensions exist? What evidence about Jesus’s life do we have? Cumulative talk now decreased, whilst exploratory talk increased.
• In a subsequent intervention, a videoclip on the Turin Shroud was provided as a stimulus for dialogue. Now, cumulative talk increased slightly whilst exploratory talk decreased.
• Despite these fluctuations, overall levels of cumulative and exploratory talk were satisfactory (55.8% of conversation time and 17.2% of conversation time respectively, at the close of the investigation) especially given exploratory talk’s reputation as hard to generate.
• A questionnaire administered following the dialogues found that a large majority of the pupils involved thought that the dialogical approach met the conditions of ‘deep learning’: seeing connections between ideas from different areas, overcoming difficulty, asking questions about what you hear or read, relating learning to previous learning, applying new ideas to real-life situations.
• Pupil quotations regarding the experience of dialogue:
  ‘A learning experience that enables you to see other people’s views and perspectives and ultimately how your beliefs compare.’
  ‘It’s very good for learning about the things that are difficult to get your head around; also it helps me accept others’ opinions and attitudes towards religion’.

Relevance to RE

The potential of dialogical approaches to motivate RE pupils and enrich discussion and understanding is well documented, and this study is a useful addition. RE teachers might learn from and adapt several of its features:

• Being prepared to look at gaps in one’s own practice, and to devise, try out and evaluate possible improvements. Initially, the author had been intrigued when dialogues between pupils with different views and backgrounds had ‘broken out’ accidentally, outside his lesson plan. Unexpected events can provide leads or hunches to follow.
• Trying out dialogical activities with pupils.
• Monitoring pupils’ levels of engagement and quality of conversation and looking for themes likely to engage or stretch them in future. In the author’s case, religion and science stimulated quality discussion and deep learning, perhaps because of the pupils’ opportunity to explore both big questions and difference.

Generalisability and potential limitations

During the conclusion to the article the author makes the following points:
‘Another limitation of this action research study is the small sample size of 20 pupils from one school. Therefore, any future study should increase the number of participants such that the analyses undertaken can have more robust statistical significance. Also, the sample should be across different types of secondary schools as the school used in this study can fairly be described as an academically high-attainment city comprehensive. Attention should be paid to schools of different types (e.g. faith, selective), with different locations (e.g. suburban, rural), and with different overall levels of attainment.’

Find out more

First-footing inter-faith dialogue, Educational Action Research 22.1 pages 57-71 (published online 11 December 2013), 10.1080/09650792.2013.854176

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09650792.2013.854176

Research Summary

Islam’s reputation has been seriously compromised. Islamophobia and Islamism have been unlikely allies in this: Islamophobia thrives on negative stereotypes of Muslims, whilst Islamism thrives on the divisive effects of these stereotypes, which make it easier to portray Islam and ‘the West’ as enemies. The author calls for a balanced, evidence-based study of Islam’s morality (and contribution to human values) as a responsible way between these extremes. Four areas of Islamic morality are traced – inter-religious tolerance, scholarship, social welfare and gender equality. They stand in contrast to much of the popular image of Islam today, and need urgently to be studied. This would have the benefit of creating better understanding between Muslim and non-Muslim people and communities. Given the need for the RE curriculum and RE teachers to represent religious traditions fairly and accurately, the research presented in this article is highly relevant to both.

Researcher

Terence Lovat

Research Institution

University of Newcastle, Australia

What is this about?

• This is about the need for balanced teaching about Islamic morality; a vital task, since much ‘knowledge’ about Islam in western societies is driven by radical Islamist versions of Islam.
•  Examples of Islamic morality are presented, to shed light on Islam’s more positive contribution to human values and moral behaviour.
• The examples are from the following areas: inter-religious and inter-cultural tolerance; scholarship and science; social welfare; and gender equality.

What was done?

This is a scholarly essay which examines historical and contemporary sources and discussions of Islamic morality, making the case for a balanced and evidence-based treatment of these within education.

Main findings and outputs

• There are plentiful passages in Islam’s sacred texts that insist on respectful treatment of members of other faiths, e.g. in the Qur’an: Sura 21: 107 reads: ‘We have not sent you except to be a provider of mercy and peace to all humankind.’ Sura 109:: ‘to you be your religion and to me be mine.’
• Many scholars view Islamic societies such as medieval Cordoba as models of inter-religious tolerance, though this is also disputed.
• Against the stereotype of Islam as intellectually backward, for Islam, knowledge is God’s and the more knowledgeable we are, the more we can come to understand God. Medieval Islam pioneered scientific methodology, in areas such as engineering and medicine.
• The third pillar of Islam, zakat, is evidence of a strong commitment to social welfare. From the earliest days, a proportion of income, usually 2.5%, was deducted to support anyone in need. While an ethic towards assisting the poor is to be found in the other Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Christianity, only Islam spells out the obligation in the form of a tax.
• There are mixed views of Islam’s contribution to gender equality, some positive, others not. But the Qur’an guaranteed women’s right to inheritance, including of property, as well as rights for women to initiate divorce and testify in court. It protected women’s rights against coercion, including against sexual violence in marriage. Today, some scholars see the struggle to recover the voice of women as a recovery of Islam itself.

Relevance to RE

The material provided is of direct use to RE curriculum and pedagogy. The overall model (of steering a middle path between Islamism and Islamophobia) can be employed by curriculum developers and teachers in the service of balance, and the individual examples given can be used as teaching points when teaching about Islam. Lack of space permits only brief indications of the main points (above); teachers interested in using them as lesson items are advised to read the original article.

Generalisability and potential limitations

The material is of general use and relevance in preparing resources on and teaching about Islam. The research data come from a very broad and carefully considered base.

Find out more

Islamic morality: Teaching to balance the record, Journal of Moral Education 45.1 pages 1-15 (published online 4 May 2016), 10.1080/03057240.2015.1136601

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057240.2015.1136601

Research Summary

Mindfulness techniques and programmes are becoming more and more popular, being used in a wide range of fields including education at all levels. There is growing evidence that they help people to be focused on the present moment, stabilise their emotions and aid general well-being. Yet the mindfulness phenomenon is not without its problems. ‘Mindfulness’ practice tends to operate outside its original context of Buddhist philosophy and meditation. Cruder versions of ‘mindfulness’ that are designed to increase people’s ‘effectiveness’ – popularly known as ‘McMindfulness’ – are contrary to the original spiritual nature of mindfulness practices. For the author, mindfulness needs to be reconnected to its spiritual roots if its benefits are to be fully realised. However, in relation to RE, this could be seen as a problem in itself. What are the purposes of using mindfulness techniques in RE? Pupils cannot be asked to practise Buddhism, except in a Buddhist school. General notions of increasing their attention are not, specifically, in RE’s domain. The discussion should prompt RE teachers to consider their purposes carefully and critically.

Researcher

Terry Hyland

Research Institution

Free University of Ireland, Dublin

What is this about?

• Why are mindfulness techniques becoming more and more popular, in a range of settings (medicine, education, industry, etc.)?
• What are the connections between original Buddhist mindfulness practices and the secular versions of ‘mindfulness’ offered today? What is ‘McMindfulness’?
• How can mindfulness be reconnected to its original spiritual roots, for its benefits – especially in education – to be more fully realised?

What was done?

This is a critical, scholarly essay, reviewing different aspects of the popularity of ‘mindfulness’ in education systems, pointing out problems and setting out conclusions and questions for educational professionals to consider.

Main findings and outputs

• Mindfulness practices – e.g. sitting still, silently concentrating on the inward and outward breaths – are becoming more and more popular in a range of settings (medical, educational, industrial). This is because there is growing evidence that they can decrease stress, improve people’s general sense of well-being, and so on.
• In education, mindfulness practices have been found to improve focus and awareness, increase responsiveness to student needs, enhance classroom climate – and support readiness to learn, strengthen attention and concentration, reduce anxiety and enhance social and emotional learning.
• Modern, secular mindfulness programmes tend to emphasise the experience of being in the present moment. However, in the original context of Buddhist meditation and philosophy, this was linked to emphases on memory and morality that are now overlooked. Taking mindfulness out of its original context has tended to lead to a simplified, partial version of it.
• ‘McMindfulness’ is one consequence of this tendency. In industry, workers’ attention span is improved so as to increase productivity; in the US army, soldiers on ‘mindfulness’-based fitness training programmes learn to become more alert and effective .
• For the author, if mindfulness recovered its original spiritual roots, it would have the potential to do a great deal of genuine good in education. It might help learners to gain a sense of their own minds, a capacity for insight and reflection that could enhance any activity. It could be seen as a dimension of learning.

Relevance to RE

The discussion of ‘mindfulness’ provided in the article is balanced, critical and wide-ranging. It invites RE teachers to be critical about whether or not mindfulness techniques have a place in their lessons. The issue is problematic. Several questions in particular arise:

• In many ways it is hard to separate mindfulness practices from their Buddhist origins. RE teachers need to be very clear about what their purposes are if using mindfulness techniques. The possibilities for misunderstanding are strong; charges of indoctrination might follow.
• Educationally speaking, teachers need to be very clear about their purposes are. Some teachers champion mindfulness techniques as aiding pupil concentration, lowering stress, leading to better educational outcomes, etc. It needs to be borne in mind that these were not the original purposes of Buddhist mindfulness techniques and are also not exclusively matters for RE. Thus, RE teachers need to exercise care, so as not to misrepresent Buddhism to children, or to accept responsibility for a ‘mindfulness agenda’ in school on the vague grounds that it has religious or spiritual associations.
• At worst, ‘McMindfulness’ in school – attempting to alter pupils’ psychological states in order to boost the school’s ‘results’ – needs to be resisted as unethical.

Generalisability and potential limitations

The research offers a balanced, considered view of the ‘mindfulness’ phenomenon. The points presented are worthy of careful consideration by all teachers, because they represent – and prompt – critical professional reflection over whether or not mindfulness techniques should form part of pedagogy or general educational provision.

Find out more

The Limits of Mindfulness: Emerging Issues for Education, British Journal of Educational Studies 64.1 pages 97-117 (published online 22 June 2015), 10.1080/00071005.2015.1051946

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00071005.2015.1051946?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=rbje20

Research Summary

This article is about the requirement within the teachers’ standards that they ‘should not undermine fundamental British values’. For the authors, the inclusion of this statement within the teachers’ code of conduct has made its way from the counter-terrorism strategy, Prevent, and raises questions about Britishness, values and the relationship between the state and the profession more generally. They argue that that the inclusion of the phrase within a statutory document that regulates the profession is a politicization of the profession by the state. It introduces the expectation that teachers are state instruments of surveillance. It is also a problem that there has been no real debate about the statement, nor training for pre-service and inservice teachers; these gaps allow the concept of ‘fundamental British values’ to go unchallenged. Its potentially racialist implications are therefore unrecognised by most teachers. The message from the article for RE teachers is to handle the concepts of ‘Britishness’ and ‘ British values’ inclusively, and with great care and sensitivity.

Researchers

Sally Elton-Chalcraft, Vini Lander, Lynn Revell, Diane Warner & Linda Whitworth

Research Institution

University of Cumbria, Edge Hill University, Canterbury Christchurch University, University of Cumbria, Middlesex University

What is this about?

• This article is about the government’s requirement, set down in the teachers’ standards, that teachers should promote ‘fundamental British values’ in schools.
• The authors view the requirement as potentially damaging, as it seems to be grounded in racialism and nostalgia. Children of black or minority heritage backgrounds could be marginalised by it.
• This view is strengthened by their research, which indicates that many teachers in initial training experience no discussion or critique of the meaning of Britishness, leaving them vulnerable to falling back on stereotypes.
• This weakness may well lead to those teachers struggling to encourage a sense of Britishness, pride or loyalty amongst their British Sikh, Hindu or Muslim pupils. But these teachers will need to learn to overcome stereotypes in their classrooms in order to help those pupils to be confident in their British identity.

What was done?

Relevant literature on UK educational policy and the notion of Britishness was reviewed. Then, 20 teachers, including senior leaders, were interviewed, in various parts of England, aiming for a cross-section of the workforce. Next, 88 student teachers completed a qualitative online questionnaire. This article focuses on the student teachers’ understanding of what
constitutes Britishness and their understanding of why the ‘fundamental British values’ requirement is included in the standards.

Main findings and outputs

• The findings suggest that teachers are unable and unprepared to engage critically with issues of Britishness.
• Whilst student teachers who have experienced discussion and training on the issues of Britishness and British values adopt a more balanced or informed view, others tend to resort to stereotypes. Some rely on insider-outsider views of Britishness; outsiders are deficient in being not quite British enough. For some student teachers, the government’s emphasis on Britishness is there because multiculturalism has diluted British identity and patriotism now has to be regained. This was the most common response, equally with the need to ensure compliance with Britishness.
• At times student teachers confused stereotypes with values, leading the researchers to detect a need for education on what values actually are. The stereotypes included respect for the monarchy, care for animals, queueing and being polite. This could be a form of safety (preventing the need to go into controversial areas such as faith, Islamophobia, culture or ethnicity).
• The findings are concerning. Student teachers and teachers in service need to be educated to develop, with all children, a sense of pride in their nationality and ethnicity. This can only be done by enabling teachers to be critical about the requirement to promote British values – to investigate the meanings of ‘British’ and ‘values’. They should do this in concert with experts in related fields.

Relevance to RE

• At policy and curriculum level, the RE community needs to push for a recognition that Britishness is complex and diverse and that education into values requires investigation, reflection and debate within the classroom. Values are not something that can be straightforwardly ‘promoted’ or imposed.
• At the level of pedagogy the challenges are just as important. Many RE teachers will have been given responsibility for the ‘British values agenda’ by their schools, or expected to contribute to it. We need to resist narrow, stereotypical versions of ‘British values’ and continue to discuss issues of democracy, human rights and plurality with young people.
• For example: a commitment to British values includes the need to learn about the different religious and cultural traditions represented in Britain, in an atmosphere of respect that reflects their positive contribution to British life. In relation to democracy and human rights, there should be direct teaching about the origins of both (within religions and philosophies from different regions or countries) so that pupils can understand what they mean and how they arose. This concurs with statements made by Amanda Spielman as Oftsed’s chief inspector in June 2017: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/amanda-spielmans-speech-at-the-festival-of-education

Generalisability and potential limitations

The authors state that their sample is not representative, but a valuable snapshot of a range of perspectives from intending teachers. They are focusing on meaning for individuals, so generalisation is not desirable, or possible.

Find out more

To promote, or not to promote fundamental British values? Teachers’ standards, diversity and teacher education, British Educational Research Journal 43.1 pages 29-48 (published online 3 November 2016)

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/berj.3253/epdf

Research Summary

This is a philosophical essay about the nature of religion. The author analyses whether or not there is an attitude to human life that can be spoken of as distinctively religious. Partly this is to question the claims of other scholars that ‘religion’ is less an identifiable type of belief and behaviour, more a category used to put differing phenomena into a set and not in a helpful way. The author argues that there is a feature that all the phenomena which we customarily call religions at least appear to have in common. It is that of regarding certain beliefs, practices, persons, institutions, or places as sacred. This means that they express convictions about the way things ought to be in the world and are mysterious, relating to hidden or ‘occult’ forces. The research is relevant to RE’s place in the curriculum, suggesting that the subject’s role is to deal with a particular area of human experience that cannot be reduced to others. It also has relevance to RE pedagogy, suggesting that the focus of teaching should be the core of sacredness in religious traditions.

Researcher

Gregory W. Dawes

Research Institution

University of Otago, New Zealand

What is this about?

• Is there something unique about religion? That is, is there an attitude to human life that can be called distinctively religious?
• Or is ‘religion’ simply the invention of scholars, a category used to place different phenomena conveniently but falsely into a set?
• The author presents his case that there is a feature that all the phenomena we customarily call religions at least appear to have in common:
• This is to regard certain beliefs, practices, persons, institutions, or places as sacred.

What was done?

The article is a philosophical review and analysis of different points of view on what, if anything, is distinctive about religion.

Main findings and outputs

• The concept of religion has been under attack as a creation of the scholar, having no existence outside academia. But there are sets of practices, across history and across cultures, that seem appropriately described as religious.
• The essence of religion has been approached in different ways. e.g. by phenomenologists who viewed the sense of the sacred as something built into the human mind, or by sociologists such as Durkheim who identified a category of objects that are regarded as sacred. The author follows the latter line – an object is sacred if regarded as such.
• The religious attitude, based on regarding certain objects as sacred, involves emotions and behaviour as well as ideas. Sacred objects are protected from defilement and held to represent the way things ought to be. Non-sacred objects may also have these qualities (e.g. national symbols), so these qualities do not completely define sacredness – a sacred object is also an occult object (meaning, it refers to unseen, transcendent mysteries).
• The objects of modern physics do not meet the criteria of sacredness; e.g. sub-atomic realities may be unseen as regards everyday experience, but they are accessible experimentally.
• Critics of this kind of approach to religion sometimes argue that it mistakes religion as floating free of society and politics. However, the author recognises that regarding objects as sacred has political and power consequences, e.g. benefitting those of a certain class (presumably, he means allowing them to control access to sacred places or objects).

Relevance to RE

The research is relevant to discussions of RE’s place in the curriculum. It suggests that the subject’s role is to deal with a particular area of human experience that cannot be reduced to other areas of human experience; thus, RE has a very specific contribution that should not be reduced to part-status within the contributions made by other subjects. The research also has relevance to RE pedagogy, suggesting that the focus of teaching should be to ask: what is really sacred to this religious tradition and to its members? (Naturally, there may well be several sacred objects to configure, via mind-mapping, evaluation exercises, interviews with representatives of religious traditions and other activities.) Does this vary from member to member? How is this sacredness expressed? Is it true that some members of the tradition benefit more than others? Colleagues are advised to try modelling the curriculum and pedagogy with different religious traditions and expanding the range of questions and activities.

Generalisability and potential limitations

The research presents ideas to consider and follow up, rather than data that can or cannot be generalised. However, it does pose generally interesting and important questions about RE’s aims, curriculum and pedagogy.

Find out more

The Sacred, the Occult and the Distinctiveness of Religion Studies in Religion 46.1 pages 19-36 (published online November 18 2016)

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0008429816673046

Research Summary

This article is about how education relates, or should relate, to concerns about security and extremism. There are different meanings of security (national, human and societal); and we should ask, who provides security for whom? There is a dilemma, because education appears to be irrelevant to huge global questions of security but central to finding good ways to conduct human relations. The article looks at attempts to use education as a security measure, and also at education’s links to young people joining or supporting extremist movements. The UK’s ‘Prevent’ strategy is examined. The issue of how to safeguard young people without making schools into security institutions suggests four key features: inclusivity, encounters with difference, networking and active citizenship. A critical approach to sacred texts and the use of humour and satire also act to foster resilience. These are relevant to RE as they could be and often are seen as roles for RE. Finally, for the author, it is important to tackle violence in schools and promote a human rights culture that protects both human security and ultimately national security.

Researcher

Lynn Davies

Research Institution

University of Birmingham

What is this about?

• How does, and how should, education relate to matters of security and extremism?
• What are some ways in which education has been used as a security measure? What are education’s links to young people joining or supporting extremist movements?
• How can young people be safeguarded without turning schools into security institutions?
• In answer to the latter question, being inclusive, providing encounters with difference, networking and promoting active citizenship are all important, as are humour and a critical approach to sacred texts. Generally, schools need to develop a strong human rights culture.

What was done?

This is a research essay, reviewing different types of security, different relationships between security and education in different parts of the world and drawing recommendations for educational systems and schools that wish to safeguard young people and promote security without turning themselves into security institutions.

Main findings and outputs

• Though security is often associated with world events and military issues, it operates on different levels. Do people have access to resources? Are different cultures and religions secure within their societies? Are eco-systems sustainable? It isn’t only about counter- terrorism.
• Similarly, different groups might compete to offer security to people: states, private firms. religious or political groups, or gangs.
• In education, ‘securitisation’ occurs when the state seeks to control how knowledge and values are transmitted to children.
• The UK Prevent strategy has caused much concern as a case in point, but in fact the guidance says:  ‘Schools should be safe spaces in which children and young people can understand and discuss sensitive topics, including terrorism and the extremist ideas that are part of terrorist ideology, and learn how to challenge these ideas. The Prevent duty is not intended to limit discussion of these issues.’
• These challenges are not easy for teachers, especially because other parts of the guidance seem to imply that ‘immigrants’ are a threat to British values.
• Education can have varied roles in relation to extremism: providing jobs and security, or the hope of these, being neutral, or teaching the obedience that makes young people vulnerable to manipulation and recruitment.
• What it should do is adopt a thorough human rights culture, both by teaching about and practising human rights; and a ‘dynamic secularism’ that emphasises no particular faith but acknowledges and protects religion, stressing freedom of expression. See next section:

Relevance to RE

RE departments and teachers would have a key role in developing the forms of safeguarding (without turning schools into security institutions) that are identified in the research.
These include inclusive human rights, especially respect for learners’ views – teachers and pupils need to relate on a much more equal basis than is customary; opportunities to encounter members of different faiths and to work together with them; the organisation of RE-linked networks, e.g. online forums; and activist groups that work to promote causes of social justice. The author calls for a critical, and when appropriate, humorous approach to sacred texts in the classroom. Her discussion of security ultimately prompts a set of wholesome, positive principles and strategies for educators (though adventurous); it puts a high responsibility on RE, if perhaps by appearing a little ready to associate terrorism with religion in the context of its curriculum and pedagogical recommendations – though also including brave ideas that might arguably find places in history or citizenship curricula (i.e. looking into past conflicts with the aim of avoiding repetitions).

Generalisability and potential limitations

Overall, this is a well-informed and balanced discussion of issues that should be of importance to all RE professionals: its contribution is less to provide generalisable data, more to identify generally significant questions for debate, with possible answers also suggested.

Find out more

Security, Extremism and Education: Safeguarding or Surveillance? British Journal of Educational Studies 64.1 pages 1-19 (published online 22 December 2015)

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00071005.2015.1107022

Research Summary

In the early days of non-confessional, multi-faith RE in the UK, there was close collaboration between religious studies academics, teacher educators and teachers. These conversations should be picked back up, say the authors, and they aim to start the process. They go through some recent developments in university religious studies and spell out some possible implications for RE. These implications are that RE should take an anti-essentialist approach to religions (by stressing diversity within and between religions), take into account local and global contexts, recognise that society is complex and changing, focus on real people and seldom-heard voices and criticise dominant views (e.g.patriarchal or colonialist). The research offers RE teachers and other RE professionals a lot to consider, particularly in relation to whether the picture of religion and religions offered to pupils is accurate and fair.

Researchers

Denise Cush & Catherine Robinson

Research Institution

Bath Spa University

What is this about?

• What can university religious studies contribute to school RE, through a conversation between the two
• In particular, how can recent developments within university religious studies be taken on board by RE teachers and other professionals, to help ensure that religion and religions are presented to pupils in a fair and accurate way?
• In regard to the latter question, specific recommendations are made: that RE should take an anti-essentialist approach to religions (by stressing diversity within and between religions), take into account local and global contexts, recognise that society is complex and changing, focus on real people and seldom-heard voices and criticise dominant views (e.g.patriarchal or colonialist).

What was done?

This is a research essay, reviewing developments in religious studies and religion via literature, and identifying links to RE curriculum and teaching, with an emphasis on how these should be developed so as to reflect the field appropriately.

Main findings and outputs

• The authors stress that they do not wish to cascade knowledge ‘down’ to teachers – the model sought is a partnership.
• Ethnographic approaches in religious studies have much to offer RE, emphasising lived, contemporary, people-centred accounts of religion.
• So do Feminist approaches, by challenging accepted accounts of religion or religions, uncovering abuses, requiring that resources be checked for gender equality, and giving confidence to pupils to voice their own experiences and views of religion.
• Queer theory has directed attention to how religions define and evaluate sex, gender and sexuality. Teachers can adapt this, given the need for respect for people whatever their gender or sexual identities.
• Postcolonial theory contributes the skill of describing religions through indigenous voices and indigenous concepts – learning not to see different religions as exotic or in need of comparison with Christianity, but able to speak for themselves.
• In the UK the religious landscape is changing all the time and becoming plural in different ways, e.g. there are increasing numbers of people with hybrid spirituality that draws on several religious traditions. Non-religious world-views and new religious movements also have to be taken into account. Some religious or spiritual communities are transnational.

Relevance to RE

The article offers a stimulating, potentially very useful set of curricular and pedagogical checks: does teaching include lived, contemporary, people-centred accounts of religion? Are resources and teaching sensitive to the needs for balanced, equal representation by gender and sexuality? Are religions and their members allowed to speak for themselves? Do curriculum and pedagogy reflect different kinds of plurality, e.g. people whose spirituality draws on several religious traditions?

Generalisability and potential limitations

The article does not present data that can be generalisable, or not, as such; its contribution is to focus on an important issue (the relationship between religious studies and RE) and to identify useful, challenging questions for consideration and debate, amongst RE professionals in general.

Find out more

Developments in religious studies: towards a dialogue with religious education British Journal of Religious Education 36.1 pages 4-17 (published online 11 September 2013)

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01416200.2013.830960

Research Summary

This is a reply to Denise Cush’s and Catherine Robinson’s 2014 article, which we have reported separately under the title: Reviving the conversation between religious studies and RE. Readers are advised to read the report of Cush’s and Robinson’s research first.

The author takes issue with aspects of Cush’s and Robinson’s presentation. He argues that they do not appreciate the difference between the aims of religious studies and those of RE: they fail to recognise that the roots of some of the weaknesses in contemporary RE can be traced to the influence of religious studies over it. He goes on to say that showing that RE has (and is required to have) a different set of aims from religious studies (though some aims may be held in common) alerts us to its distinctive nature. This in turn facilitates a clearer understanding of its role in schools, which can serve both to direct and to evaluate educational outcomes. The article is clearly relevant to RE practice, as teachers and other professionals can consider its arguments carefully as part of their reflections on the extent to which they are maximising RE’s contribution to young people’s education.

Researchers

L. Philip Barnes

Research Institution

King’s College, London

What is this about?

• What are the claims made in Cush’s and Robinson’s 2014 article, and how far can these claims be justified?
• What is the nature of the relationship between religious studies and RE?
• How are university and school contexts comparable, with regard to how religion is studied?
• How should RE contribute to the moral and social aims of school education?

What was done?

This is a critical scholarly essay, interacting with a previous article in order to assess the relationship between religious studies and RE and identify principles for the future development of RE.

Main findings and outputs

• In one sense Cush and Robinson are right. There is much that religious studies and RE can learn from one another. But their discussion is one-sided, overemphasing what RE can learn from religious studies, not giving detailed attention to what religious studies could learn from RE pedagogy.
• A deeper, more critical analysis is needed. Religious studies and RE have different if overlapping aims.
• Some of Cush’s and Robinson’s discussions, e.g. that of feminism, suggest that objectivity in relation to religion is not desirable, but they do not explain what objectivity means. If they mean that one should not be neutral on important values, moral objectivity (reasoned ethical argument) ought to be held up as important.
• On postcolonialism and its value to RE, they tend to speak as if indigenous people have not been given fair representation in RE, but Robert Jackson’s interpretive approach has already drawn on religious studies to do this.
• In relation to feminism and queer theory, they assume that these are uncontroversial – which may be truer for university students electing to study them than for school pupils from a range of backgrounds. The key point is that university and school contexts are different.
• RE, like religious studies, involves the study of religion but is part of a school system emphasising the moral and social aims of education. Strengthening it should involve attention to the moral teachings of religions, not copying developments in religious studies.

Relevance to RE

The author states these roles for RE: ‘to prepare pupils to live amidst moral and religious diversity; to help them to develop self-respect, to make wise moral choices and to equip them to contribute positively to society.’

As far as making use of religion’s moral teachings is concerned, he states: ‘each of the religions has a vision of the good both for the individual and for society; each of the religions has a historically evolving body of moral teachings; and each of the religions has made important responses to contemporary moral issues.’ These visions, teachings and responses can form lesson content.

In considering curriculum development and pedagogy, teachers and others can weigh up whether these or Cush’s and Robinson’s recommendations offer the more appropriate aims for RE, which stand to generate the more engaging pedagogy, or whether in fact the two sets of recommendations are compatible. For example, attending to religious morality (Barnes) ought to include issues of equality, diversity and justice (Cush and Robinson).

This is not simply an ‘academic’ discussion, since decisions about the aims and nature of RE need to be clear, and curriculum and pedagogy then need to follow clearly from them, as part of a bigger professional picture.

Generalisability and potential limitations

The article does not present data that can be held up as generalisable, or not; its contribution is to focus on an important issue (the relationship between religious studies and RE), to interact critically with an earlier discussion of that relationship, and to identify ways forward for RE teachers and RE professionals in general. In considering the two articles together, readers can weigh up a good range of views, which should remove some limitations of perspective.

Find out more

Religious studies, religious education and the aims of education British Journal of Religious Education 37.2 pages 195-206 (published online 5 September 2014)

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01416200.2014.953912

Research Summary

There are various ways to try to prove that God does not exist. One way is to say that God is supposed to possess a certain quality, such as omniscience; then to say that having the relevant quality is impossible (because no being knows everything). Therefore God does not exist. This article argues that this kind of argument against God’s existence is not effective. If having a given property is impossible, even if God is the greatest possible being, God need not have that property. The article goes on to describe how arguments against the existence of God should be made. They need to include sub-arguments about what God would have to be like, rather than just assuming that an existent God would have to be, for example, omniscient, or pointing to traditions that say that God is, for example, omniscient. Alternatively, they could point out contradictions between necessary qualities of God and known facts. The article is of direct use to teachers of A level philosophy and ethics courses; they can use its key points to teach about the nature of God and arguments for and against God’s existence.

Researcher

Patrick Todd

Research Institution

University of Edinburgh

What is this about?

• Can God have qualities that are impossible to have? God (traditionally) is held to be omniscient, for example. But this is impossible, so is the existence of God impossible?
• No: God is the greatest possible being. If possession of a quality such as omniscience is impossible, that just means that possession of that quality is impossible, not that the greatest possible being cannot exist.
• But this doesn’t mean that God necessarily exists. There are better ways of arguing for atheism. For example, you could argue that an existent God would have to have a certain quality (e.g. perfect goodness) in order to be God; then prove that possession of that quality is impossible. You could argue that an existent God would have to have a certain quality, or set of qualities, and prove this to be inconsistent with the facts of the world.

(More detail below, main findings and outputs.)

What was done?

This is a scholarly essay in philosophical theology, reviewing different arguments about the nature and existence of God and offering some partial but interesting and important conclusions.

Main findings and outputs

• There are grounds to say that omniscience is impossible. Omniscience would include knowing that you were omniscient. This knowledge would be based on your omniscience. In a sense, then, omniscience would be based on omniscience, but something cannot be based on itself.
• Omniscience may be an impossible quality to have. Some would then say: God is supposed to be omniscient, but because omnisicience is impossible, God cannot exist. But that does not follow: God is the greatest possible being. If possession of a quality such as omniscience is impossible, that just means that possession of that quality is impossible, not that the greatest possible being cannot exist.
• There are better ways of arguing for atheism. You could argue that God would have to have a quality (e.g. perfect goodness) in order to be God; then prove that its possession is impossible. Or that an existent God would have to have a certain quality, and prove this to be inconsistent with the facts of the world.
• The problem of evil exemplifies this latter type of argument. Evil is a fact of the world, incompatible with a good, all-knowing, all-powerful God.
• An ‘omniGod’ possesses all ideal qualities. A ‘MaximalGod’ possesses only those ideal qualities that are possible (thus solving the ‘omniscience is impossible’ type of problem). ‘MaximalGod’ is no solution to the problem of evil, however – the existence of the greatest possible being is still brought into question by the existence of evil.

Relevance to RE

• Teachers of A level philosophy and ethics could use the material directly with students, when teaching about the nature of God, or arguments for and against the nature of God.
• Students could, for example, evaluate the ‘omniGod’ / ‘MaximalGod’ distinction provided in the essay. Is ‘MaximalGod’ an adequate concept of God? How far is it compatible with other important beliefs such as creatio ex nihilo or miracles? Is the writer correct to argue that ‘MaximalGod’ is no solution to the problem of evil? In these ways, they would deepen their understanding of the issues and extend their subject specialist language.

Generalisability and potential limitations

The ideas are highly applicable within their field, i.e. debates about the nature of God and God’s existence, and A level philosophy and ethics teachers should find them to be very useful both in expanding their own subject knowledge and as a resource for students.

Find out more

The greatest possible being needn’t be anything impossible, Religious Studies 51, 531–542 (published online 1 November 2014)

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/religious-studies/article/div-classtitlethe-greatest-possible-being-neednandapost-be-anything-impossiblediv/3CDC5CD718421FB44ED99F78661847E5