Hinduism in Religious Education With Special Reference to Newcastle and Northumberland Agreed Syllabuses

My purpose has been to examine the treatment of Hinduism in RE with particular reference to the agreed syllabuses for Newcastle upon Tyne and Northumberland. The former is a multi-religious LEA area which has included Hinduism a,d the other nonChristian faiths on its AS's for almost thirty years; the latter is a mono-religious LEA area and included Hinduism on its AS for the first time in 1998. In chapters 2 to 5, there is a consideration of the status of RE including a discussion m chapter 4 of the major changes of content and teaching approaches affecting RE that occurred in the 1960s and 197Os, some of which continue to impact upon it to date. In Chapter 6 I look at what is meant by 'Hinduism' from a number of perspectives thereby demonstrating something of its diversity and amorphousness; a discussion which serves also to provide some insight into why it is that Hinduism may arguably be said to be more distorted to fit the RE framework than any of the other religions on the syllabus, as discussed elsewhere in this thesis. In Chapter 7 I describe the two very disparate areas whose syllabuses have been selected for study here: the City of Newcastle as an established multi-religious city with a well established Hindu community and very successful mandir, and the County of Northumberland, historically a religiously widely diverse area but nowadays mono-religious. In Chapters 8 and 9 examine the development, launch and implementation of the respective syllabuses. In Chapter 10 r compare and contrast the findings of the two previous chapters. \Vhilst in chapter 11 there is a consideration of what we should take into account when teaching Hinduism followed by some general thoughts about good practice that would assist in improving its provision in the classroom. In the concluding chapter I consider some of the key findings highlighted by this research and suggest further related research. Supplied by The British Library - 'The world's knowledge'