Peace and non‐violence: Sathya Sai Education in Human Values in British schools¹

1. An earlier version of this article was presented at the ‘Religion and Violence: the Role of Religious Education and Values’ conference of the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values XIV, Philadelphia, July 2004.

Abstract

Not only is peace one of the values at the heart of Sathya Sai Education in Human Values (SSEHV), it is also presented as one of the programme’s outcomes. The SSEHV programme seeks to promote ‘human values’ in British schools, also with regard to educating pupils from different social, cultural or ethnic backgrounds towards greater tolerance and understanding. The programme aims to achieve this as part of the statutory provision of physical, social and health education (PSHE) and citizenship education as well provision for the social, moral, cultural and spiritual (SMCS) development of pupils in community schools. This article reports on an ethnographic study of SSEHV in the UK, which was conducted by members of the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit (WRERU) at the University of Warwick. The research reported here focused on the development of the programme, its contents (including the value of ‘non‐violence’ and the practice of ‘silent sitting’), its application in the classroom, and its reception by pupils and teachers. Further, this article seeks to embed SSEHV in the wider theoretical context of peace education and suggests theoretical discussions to which this investigation contributes.

Keywords:

• peace
• education
• values
• Britain
• community schools

Notes

1. An earlier version of this article was presented at the ‘Religion and Violence: the Role of Religious Education and Values’ conference of the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values XIV, Philadelphia, July 2004.

2. A special issue of the British Journal of Religious Education is dedicated to international perspectives of ‘peace education and religious plurality’ (see Jackson and Fujiwara 2007b).

3. The change of name probably occurred in late 2001 and BKWSO appears on the BKs’ main web site (www.bkwsu.com), although not consistently, with references to ‘university’ on a number of web pages.

4. ‘Anti‐cult organisations’ have voiced concern about children growing up in ‘cults’ (e.g. Eimuth 1996; El Mountacir 1994), but academic research regarding children in NRMs is still scant, with Palmer and Hardman (1999) and parts of Lewis and Melton (1994) making notable contributions to this field.

5. The AHRB is now the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

6. As of March 2004, ‘summer camps’ or ‘holiday schools’ are referred to as ‘BISSE Values Alive Events’.

7. Sai Spiritual Education (SSE) was formerly called Bal Vikas.

8. A number of contemporary ‘gurus’ claim the Shirdi Sai Baba lineage; see, e.g., Swami Kaleshwar (http://www.swamikaleshwar.de), and there is a considerable ‘cult’ of Shirdi Sai Baba in contemporary India (see, e.g., Srinivas 1999; also Hardgrove 1994; Rigopoulos 1993; Kamath and Kher 1991).

9. According to Harris et al. (1993, 311), the organisation claims 10 million devotees worldwide. Taylor (1984) speaks of a large following in India, said to number millions.