Identity and inter religious understanding in Jewish schools in England

Abstract

This article sets up a dialogue between auto-referential (looking to self) and allo-referential (looking to the other) approaches to religious difference and applies these to education for inter religious understanding in Jewish schools. It begins by arguing that the multiculturalism of the 1980s and 1990s set up a duality of self and other, with the responsibility for looking to ‘the other’ (allo-reference) resting largely on the majority community and the licence to look to self (auto-reference) being given to minority communities. Within the Jewish community, multiculturalism supported and legitimated the development of an inward-looking Jewish identity-based education. This was challenged in the 2000s however by the new outward-looking emphases of the community cohesion agenda, and so Jewish schools have had to negotiate a place for themselves between auto- and allo-reference. Brief case studies illustrate contrasting ways in which two schools have positioned themselves in relation to these two poles. In School A, the imperative towards ‘the other’ attempts an openness to ‘the other’ in ‘the other’s’ own terms, whereas in School B the same imperative towards ‘the other’ is framed within the auto-referential framework of being and doing Jewish.

Keywords:

• Jewish schools
• community cohesion
• inter faith

Notes

1. The official designation for the schools in the ‘church and faith school’ category is the rather unwieldy ‘schools with a religious character’. In common parlance, they tend to be described as ‘faith’ schools, a term that some in the Church of England in particular reject as it implies confessional education for children of a particular faith community, rather than the inclusive education of children from a diversity of religious backgrounds that many of these schools like to present. These schools include independently funded, fee-paying and state-funded non-fee-paying schools. Within the state-funded church and ‘faith’ sector, there are a variety of distinct groupings, including ‘academies’, ‘free schools’ and the traditional distinction between ‘voluntary controlled’ schools where the local authority has more powers, and ‘voluntary aided’ where the faith communities have more powers.

2. Though many Church of England schools and some other faith schools also adopted a multi-faith RE curriculum.

3. Using Edmund Husserl’s as applied by Ninian Smart to religious education in the Schools Council Project of the 70s (Schools Council 1971, 1977).

4. The full title of this organisation founded in 1811 was National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church in England and Wales.

5. Head teacher interviewed for the DCSF-funded research study on religious education materials carried out by Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit (DCSF 2007).

6. In educational changes under the Coalition government in 2011, it was stated that ‘while the explicit duty on Ofsted to report on schools’ contribution to community cohesion is to be removed, community cohesion will remain within the scope of inspection. In addition, the duty on schools to promote community cohesion remains in place’ https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/community-cohesion.

7. At this time, the Department of Education was known as the Department for Children, Schools and Families.

8. Faith in the System followed the failure of another government initiative intended to advance community cohesion by requiring 25% of places to be reserved for pupils of other faiths or no faith in all new faith schools. A consensus among the faith communities in support of this legal amendment could not be achieved, but the question of admissions remains a live one.

9. The report of outcomes of the evaluation is the property of the organising body responsible for the educational programme.