Search

Set against the background of mid-nineteenth century concerns about an erosion in the denomination’s standing and influence, this article highlights the differing responses to the matter from parties within the Church of England, which determined their degree of sympathy with proposals for an education act. Specifically, we point out that the debate over schooling between co-religionists centred upon rival understandings of religious education: ‘denominational’ and ‘undenominational’. We examine the claims of some contemporary High Church leaders and later commentators, that acceding to elements of the 1870 Act, specifically the ‘conscience’ and ‘Cowper-Temple’ clauses, represented a pyrrhic victory and that in doing so the Church appeared to resile from its place in society. However, we argue that, though the Church could no longer be described as ‘England’s educator’, it retained considerable influence within the evolving school system and in policymaking. Moreover, we point out that ‘denominational’ religious education continued to be championed, having diffusive influence, well into the twentieth century. Finally, just as understanding nineteenth-century ecclesiastical history and religious culture is crucial to understanding this moment in the educational past, we argue that a thoroughgoing religious historical literacy is essential to understanding educational policy development regardless of the period under scrutiny.

This essay considers the Church of England’s policy towards religious education in fully-maintained schools without a religious character in twentieth-century England and Wales. At first glance, religious education may seem to be a minor aspect of ecclesiastical and political history.Yet, it is very revealing in several respects. First, the Church has always been committed to the religious education of the whole of the people in England and Wales, not least through schooling. It has consistently taken the view that,as the national Church,it has the cure of all souls, regardless of faith. Such is the Church’s commitment to the religious education of all, that its attitudes on this issue towards schools without a religious character is difficult to distinguish from those in its own Church schools.Second, policies on religious education maybe regarded as a barometer of the dynamic between Church,state,other denominations, other faiths,and those of no faith. Education has been an issue on which the Church has always sought to exercise a role in the public sphere, locally as well as nationally, regardless of the population’s self-declared religious sensibilities.Third, despite the relentless decline in affiliation, as measured by baptism and confirmation statistics,the Church has maintained a significant influence within education. Across the twentieth century the Church has obtained states upport and patronage for its schools, with the costs of buildings, repairs and staffing increasingly borne by locally-drawn revenues and the national exchequer. In 1903, there were 11,687 Church of England schools educating 2,338,602 children, forming around 40 per cent of the school population. By 2000,the proportion of children educated in the Church’s schools had fallen to around 20 per cent, that is 924,000 children. However, in parallel with this decline, the Church negotiated a retention of its direct influence over the nature, purpose and content of religious education in the wider maintained sector,chiefly as a result of the 1944 Education Act, which required Local Education Authorities (LEAs)to constitute Agreed Syllabus Conferences to prepare, adopt and reconsider syllabuses of religious instruction,and permitted LEAs to constitute Standing Advisory Councils for Religious Education to advise the authority upon relevant matters. The Church has also shaped developments in religious education by means of the financial resources available to it through the Church college trusts, which emerged from the shrinkage in the Church-college sector during the 1970s.Moreover, the Church has extended its reach and influence in religious education beyond Church schools, particularly during the post-Second World War period, through its network of diocesan advisers. Their role has become all the more important and influential with the gradual demise of support by local authorities for religious education,from the Thatcher period onwards. How this came to be is recounted below, by examining the dominant opinions within the Church on religious education across the century, as they emanated from bishops, dioceses, church commissions, the Church’s National Society, and the Church’s Board of Education and diocesan.

This article discusses the place of ‘theology’ in multi-faith Religious Education (RE) in English schools without a religious affiliation, highlighting reasons for its sometimes taboo-status, parti...

The ‘Identifying Principles and Big Ideas for Religious Education’ project was supported by the St Luke’s College Foundation (016J-086). The ‘RE-searchers: A critical dialogic approach to Religious Education in primary schools’ project was supported by the Culham St. Gabriel’s Trust and Hockerill Education Foundation.

Rob Freathy writes:Jack was born on 23 February 1935. He left home, worked for a short time as a bank clerk in London, and then did National Service in the air force, before going to St Luke’s Coll...

This article reconceptualises school teachers and pupils respectively as ‘pedagogical bricoleurs’ and ‘bricolage researchers’ who utilise a multiplicity of theories, concepts, methodologies and pedagogies in teaching and/or researching. This reconceptualisation is based on a coalescence of generic curricular and pedagogical principles promoting dialogic, critical and enquiry-based learning. Innovative proposals for reconceptualising the aims, contents and methods of multi-faith Religious Education in English state-maintained schools without a religious affiliation are described, so as to provide an instance of and occasion for the implications of these theories and concepts of learning. With the aim of initiating pupils into the communities of academic enquiry concerned with theology and religious studies, the ‘RE-searchers approach’ to multi-faith Religious Education in primary schools (5–11 year olds) is cited as a highly innovative means of converting these curricular and pedagogical principles...

How do recent technological advances impact upon the field of education? This article examines the work of the philosopher of technology Bernard Stiegler and his interpretation of technology as pharmakon (both remedy and poison). This is linked to threshold concept theory which advocates more creative ways of learning, and illustrated through a practical example from a new approach to Religious Education (RE). It will be argued that it is possible to construct educational assemblages more conducive to personal and spiritual development.

Current discussions on Religious Education (RE), both in Germany and England, focus on the quality of teaching and the professionality of teachers, but neglect the historical and institutional process of professionalization upon which conceptions of teaching quality and teacher professionality hinge. This article seeks to provide definitional clarity by differentiating between individual and collective professionalization; exploring teacher professionalization in general and in the special case of RE; and operationalizing the concept of RE teacher professionalization for the purposes of planned historical and international comparative research. A three-fold conceptualization of professionalization is proposed, consisting of the following inter-related levels: (1) initial and continuing professional development; (2) professional self-organization and professional politics; and (3) professional knowledge. The breadth, complexity and significance of the historical and institutional processes associated with the professionalization of RE teachers at each of these levels is described and discussed. It is argued that further historical and international comparative research on these lines would contribute a broader and deeper understanding of the presuppositions of RE teacher professionality beyond current debates.

Against a backdrop of threat to the position and future of Religious Education in schools – the contextual details of which are outlined by Freathy and Parker in this special issue – two conference...

In On Holy Ground, Liam Gearon argues that ‘[t]he problem of modern religious education [is] how to ground the subject when it is no longer grounded in the religious life, in the life of the holy’ ...

This article provides an historical case study of an abortive attempt to revise policy and legislation relating to Religious Education (RE) in English schools in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Drawing upon published sources, including parliamentary debates, as well as previously unutilised national archival sources from the Department of Education and Science, it comments upon events which have hitherto been omitted from the historiography of RE, but which help to contextualise significant changes in RE theory and practice at that time. Moreover, it demonstrates that the current parlous state of RE in schools is in part the result of latent and longstanding issues and problems, rather than a consequence of present-day government policy alone. Therefore, in reviewing and developing RE policies and practices, all stakeholders are urged to look more closely at both changes and continuities in the subject’s past and the contexts in which they occurred.

This article seeks to exemplify the extent to which oral life history research can enrich existing historiographies of English Religious Education (RE). Findings are reported from interviews undertaken with a sample of key informants involved in designing and/or implementing significant curriculum changes in RE in the 1960s and 1970s. The interviews provided insights into personal narratives and biographies that have been marginal to, or excluded from, the historical record. Thematic analysis of the oral life histories opened a window into the world of RE, specifically in relation to professional identity and practice, curriculum development, and professional organizations, thereby exposing the operational dynamics of RE at an (inter-)personal and organizational level. The findings are framed by a series of methodological reflections. Overall, oral life histories are shown to be capable of revealing that which was previously hidden and which can be confirmed and contrasted with knowledge gleaned from primary documentary sources.

As guest editors for this special issue of History of Education we are delighted to be able to introduce a range of specially selected articles based on the theme of ‘Politics, Professionals and Pr...

This article calls for international comparative research on the professionalisation of Religious Education (RE). To this end, it provides a rationale for focusing upon the concept of professionalisation and a theoretical justification for international comparative research, particularly identifying its significance in terms of the development of RE in England and Germany. The article outlines a methodology for exploring the concepts of professional knowledge, professional self-organisation and politics and professional development. The proposed methodology involves a systematic analysis of primary documentary sources including: (1) academic and professional journal articles and textbooks; (2) the archives of relevant institutions and organisations; and (3) external evidence, such as inspection and research reports. An analytical case study of two leading journals in each national context, Religion in Education in England and Der Evangelische Erzieher in Germany, in the immediate post-war era is appended ...

Recent reports on Religious Education (RE) in England and Wales highlight the need for guidance on pedagogy and learning. The RE-flect project addressed this by promoting the creation of metacognitively oriented learning environments in primary school RE classrooms. Six primary school teachers and 160 pupils (eight to 10 years of age) took part in the second year of this two year project. Meta-thinking, worldview and resources zones were created in each classroom. Attainment in RE and pupil perceptions of the learning environment were measured. Data from classroom observations, Worldview Profiles (WVP), and pupil and teacher interviews were analysed qualitatively. Results show an overall increase in attainment; a positive change in pupil perceptions of the learning environment; and the ability of pupils to reflect on and articulate their worldviews. Implications for RE curricular and pedagogy are discussed.

In response to previous articles in this journal by Rachel Cope and Julian Stern, and using an example of classroom practice, this article promotes a form of multi-faith religious education in which primary-school pupils (age 5–11) are re-conceived as joint researchers working alongside their teachers, through processes of imaginative and empathetic dialogue, to investigate the effectiveness of different methodologies and methods of studying religion(s). This pedagogical strategy seeks to teach pupils the disciplinary knowledge and skills associated with the communities of academic practice concerned with theological and religious studies, and more specifically to initiate them into the hermeneutical discourses which underlie theological and religious research and teaching. Moreover, it is argued that some of the suggested practices could be applied to the study of spirituality in any context and could contribute to the spiritual development of participants.

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in British Journal of Religious Education, 20 March 2013. Copyright © 2013 Taylor & Francis. Available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/01416200.2013.785931

With particular reference to religious education, this article provides an account of the campaigns of Secularists and Humanists in England in the 1960s and 1970s and locates them within their broader religious context. These campaigns, which have been both underplayed and overstated in the existing historiography, failed to garner the levels of support required to fulfil their ultimate aims. Nevertheless, Secularists and Humanists did make a significant contribution to public and political discourses at the time and created opportunities with the potential to exert influence over the development of religious education, collective worship and moral education. Their involvement was welcomed, indeed fostered, by many leading Christians and religious educationists. Secularist and Humanist campaigns also precipitated parliamentary discussion and provoked considerable opposition from Christians in other quarters. Finally, some observations are made about the ways in which this episode in the religious history ...