Religion and religious education: comparing and contrasting pupils’ and teachers’ views in an English school

Abstract

This paper builds on and develops the English findings of the qualitative study of European teenagers’ perspectives on religion and religious education (RE), part of ‘Religion in Education: a Contribution to Dialogue or a Factor of Conflict in Transforming Societies of European Countries?’ (REDCo) project. It uses data gathered from 27 pupils, aged 15–16, from a school in a multicultural northern town in England and compares those findings with data gathered from 10 teachers in the humanities faculty of the same school, collected during research for the Warwick REDCo Community of Practice. Comparisons are drawn between the teachers’ and their pupils’ attitudes and values using the same structure as the European study: personal views and experiences of religion, the social dimension of religion, and RE in school. The discussion offers an analysis of the similarities and differences in worldviews and beliefs which emerged. These include religious commitment/observance differences between the mainly Muslim‐heritage pupils and their mainly non‐practising Christian‐heritage teachers. The research should inform the ways in which the statutory duties to promote community cohesion and equalities can be implemented in schools. It should also facilitate intercultural and interreligious understanding between teachers and the pupils from different ethnic and religious backgrounds.

Keywords:

• religion
• religious education
• pupil and teacher views
• community cohesion
• REDCo

Notes

1. Each community school in England and Wales has completed a self‐evaluation form providing evidence for Ofsted inspections. Since the change of government, this is no longer required.

2. Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills for English schools. It inspects community cohesion under four headings: school/local/national/global.

3. According to the draft document published by Ofsted in its consultation on the duty to promote community cohesion, there are 63 secondary schools that have more than 50% of Black and Minority Ethnic pupils, of which this school is one.

4. These figures are from Ofsted data, 2006.

5. In Religious Studies examinations, the school has achieved consistently high results, out‐performing predictions.

6. This stands in contrast to ‘constructive critique’ – one aspect of Jackson’s reflexivity within his Interpretive Approach (IA) (Jackson 2008, 195). The IA was the theoretical stimulus for the REDCo project, including both research projects from which these data are drawn.

7. The E‐Bridges project explores children’s religious understanding and inter faith encounter through email dialogue, linking children living in different parts of England, and from various religious and non‐religious backgrounds.