The necessity of historical inquiry in educational research: the case of religious education

Abstract

This article explores the mixed fortunes of historical inquiry as a method in educational studies and exposes evidence for the neglect of this method in religious education research in particular. It argues that historical inquiry, as a counterpart to other research methods, can add depth and range to our understanding of education, including religious education, and can illuminate important longer‐term, broader and philosophical issues. The article also argues that many historical voices have remained silent in the existing historiography of religious education because such historiography is too generalised and too biased towards the development of national policy and curriculum and pedagogical theory. To address this limitation in educational research, this article promotes rigorous historical studies that are more substantially grounded in the appropriate historiographical literature and utilise a wide range of original primary sources. Finally, the article explores a specific example of the way in which a historical approach may be fruitfully applied to a particular contemporary debate concerning the nature and purpose of religious education.

Keywords:

• educational research methods
• historical inquiry
• religious education

Notes

1. Gerd Theissen (1979, 1–11, 72ff.) uses the term ‘ideological fundamentalism’ to discuss the resistance of some believers to historical criticism of the Bible and Christianity because of its relativising effects. According to Theissen, neither the past nor the present should have a normative epistemological standing; one should see the past and the present as flowing both ways in their interpretive function and in the construction of reality.

2. On recent research submissions, the report of the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise sub‐panel for Education concluded: ‘There was original and high quality theoretical, scholarly and critical work in philosophy, sociology and history of education. This was not all related directly to immediate policy priorities or practical concerns but often offered challenging new agendas. It is important to the field as a whole that resources and opportunities continue to be available to enable such cutting edge contributions to thrive as well as to encourage greater interplay between these and other research traditions’ (HEFCE, SFC, HEFCW, and DEL 2009, 3).

3. The Culham Institute’s ‘Register of Research Theses in Religious Education 1980 onwards’ includes some 135 masters and doctoral theses that have been completed in the UK between 1980 and 2005 and that have been categorised as ‘history of religious education’. The majority of these theses were finished during the 1980s. See http://www.theredirectory.org.uk/resreg.php (accessed January 9, 2009).

4. This neglect is also reflected at an international level. At ISREV 2006 there was only one historical research paper – on the history of RE in Japan – and at ISREV 2008 just three historical papers – on the perception of other religions historically within Islam, RE and national identity in Norway and pupils’ workbooks in Norway.

5. Confessionalism is a term, often used pejoratively, in RE discourse in England to refer to teaching that seeks to engender particular religious beliefs and practices in pupils. The concept is derived from the notion of a ‘Confession of Faith’ (i.e. declaration of articles of belief) on behalf of the teacher and pupils.