Modes of learning in religious education

Abstract

This article is a contribution to the discussion of learning processes in religious education (RE) classrooms. Sociocultural theories of learning, understood here as tool-mediated processes, are used in an analysis of three RE classroom conversations. The analysis focuses on the language tools that are used in conversations; how the tools mediate; the dynamics they create between pupils and teachers; and how new language tools are created and enrolled. The following three modes of learning are found: distancing, dynamic and expansive. These modes are collectively enacted by teachers and students in the context of the classroom. The article therefore argues that RE classrooms can best be understood as social practices, rather than sums of individual cognition. Empirically, religion is in the making in RE – in the shape of bits, pieces and processes. In the material, however, RE is an educational practice, not a religious practice.

Keywords:

• learning
• religion
• religious education
• tools
• sociocultural

Notes

1. Research using Vygotsky can crudely be divided into the following two camps: the cognitive and individual camp (learning as acquisition), and the collective camp (learning as participation and learning as creation) (Daniels 2008). This article is theoretically situated within the second of these.