Promoting positive community relations: what can RE learn from social psychology and the shared space project?

ABSTRACT

In this article we considered the relevance of specific claims that ‘multi-faith’ approaches to Religious Education (RE) play a role in promoting good community relations. In doing so, we adopted a social-psychological perspective where engaging in positive and meaningful interactions with diverse others reduces prejudice. Survey responses from 92 RE teachers across the UK were examined to determine the extent to which strategies for promoting positive community relations were embedded within classroom practice. We next examined whether teachers intuitively used social psychological theory – namely the contact hypothesis – to promote positive communities in their classrooms. Results demonstrated that the majority of surveyed RE practitioners perceived community relations to be a core aim of RE and that contact theory was applicable to their practice. Teachers reported examples of how they embed both contact theory and RE in their classrooms but not all of these aligned with social psychological theory. Findings suggest that successful practice in RE may be further developed by integrating theoretical principles of the contact hypothesis. Implications and future directions will be discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• community relations
• religious education(RE)
• intergroup contact theory

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our thanks to the National Association for Teachers of Religious Education for supporting our research ideas and to our funders (the University of Bristol’s ESRC Impact Acceleration Account and Westhill Trust Standard Grant) for providing the financial support to explore the potential impact of our research with RE teachers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Fifteen participants did not provide demographic information.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account [N/A]; Westhill Trust [Standard Grant].