The Nature of Nurture in Inclusive Religious Education

Abstract

This article considers whether nurture has value as a concept within plural religious education settings in a common school. This exploration is carried out through a critical review of one school type in Ireland that made belief-nurture a core aim of its educational program. The findings identify a number of areas where belief-specific nurture in a plural setting raises particular difficulties: curriculum design, lesson content, the position of the teacher, and the role of belief communities. It is concluded that, while there are significant challenges to using the concept of nurture in relation to teaching about religions and beliefs in common schools, there is some justification for doing so, and a model that conceptualizes nurture in a more comprehensive way is proposed.

Acknowledgments

I thank Jill Magennis for her comments and critique on earlier versions of this document.

Disclosure statement

In accordance with Taylor & Francis policy and my ethical obligation as a researcher, I am reporting that the data for this article were gathered when employed as a consultant to the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), Ireland. I have disclosed those interests fully to Taylor & Francis. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in the article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NCCA.

Notes

1 Lebenswelt or ‘life-world’ is a concept from the phenomenological tradition of philosophy associated with Edmund Husserl and Merleau-Ponty that understands our way of knowing about the world to be experiential and subjective, yet to contain within it the possibility of shared experience. So a young person’s life-world is both their everyday life conditions and their inner life (subjective construct).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James Nelson

James Nelson is Director of Initial Teacher Education in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queen’s University Belfast. E-mail: [email protected]