The interpretive approach as a research tool: inside the REDCo project

Abstract

This contribution shows how the author's interpretive approach to religious education was used as a theoretical and pedagogical stimulus and an empirical research tool by researchers in the European Commission Framework 6 REDCo (religion, education, dialogue, conflict) project. The origins and development of the interpretive approach, from its roots in the ethnographic study of children from religious backgrounds, are summarised, and an account is given about how its key concepts were used to frame a checklist of questions for REDCo researchers dealing with both empirical research methodology and pedagogy. Examples and case studies are presented illustrating how the approach was used by REDCo researchers as a methodological tool for empirical research, a pedagogical tool or stimulus to pedagogical clarification and a tool for meta‐analysis and theory development.

Keywords:

• interpretive approach
• religious education
• representation
• interpretation
• reflexivity
• ethnography
• qualitative research
• quantitative research
• hermeneutics
• pedagogy
• classroom interaction
• citizenship
• REDCo project

Notes

1. This concept resembles Michael Grimmitt's idea of ‘learning from’ religion but is not identical to it (see Grimmitt 1987, 225; Jackson 1997, 131–2).

2. The unpublished reports used as sources for Jackson (2008d) were prepared by Ina ter Avest (Amsterdam), Aurora Álvarez Veinguer (Granada), Wolfram Weisse (Hamburg), Dan‐Paul Jozsa (Münster), Bérengere Massignon (Paris), Fedor Kozyrev (St Petersburg), Marie von der Lippe (Stavanger), Olga Schihalejev (Tartu) and myself (Warwick).