Contestable beliefs in education: fairness and/or neutrality?

Abstract

This article is the final paper in the symposium which took place at the British Educational Research Association conference in September 2011 and, subsequently, at the American Educational Research Association conference in April 2012, where my report Doing God in education was debated. It constitutes a response to the points made by the other four participants in the symposium. Doing God in education was a sustained critique of humanist responses to the place of religion in education as exemplified in publications emerging from the British Humanist Association. This article first defends, then develops that critique by responding to Richard Norman’s rejoinder, arguing that the root problem lies in humanist attachment to neutrality and its epistemological implications. The article then goes on to respond to Michael Hand’s criticisms of my use of the concept of worldview and his claim that I confuse this with conceptual schemes. Accepting that there is some substance in this criticism I offer a more precise understanding of my use of the term worldview. The article concludes with further reflections on the implications of my position for some current debates about religion and education.

Keywords:

• worldview
• neutrality
• shared values
• religion and education
• humanism
• critical realism