‘I’m a Woman Before I'm an RE Teacher': managing religious identity in secondary schools

Religion and sexuality tend not to make easy bedfellows. This article draws on a life history study which has followed a cohort of religious education (RE), secondary postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) students through their training and into their first years of teaching. In addition to the adaptations, stresses and challenges commonly faced by people when they become teachers, it seems that RE specialists have to deal with unattractive (personal) identities and expectations associated with their subject. The article discusses the ways in which women RE teachers used clothes, hairstyles and make-up, together with explicit reference to their social lives, to challenge the ascribed identities which had negative implications both for their own sense of self and for their pedagogy.