Learning from religions as ‘skilful means’: a contribution to the debate about the identity of religious education

This article is a revised version of the author’s contribution to the 2006 meeting of the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values in Driebergen, the Netherlands and is concerned with the need for continuing discussion about the identity of religious education. The article begins by arguing that, despite current criticisms, Smart’s original intentions for phenomenological religious education were far from inappropriate for a critical religious education. It then attempts to introduce some fresh ideas about how we might understand the commonly used terms of learning about and from religion. It suggests that in learning about religion it is important to engage students with the soteriological dimensions of religious traditions. The article then goes on to offer a revised version of learning from religion based on the Mahayana Buddhist concept of upaya or ‘skilful means’.     

Re-defining ‘learning about religion’ and ‘learning from religion’: a study of policy change

The study of how policy processes shape religious education as a curriculum subject, rather than within faith schooling, is relatively unexplored. This paper applies a policy analysis perspective to an important distinction in non-confessional English religious education, which has also been adopted internationally: ‘learning about religion’ and ‘learning from religion’. The changing nature of the distinction in English policy documents from 1994 is examined in the light of three main voices of influence on educational policy: neo-conservatives, neo-liberals and progressives. These changes are also analysed through three policy contexts: influence, text production and practice. Revisions to policy wording are interpreted in the light of this theory, showing the growing significance of neo-liberalism, and the nature of compromise, amendment and ambiguity. The implications for an understanding of the inter-relationship between policy, pedagogy and practice are then considered.     

Understanding ‘religious understanding’ in religious education

This paper takes as its starting point, one of the explicit aims of religious education in England, namely, the development of students’ religious understanding. It shows how curriculum documentation, whilst stating that religious understanding is an aim of religious education fails to clearly outline what is meant by it. This paper draws upon long-standing and ongoing debates in the field and suggests that religious understanding may be best conceived as a spectrum of understanding. Approached in this way, religious understanding becomes not an all or nothing affair, but a lens through which the student of religion may regard the beliefs and practices before them. Finally, the paper proposes an interpretation of religious understanding, which focuses on the soteriological dimension of religion, thus providing the student with a particularly religious lens to understand religious traditions in religious education and concludes by outlining what such an approach might look like in practice.     

Negotiating queer and religious identities in higher education: queering ‘progression’ in the ‘university experience’

This article addresses the negotiation of ‘queer religious’ student identities in UK higher education. The ‘university experience’ has generally been characterised as a period of intense transformation and self-exploration, with complex and overlapping personal and social influences significantly shaping educational spaces, subjects and subjectivities. Engaging with ideas about progressive tolerance and becoming, often contrasted against ‘backwards’ religious homophobia as a sentiment/space/subject ‘outside’ education, this article follows the experiences and expectations of queer Christian students. In asking whether notions of ‘queering higher education’ (Rumens 2014 Rumens, N. 2014. “Queer Business: Towards Queering the Purpose of the Business School.” In The Entrepreneurial University: Public Engagements, Intersecting Impacts, edited by Y. Taylor, 82–104. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) ‘fit’ with queer-identifying religious youth, the article explores how educational experiences are narrated and made sense of as ‘progressive’. Educational transitions allow (some) sexual-religious subjects to negotiate identities more freely, albeit with ongoing constraints. Yet perceptions of what, where and who is deemed ‘progressive’ and ‘backwards’ with regard to sexuality and religion need to be met with caution, where the ‘university experience’ can shape and shake sexual-religious identity.     

Giving voice to ‘the silent minority’: the experience of religious students in secondary school religious education lessons

This paper explores the experiences of secondary school students from religious backgrounds in Religious Education (RE). A total of 16 loosely structured, group, pair and individual interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 34 school-age members of four religious communities: one Jewish and three Christian. The findings make a useful contribution to ongoing debates concerning pedagogy and practice in secondary RE. Members of the religious communities consulted often found their tradition stereotyped and simplified in RE lessons. Respondents also found that at times they were expected to be, or felt the need to be, spokespeople or representatives of their religion. However, experiences of religious intolerance and prejudice, or the fear of it, were common. This led to some students being reluctant to reveal or discuss their religious identity in lessons.     

The ‘right’ education in Israel: segregation,religious ethnonationalism,and depoliticized professionalism

This paper underlines three foundations upon which the current condition of the Israeli education system is predicated. These are: (a) the separation between Palestinians and Jews in the Israeli education system and isolating both from any significant contact; (b) endorsing a strong ethno-religious ethos and narratives that widen the chasm between the Jewish ‘us’ and the Palestinian ‘them’; and (c) shaping education for the Palestinians in Israel as a highly standardized and de-contextualized endeavor that excludes ideology and politics, which are seen as irrelevant to good professionalism, while substantiating and thickening the ideological education in the Jewish education system in line with the right political agenda . In doing so, this paper contextualizes these foundations in the recent developments of Israeli politics. Particularly, the paper associates these foundations with the rise of the extreme right politics in Israel, arguing that these, taken together, serve the state’s efforts to continue preserving its excluding ethnocentric political regime and controlling the Arab Palestinian education in Israel under conditions of subordination and inequality.     

Pupils’ voices about citizenship education: comparative case studies in Finland,Sweden and England

The aim of the article is to present and discuss a study in which Finnish, English and Swedish pupils’ understanding of citizenship education with regard to: (a) political literacy; and (b) attitudes and values was explored. The study was a cross‐national, multiple case study and data were collected through 18 focus group dialogues with 15‐year‐old pupils. Results showed that English pupils were much more well‐informed about rights and responsibilities than their Nordic counterparts and also more skilled rhetorically, but appeared less accustomed to open and confident relationships with adults than the Swedish pupils. Finnish pupils did not seem to be encouraged to talk; instead they kept their thoughts and feelings to themselves. One conclusion, among others, was that the study illuminates conditions for the development of a so‐called key competence – i.e., ‘interpersonal, intercultural, social and civic competence’.     

Quality of religious education in Croatia assessed from teachers’ perspective

The main aim of the present study was to examine the quality of religious education in Croatian primary schools when assessed from teachers’ perspective. Religious education teachers (N?=?226) rated the impact of certain factors on the existing quality of religious education in primary schools and expressed their expectations about the future status of this aspect of education. In addition, teachers rated different sources of their professional satisfaction as religious education teachers. We identified understandable latent dimensions of teachers’ opinions, expectations and satisfaction where retained dimensions are modestly interrelated. The conducted regression analyses suggest that teachers with different professional status-related personal attributes are fairly uniform in their views, expectations and satisfactions. An interesting finding of this study concerns the relationship between school-based Catholic religious education and the parish-based catechesis, where an existing relationship represents a weak source of religious education teachers’ satisfaction. This represents a valuable empirically driven insight regarding the Catholic religious education in Croatian schools with some importance to the broader context of religious education in general.     

Three versions of ‘localism’: implications for upper secondary education and lifelong learning in the UK

As part of the international debate about new forms of governance and moves towards decentralization and devolution, this article discusses the increasing interest in the concept of ‘localism’ in the UK, marked recently by the publication of the UK Coalition Government’s ‘Localism Bill’. A distinction is made between three versions – ‘centrally managed’, ‘laissez-faire’ and ‘democratic’ localism. The article draws on two research projects funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and one by the Nuffield Foundation, as well as sources by specialists in local government, political analysts and educationalists. It explores the broad features of the three versions of localism and their implications for upper secondary education and lifelong learning. The article concludes by examining the strengths and limitations of the first two models and suggests that the third has the potential to offer a more equitable way forward.     

The role of the ‘technical fix’ in UK lifelong education policy

The integral place of information and communications technology (ICT) in UK lifelong education has been established by a series of technology-based initiatives introduced by the New Labour government since 1997. Initiatives such as the University for Industry, learndirect, People's Network and National Grid for Learning are being implemented as part of a coherent lifelong education policy-agenda fundamentally based upon the use of ICT. Yet, beneath the political enthusiasm for technology-based education, the role of ICT in lifelong learning remains largely unexamined and unproblematized, with many policy-makers and educationalists content to view technology as providing a ‘technical fix’ for many of education's problems. From this background, the present paper provides a critical perspective on the technological foundations of the UK government's lifelong education agenda. In particular, it examines the nature and form of the policies that have been introduced and then contrasts them with the rhetorical claims that are being made by government and other official actors. In this way the paper discusses how such policies continue to be shaped within a restrictive technocratic and determinist discourse of the ‘technical fix’, thus conforming to traditional narratives of society and technology. The paper then goes on to explore how such construction juxtaposes social and economic elements of the policy-drive and threatens, ultimately, to restrict the eventual educational effectiveness of these ‘new’ lifelong learning initiatives.     

‘... for more and better religious education’

Mahner and Bunge argue that (1) science and religion are incompatible, in order to develop their thesis, that (2) a religious education ... is an obstacle to the development of a scientific mentality, and that therefore we should only teach our children (3) how science explains the existence of religion in historical, biological, psychological and sociological terms, and that (4) religious education should be kept away from public schools ... I offer brief comments on each of these strands of their argument. Religionists, to use Mahner and Bunge's term, generally come from a specific stance so I shall make it clear, from the outset, that these remarks come from a Christian standpoint, even though many of them are much more widely applicable. Although I agree with some of the observations which Mahner and Bunge make, my conclusions are generally opposite to theirs on each of the four points.     

‘We have our own religion’: a pupil perspective on minority religion and ethics instruction in Finland

The Finnish system of religious education offers instruction in the pupil’s own religion or in ethics throughout comprehensive school. By taking the pupil’s background as a basis for instruction, this system aims at promoting equality and integration with respect to religion and one’s worldview. However, there has been little knowledge about how the system of instruction is experienced by pupils themselves and how it affects pupil’s identities at school. This study illuminates through a participant observation study in grades 1–6 how pupils in five minority instruction groups experience their classes and perceive themselves in relation to other pupils in school. The study shows how working in small groups represents an important element in pupils’ experiences. Pupils generally experienced participation in instruction as positive and fun, but age integration, organisation of schedules and classrooms were also important concerns. Even if pupils were content about having their own instruction group, feelings of otherness and a negative sense of difference in relation to the majority of pupils were found particularly among pupils of religion.     

Assembling the actors: exploring the challenges of ‘system leadership’ in education through Actor-Network Theory

This paper presents insights into the leadership implications of recent shifts in a range of policy contexts towards notions of collaboration and partnership. The paper draws on empirical research into the formation and operation of government instituted networks in the context of education in Victoria, Australia. From 2001, School Networks and Local Learning and Employment Networks (LLEN) were implemented by the state government to support young people in their transition through school and into employment in a context of a risk society, a context where pathways into sustainable employment for young people, and others, had become more erratic. For comparative purposes, the paper also draws on published research into the implementation of joined-up approaches, including Primary Strategy Learning Networks (PSLN), in England. Using concepts from Actor-Network Theory (ANT), the paper argues for the value of considering the full range of actors – both human and non-human, real and unreal – involved in networking initiatives and proposes some thoughts on the implications of such a sociology of associations for both leadership and governance.     

The social life of Learning Analytics: cluster analysis and the ‘performance’ of algorithmic education

This paper argues that methods used for the classification and measurement of online education are not neutral and objective, but involved in the creation of the educational realities they claim to measure. In particular, the paper draws on material semiotics to examine cluster analysis as a ‘performative device’ that, to a significant extent, creates the educational entities it claims to objectively represent through the emerging body of knowledge of Learning Analytics (LA). It also offers a more critical and political reading of the algorithmic assemblages of LA, of which cluster analysis is a part. Our argument is that if we want to understand how algorithmic processes and techniques like cluster analysis function as performative devices, then we need methodological sensibilities that consider critically both their political dimensions and their technical-mathematical mechanisms. The implications for critical research in educational technology are discussed.     

The historical formation of modern education and the junction of the ‘educational lower class’: Poor education as the denominator of social position and status in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Finland

Modern industrial society liberated the sources of livelihood, gave birth to salaried labour and began to cater for social mobility, i.e. broke the foundations of traditional estate society. Traditional trades and socialization mechanisms attached to families were replaced by mass production and education. Education played a crucial role in the project of modern industrialized society. Its task was, besides production of a productive labour force, i.e. good workers, also the production of good citizens and decent personalities. Education always works, however, in the other direction, too. By opening up life‐paths and chances for some, it simultaneously closes them off from others. It also plays the key role as the producer of social exclusion and indigence and eventually as the producer of normality and deviance permeating through the entire society. This paper is based on a comprehensive, long‐term research project funded by the Academy of Finland. Its goal is to locate the historically changing meaning of scarce education and no education at all as the denominator, producer and outcome of social exclusion and indigence. The authors are also interested in the change in the whole way of life or ‘habitus’ or moral citizenship demanded of the modern educated man and as its reverse side the habitus of the non‐educated man. The analysis of exclusion is extended from as early as the time of ‘absolute poverty’ of the nineteenth‐century European modern society to the time of ‘relative deprivation’ of postindustrial welfare societies in the late twentieth century. The research seeks answers to how education and indigence have been linked at various points in time and especially how the so‐called modern Nordic welfare model defines the interrelations of education, citizenship, labour market citizenship and exclusion, i.e. the borderlines classifying the population. The criteria of social exclusion have to be defined in the context of historical time and nation and it is not possible to use the same criteria in a historically comparative analysis. ‘Educational lower class’ is used as the tool referring to the excluded. The aim is to define its criteria, composition, outcomes and birth mechanisms at a certain point in time by means of concrete sociohistorical research. Theoretical interest is focused on clarification of the concept ‘educational lower class’ as a ‘zero‐line’ concept of the theory of marginal utility, although we are well aware that the explication of that line is as ‘relative’ as the frequently presented efforts to draw the line between relative poverty and relative deprivation. The concrete part of this research is concentrated on the formation of the modern Finnish educational system in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is based on comprehensive and versatile historical data. The educational ‘zero‐line’ is located both from above, i.e. from the direction of official educational discourse, and also from the middle and below, i.e. from the viewpoints of public discourse and the users of education. Committee reports, legislation, public documents, clarifications and statistics are used as sources for outlining the official discourse. The intermediary level of discourse is analysed with the help of historical data from the press and periodicals. The ‘citizen's viewpoints’ of the objects of education are searched for in written biographies, interviews and archives of enterprises.     

‘The fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom’: A defence of religious education in county schools

ABSTRACT

It is argued here that understanding John Dewey's thought as that of a prodigal liberal or a fellow traveller does not capture the complexity of his work. It is also important to recognise the portion of his work that is historie morale. In the very best sense it is epic, encapsulating the hopes and dreams of a history of the American people in the early 1900s. It is a work that simultaneously pursues modernity and the past – for the sake of coping with the present. It also calls attention to an unnoticed element in his work ‘inexperience’.     

Biopolitics and the ‘subject’ of labor in science education

Viewing science education as a site of biopolitical engagement—intervention into forces that seek to define, control, and exploit life (biopower)—requires that science educators ask after how individuals and populations are governed by technologies of power. In this paper, I argue that microanalyses, the analysis of everyday practices and discourses, are integral to biopolitical engagement, are needed to examine practices that constitute subjectivities and maintain oppressive social conditions. As an example of a microanalysis I will discuss how repetitive close-ended lab/assessment tasks, as well as discourses surrounding careers in science, can work to constitute students as depoliticized, self-investing subjects of human capital. I also explore the relationship between science education, (bio)labor and its relation to biopolitics, which remains an underdeveloped area of science education. This paper, part of my doctoral work, began to take shape in 2011, shortly after the 2008 economic crisis achieved a tiny breached in the thick neoliberal stupor of everyday (educational) life.