Roots and routes: towards a pedagogy of worldliness

ABSTRACT

This article proposes the notion of ‘worldliness’ as a necessary companion to the Religion and Worldviews curriculum. We posit that an understanding of ‘worldliness’, grounded in empirical research, in which the individual negotiates commitments to one’s home (filial) and host (affilial) communities, is pedagogically relevant and heuristically beneficial to the lens of the worldview paradigm proposed for Religious Education (RE). We draw on the analysis and synthesis of an earlier ethnographic study, in which ‘worldliness’ was found to be a socio- and religio-cultural practice whereby diasporic youth navigate complex identities and affiliations. We argue that 1) a pedagogical approach to a worldviews curriculum calls for an understanding of ‘worldliness’ as a framework for making sense of agency in the construction of one’s own worldview; 2) ‘worldliness’ is a site for RE pedagogical exploration to counter the power imbalance of the dominant affiliative over the filial, and 3) this needs to be made explicit in RE pedagogy.

KEYWORDS:

• Diaspora
• inter-generational
• worldliness
• pedagogy

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical statement

The ethical guidelines are followed to guide data collection and representation.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Al Karim Datoo

Al Karim Datoo is a sociologist of education and an educational ethnographer. He is currently working as an Assistant Professor, Education at Sukkur-IBA University, Pakistan; where he is teaching B.Ed. & Ph D in education programmes, and supervising M. Phil in education research projects.

Alexis Stones

Alexis Stones is Subject Lead for the Post Graduate Certificate in Education in Religious Education at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society.