The recent review of research in RE conducted by OfSTED,Footnote1 the government agency responsible for inspecting education provision in England, advocates teacher engagement with research in order to address the complexity of a subject in which there is a lack of consensus about the aims and purposes and the RE teacher needs to be supported to engage with educational theory and research findings. Such concern for the relationship between teaching and research is not new and interest in understanding how to facilitate productive interactions recurs periodically. In 1967, the National Foundation for Educational Research in England and Wales (NFER) was commissioned to undertake an investigation of the views of teachers on educational research supported by the government, local education authorities and school leaders. The survey of teachers’ attitudes to research addressed four major questions:
What research would teachers like to see done?
To what extent is educational research getting through to teachers?
How far have teachers been involved in research and development projects?
Do teachers think that they benefit from the research and development work in education that has been undertaken?
They found that the priorities for research were provision for professional learning, meeting the needs of diverse learners and making syllabus content, particularly in RE, more relevant to modern life. Educational research was valued by teachers but reading journals was rare. Access to academic journals was restricted and the professional publications did not provide sufficient detail on which to make a judgement. More than 75% of teachers surveyed had never been involved in research but all the teachers would like to be more engaged. Criticism of research was linked to reservations about how it was conducted and disseminated and not of its value to teachers (Cane and Schroeder Citation1970).
It would be remiss of me not to mention here that, as is often the case, Scotland was a world leader in positioning research at the heart of teaching with the establishment of the Scottish Council for Research in Education (SCRE) in 1928. SCRE was a collaboration between the Scottish teachers’ union and the Association of Directors of Education and produced a number of influential reports. Although SCRE was disbanded in the 1980s, the influence persists in the orientation of the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) towards supporting teacher engagement with research as a key factor in professional growth. At the present time, learned societies with an interest in educational research, the British Academy, the Royal Society and the British Educational Research Association are funding comprehensive studies of the landscape of educational research in the UK (BERA Citation2022). These investigations explore the ecology of educational research, with an emphasis on its vitality and contribution to setting strategic priorities in education in which understanding the relationship between teaching and research continues to be a priority.
In 2021 the Culham St Gabriel’s funded project on RE teachers’ engagement with research (TasR) was completed. The report provides a mapping review of literature focusing on the relationship between practising teachers and research published in the last 10 years and contextualises the issues identified in the experience of teachers of RE in England and Wales. TasR was featured in the Research of the MonthFootnote2 series on the website, where a summary of the research can be found. The mapping review highlighted the need to recognise a range of types of research and to promote understanding of the different purposes research might serve. Previous studies have shown that research engagement needs to be linked explicitly to strategies for sustainable school improvement as the conditions to support evidence-based change are as important as any efforts to communicate research evidence. Engagement with research also needs hospitable spaces in which learning conversations between teachers and researchers on the nature and use of evidence to inform classrooms practice can flourish. Interviews with the RE teachers supported these principles and stressed the need to think in terms of a research ecology rather than hierarchical, linear models of dissemination. They also expressed the need for guidance on how to evaluate the aims, methods and outcomes of different types of research as important for their professional growth.
In the editorial for this Special Issue, I want to address the contribution of the British Journal of Religious Education (BJRE) to research dissemination, impact and engagement. The purpose of BJRE as stated in the journal’s aims is,
‘to promote research which contributes to our understanding of the relationship between religion and education in all phases of formal and non-formal educational settings. BJRE publishes articles which are national, international and transnational in scope from researchers working in any discipline whose work informs debate in religious education. Topics might include religious education policy curriculum and pedagogy, research on religion and young people, or the influence of religion(s) and non-religious worldviews upon the educational process as a whole’.
The 40th anniversary of BJRE was celebrated in 2018 with an editorial giving a snapshot of its evolution based on the first issue of each decade going back to its inception as Religion in Education in the 1930s. In the beginning there was a sense of urgency that far-reaching changes in the ‘educational sub-system’ in the country required a return to first principles to establish the grounds for the RE curriculum in schools. By 1948, the concern was the tension in the theory and practice of education between promoting specialist knowledge over a more holistic, integrated approach and the impact of this on RE. The mood in 1958 was positive as, ‘Something like a revolution has taken place in our attitudes to RE. Controversy has been displaced by peace and goodwill. For many years intense sectarian feeling made it difficult to talk about the religious element in school life without provoking a storm … ’.
The year 1968 saw this mood dispelled in the face of heated debate as to the perceived exclusion of humanism, and post the Plowden Report,Footnote3 concerns were expressed as to the suitability of provision in RE for young children in the light of the research of Goldman on religious understanding. The first issue published in 1978 reflects on the implications of the First World Congress on Muslim Education, the impact of TV on moral education and the decline in entries for public examinations. The search for a sound basis for the justification of RE in schools continued in 1988 with deliberation as to whether the ‘first principle’ should be the contribution of RE to the promotion of tolerance in a multi‐ethnic society. The integration of ethnographic research and curriculum development in the work of the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit (WRERU) featured in the first issue of 1998. The exploration of the dissonance that was sometimes felt between students’ experience of their faith tradition outside the school with its presentation in school informed the development of what became known as the interpretive approach, whilst 2008 saw a call for what is described as a ‘contextual’ as opposed to an interpretive approach based on ‘the continued representation of religions as substantial social facts’. The Editorial in the first issue of 2018 acknowledges that RE remains a deeply contested area with many problematic issues, ‘which may militate against gaining support from government and the general public’. 2019ʹs first issue reflects upon the recent calls for substantial change in English RE, which the proposers hope will manage to gain support from government, the general public, religious and belief communities, and most importantly, those engaged professionally in RE – teachers, trainers, advisers, consultants, academics and researchers.
Research published in BJRE from 1992 to 2002 has been reviewed in depth (English, D’Souza, and Chartrand Citation2003). Articles published during this period were categorised and the percentage of articles in each category calculated insert . The analysis indicated that whilst a range of research activity was represented, it was sometimes difficult to identify the intention and purpose of an article as the audience to which it was addressed was not clear and the research methods not always stated clearly, particularly in the abstracts. Given what we know from the literature on teachers’ engagement with research about the importance of understanding the purpose of different types of research, these are matters of concern. In 2010, BJRE published a Special Issue responding to the challenge for more emphasis to be placed on the empirical investigation of pedagogy in debates about the value and purpose of RE (Volume 32.2). The scope of the current overview is research published in BJRE in the 10-year period from 2011 to 2021. Rather than attempting to quantify categories of research, I draw upon the constituent elements of professional knowledge in RE (Freathy et al. Citation2016) and take as the primary focus the articles in the five Special Issues published during this period; these represent 17% of the total articles published insert .
Table 1. Review of research published in BJRE
Table 2. Special issues published in BJRE 2011–2021
What endures? What has changed? What are the challenges in the relationship between research and teaching in RE and how might productive dialogue be fostered? Concern for the nature of knowledge in RE, its relevance in contemporary society and the legitimacy of its place in the school curriculum persist. One consequence of this is the need to develop orientative knowledge allied with consideration of the professional identity, role and responsibility of the teacher of RE that is well represented in the articles published in BJRE. Two changes in research in RE reflected in the journal are the increase in international collaboration, bringing a wider perspective whilst also creating complexity of diverse national contexts, and the range of research methods employed. Both changes present challenges for disseminating research and engaging teachers of RE but they need not be insurmountable. Steps have already been taken to address them. The introduction of the ‘Country Report’ series in 2016 provides updates on developments in RE policy and practice in particular jurisdictions. Keywords, one of the recommendations following the 2003 review, make it easier to navigate and whilst abstracts could still be more explicit regarding the methods used, it is now more common for authors to provide detailed accounts of their approach to research. Opportunities to present projects in the ‘Research Report’ slot also encourage authors to reveal the processes of research as it develops. BJRE serves multiple audiences, researchers, policy-makers and practitioners, with a shared interest in RE and rightly accommodates a broad spectrum of research interests and methods. What we know about teachers’ engagement with research indicates that the question is not what type of research is published but how it is mediated. We still have work to do to in this regard. If we look beyond the British horizon, knowledge transfer is recognised as a pressing international issue across disciplines. It has been described as a ‘contact sport’ taking time and effort, needing practical support and working best when people meet to exchange ideas, sometimes serendipitously.Footnote4 RE as a community of practice is well-placed to provide support if we make best use of the drivers to improve the dissemination and impact of research evident in government policy across the world.
In this issue, David Lundie and colleagues share the outcomes of co-created research with a range of practitioners in their article ‘A Practitioner Action Research Approach to Learning Outside the Classroom’. They stress the importance of creating spaces for encountering the lived experience of religion and propose an online portal to enable schools and education officers from places of worship to connect and enhance RE in primary schools. Access to professional networks for teachers of RE is also identified as a valuable source of support. Knut Aukland explores the research-practice gap in his analysis of communication within a Norwegian RE Facebook group with over 5,000 members. In ‘Bridging the Research-Practice Gap on Facebook: a study of online communication between RE teachers and researchers’, he finds that aspects of research travel rather than better than others. He also questions the role of teacher educators in bridging the gap as, although they have a dual role as researchers and practitioners in the university, in stark contrast to the teachers they do not refer to their own practical knowledge from teaching in posts. Martin Rothgangel and Ulrich Riegel seek a broader understanding of research designs in RE by exploring religious didactics. ‘Research Designs in Religious Didactics’, a study developed in the context of German-speaking approaches, presents a preliminary concept as a model for discussion within the international RE research community. ‘Collaborative, Child-led Philosophical Inquiry in Religious and Moral Education’ by Ewan Cameron and Claire Cassidy brings a perspective on research in which the learner is valued as an active participant in the collaborative, classroom-based process. The biographical experience of teachers in Austria is the focus of the article by Mehmet Tuna, ‘The Professionalisation of Islamic Religious Education Teachers’. For teachers to be equipped to engage productively with research, they need access to opportunities for professional development. Tuna’s study shows that the efforts of Islamic Religious Education teachers to demonstrate professionalism are dependent on the perceptions of stakeholders, students and the Muslim community. The Country Report in this issue is from Malaysia.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
3. An advisory report into primary education and progression to the secondary phase advocating child-centred approaches.
5. SSC = Subject Specific Content/SSPM = Subject Specific Pedagogical Methods/ O = Orientative ()/ GPP = Generic Pedagogical, Psychological/PIRR = Professional Identity, role and responsibilities.
References
- BERA. 2022. “Education: Mapping the Discipline.” Research Intelligence, no. 149.
- Cane, B., and C. Schroeder. 1970. The Teacher and Research. Slough: NFER.
- English, L. M., M. O. D’Souza, and L. Chartrand. 2003. “A 10‐year Retrospective of the British Journal of Religious Education: An Analysis of Contents and Contributors.” British Journal of Religious Education 25 (4): 308–319. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/0141620030250405.
- Freathy, R., S. G. Parker, F. Schweitzer, and H. Simojoki. 2016. “Conceptualising and Researching the Professionalisation of Religious Education Teachers: Historical and International Perspectives.” British Journal of Religious Education 38 (2): 114–129. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2016.1139887.