‘Respect Study’ the Treatment of Religious Difference and Otherness: An Ethnographic Investigation in UK Schools

Abstract

Understanding and appreciating the beliefs and practices of others feature prominently among the aims and purposes of Religious Education in UK schools. Drawing on ethnographic data from the ‘Does RE Work?’ project, this paper presents two conceptions of ‘in/entoleration’ a deliberate process of inculcating tolerance in pedagogy. Entoleration, akin to enculturation, encourages sympathetic and transformative encounter with others’ beliefs. Intoleration, akin to indoctrination, risks eliding both difference and encounter in the service of a predetermined aim of nurturing uncritical tolerance. The former is categorised by pedagogies of encounter with the other as person, while the latter often focuses on externals and strangeness.

Keywords:

• Religious Education
• Intercultural Education
• Pedagogy
• Encounter
• Other
• Stranger

Acknowledgement

The data described above were collected as part of the project: ‘Does RE Work?’ – an analysis of the aims, practices and models of effectiveness in RE in the UK.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

Principal investigator Professor James Conroy was funded by the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme (award #AH/F009135/1) for the project ‘Does RE Work? An analysis of the aims, practices and models of effectiveness in Religious Education in the UK’.