Mapping the subject: student teachers, location and the understanding of religion

Abstract

Religious education students on initial teacher education programmes work in both school and university contexts that might be expected to produce different accounts of the nature of religion. This article explores the contested nature of religion and the ways in which student teachers negotiate their own understanding of subject knowledge. A small case study within a Scottish context is considered in which schools are seen to occupy spaces which privilege a modernist approach to subject knowledge in contrast with the post-structuralist accounts of religion that students may encounter at university. Consideration is given as to how six third-year student teachers negotiate the differences between these two contexts. This study has implications for the kind of support offered to students by initial teacher education institutions, where such differences obtain, and potentially raises questions concerning the future construction of religion in schools.

Notes

The programme of ITE at the University of Stirling differs from the more usual PGCE route in that students' involvement in ITE is concurrent with their main degree subject(s). This has implications as regards the negotiation of subject knowledge in that students are simultaneously learning their main degree subject(s) and negotiating the application of this knowledge in a school context. With a PGCE approach students have already completed their subject degree, before they begin to consider subject knowledge in a school setting.

In Scotland religious and moral education has the same official status as other curricular areas such as environmental studies, maths or English. There are no statutory curricular frameworks; instead, all subject areas have official 5–14 frameworks which have the status of guidelines. The religious and moral education 5–14 guidelines were produced in 1992 and are for use in non-denominational schools. Separate guidelines, known as 5–14 religious education, were produced for use in Roman Catholic schools.