Pedagogical Bricoleurs and Bricolage Researchers: The case of Religious Education

ABSTRACT

This article reconceptualises school teachers and pupils respectively as ‘pedagogical bricoleurs’ and ‘bricolage researchers’ who utilise a multiplicity of theories, concepts, methodologies and pedagogies in teaching and/or researching. This reconceptualisation is based on a coalescence of generic curricular and pedagogical principles promoting dialogic, critical and enquiry-based learning. Innovative proposals for reconceptualising the aims, contents and methods of multi-faith Religious Education in English state-maintained schools without a religious affiliation are described, so as to provide an instance of and occasion for the implications of these theories and concepts of learning. With the aim of initiating pupils into the communities of academic enquiry concerned with theology and religious studies, the ‘RE-searchers approach’ to multi-faith Religious Education in primary schools (5–11 year olds) is cited as a highly innovative means of converting these curricular and pedagogical principles and proposals into practical classroom procedures. These procedures are characterised by multi-, inter- and supra-disciplinarity; notions of eclecticism, emergence, flexibility and plurality; and theoretical and conceptual complexity, contestation and context-dependence.

Keywords:

• religious education
• dialogic
• critical
• enquiry-based
• bricolage
• RE-searchers

5. Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Culham St Gabriel’s Trust and Hockerill Educational Foundation. It was undertaken in a partnership including the University of Exeter, The Learning Institute and Sir Robert Geffery’s Primary School.

6. Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Culham St Gabriel’s Trust; Hockerill Educational Foundation.