The lived religious beliefs and experiences of English Hindu teenagers at home and at school

ABSTRACT

This paper constitutes a study of the lived religious identity and practice of Hindu teenagers in the UK. More specifically, utilising an ethnographic approach designed to give voice to what is academically an extremely unrepresented religious community, this is a study of how Hindu teenagers in the UK experience their religion at home and at school. After outlining the contrast between these teenagers’ home life and school experience, I ultimately argue that Hindu teenagers experience a strong sense of cognitive dissonance pertaining to their religious identity: a juxtaposition between their home life and school life whereby the former is a healthy relationship with their religion and the latter is a sense of anger and shame. Finally, I outline what in particular the teenagers themselves believe is lacking in the RE classroom and what they regard as the key features of their Hindu faith.

KEYWORDS:

• Hinduism
• religious education in secondary schools
• yoga
• lived religion

1 Introduction

King and Boyatzis noted that in contrast to the copious work that exists on adolescents’ social identities in the areas of ethnicity and gender, there has been little work on the role of religion in adolescent identity development (King and Boyatzis 2004). This paper intends to examine the religious identity of Hindu teenagers in the UK. I will ultimately argue that Hindu teenagers experience a strong sense of cognitive dissonance pertaining to their religious identity: a juxtaposition between their home life and school life whereby the former is a healthy relationship with their religion and the latter is a sense of anger and shame. I will examine the way in which these students perceive Hinduism to be represented in both formal Religious Education as well as wider school life. The latter point is primarily a discussion surrounding the issue of yoga, a discussion that was not initially intended as part of this project but was incorporated after the issue arose during the interviewing process. I will explore what in particular these students perceived to be lacking in their secondary school Religious Education and subsequently outline how they themselves would teach their faith. This paper thus intends to add to the excellent work started by Santosh and Vij (2001) who rightly pointed out that the vast majority of ‘studies of Hindus and Hinduism are general in scope and have not considered the voices of young Hindus’.¹

1.1 The religious identity of Hindu youth

Accounting for 1.5% of the total population of the UK, Hinduism is the third largest religious group (Office for National Statistics 2011). Moreover, in 2021, 268,318 ethnic Indian students went to British schools which accounts for 3.3% of the student population (National Statistics 2021).

It should be acknowledged from the outset that the term ‘Hinduism’ is a highly contested category and reporting to examine ‘Hindu students’ can easily be perceived as problematic. Indeed, most scholars question whether one should indeed refer to a single unified ‘Hinduism’. Therefore, given the ethnographic nature of this study, I will initially examine the definition of Hinduism drawn up by the Hindu children who participated in Santosh and Vij’s (2001) ‘Hindu Youth Research Project’. The participants defined Hinduism in one of five ways:

1. Roots: a common ancestry.

2. Belief: particular teachings and philosophies that centre upon the existence of God.

3. Practice: necessary action from prayers and meditation, festivals and going to the temple, to worshipping a particular incarnation.

4. Way of life based upon the principles of texts and religious scriptures.

5. Mixture: complexity to the extent that one cannot simply encapsulate a simple definition. To this extent, practice, beliefs, upbringing, way of life; even speaking Hindi and being vegetarian are seen as important.

Moreover, seeking to enumerate the Hindu teachings that the Hindu youth consider to be important, they concluded that Hindu youth religious belief can be categorised into five values (Santosh and Vij 2001, 15–16):

1. God

2. Scriptures

3. Karma, spirit/soul, reincarnation and moksha

4. Humanitarian values

5. Guidelines for life

They also noted that 80% did not think that Hindu rituals are a waste of time but only 40% felt that they are easy to understand (Ibid.,17). 81% reported that it was important for them to practise their religious/spiritual beliefs, 76% reported to praying regularly, and 77% stated that praying actively helped them a great deal (Ibid., 19). Finally, Santosh and Vij identified that some of the participants noticeably believed that ‘to improve representation and knowledge of their faith, Hinduism should be more like the other faiths, and want to interpret Hinduism within this multifaith context’ (Ibid., 35).

A 2021 report by Vishwa Hindu Parishad UK focussing on 11–18 year old Hindus, examined struggles faced by Hindu teenagers in the UK. They specifically noted the problem of time, arguing that Hindu teenagers ‘may struggle to dedicate time to attend the Mandir and engage in religious activities because it may not feel as a priority’ (Vishwa Hindu Parishad UK, 2021). Similarly, Berkeley found that many young Hindus ‘were not engaged in religious activity of any kind’ (Berkeley 2006, 62).

One therefore finds immense diversity within the category of Hinduism. Thus, a necessary ‘acceptance of the multiplicity and fluidity of lived religious identities and experiences’ (Gunn 2009, 42) is required when undertaking ethnography investigating the lived nature of Hinduism or, indeed, lived religion itself.

1.2 Hinduism in British education

Much of the wider research context pertaining to RE in England² unsurprisingly relates to good teaching practice and pedagogy. Recent debates pertaining to the representation of faith is of particular relevance to this paper. The CoRE (Commission on Religious Education), for example, recently argued that RE ‘has sometimes inadvertently reinforced stereotypes about religions’ (CoRE 2018, 5). It calls for ‘recognising bias and stereotype, and representing views other than one’s own with accuracy’ (ibid., 29). Similarly, Arweck and Nesbitt (2011, 42) noting that the young people in their study did not relate what they learned in RE to their family context, argued that the ‘plurality which young people experienced … in terms of religions and the internal diversity of religions, was (judging by their accounts) not reflected in RE’. Emphasising the need for a broad and nuanced understanding of religion and belief in the RE classroom, Shaw (2018) argues that the ‘UK falls short of representing the complex reality with which pupils engage’. Finally, seeking to achieve ‘authenticity in representation of religious traditions’, Salter (2020, 301) argues that involving faith-practitioners is a recommended strategy for RE.

One, albeit contested, theme of the wider scholarship is the potential of RE to positively impact a student’s personal religious identity as well as their tolerance for other faiths. Estrada et al. (2019, 2) found that ‘experiences and interaction with others during this developmental period are also critical in the development of religiosity’, and that RE has the potential for cultivating tolerance of other religions and allowing ‘the student to acquire values that they can integrate into their own lives’.

Although there exist a plethora of studies pertaining to RE in general, Hinduism remains something of a blind spot. Some studies, however, are worthy of mention. Nesbit (1998, 102) found ‘dissonances, inconsistencies and contradictions between the Hinduism or Sikhism of these two domains of home/community and school’. She noted a ‘complex interactive relationship between, on the one hand, school encounters with one’s faith and, on the other, religious nurture’ (ibid., 104). She comes to six significant conclusions:

1. School enjoys a ‘privileged status’ and what a teacher says is accepted as authoritative.

2. Young Hindus respond positively to hearing the content of Hinduism in school, and sometimes even accept their religious identity on a teacher’s authority.

3. Hindu students are resources and conduits of information that teachers often utilise.

4. Some Hindu students report discrimination from teachers such as being scolded for attending school with hands stained with henna.

5. In some schools, the absence of Hinduism effects the religious identity of young Hindus who are embarrassed to be associated with it.

6. The content of textbooks often determine what is taught about Hinduism but many give too generalised an account.

The most significant recent study of Hinduism in British education was the 2021 ‘Report on the State of Hinduism in Religious Education in UK Schools’ by Insight UK. This project employed an online survey with the primary audience being Hindu parents whose children were currently enrolled in UK schools. The survey was also open to Hindu students who had recently completed their secondary education, Hindu parent governors, and Hindu representatives on Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education. Crucially, the study found that 98% of survey respondents claimed the study of Hinduism in RE is low quality and deficient, 75% believed that Hinduism is not taught in a positive light and that the teaching itself is limited, flawed and often ignored, and that there is growing evidence of inaccurate resources used by classroom teachers for teaching Hinduism (Insight UK 2021, 5–6). It also concluded that ‘there is a lack of awareness amongst Hindu and non-Hindu students about the Hindu religion … [which] is leading to conversion issues, bullying and an inferiority complex amongst Hindu children’ (Ibid., 9).

Finally, it is worth noting the recent 2020 scandal caused by AQA GCSE (9–1) Religious Studies Specification A (Parry, Hayes, and Butler 2017) when several parents and British Hindu organisations protested over the school book claiming that some Hindus have recently turned to terrorism in order to protect their faith (Khanna 2020).

2. Methodology

This research was conducted over a period of four months from April 2022 to July 2022. My sample consisted of 30 students across 15 mainstream³ secondary schools in London who self-identified as Hindu: 15 male and 15 female. Each student underwent RE classes and each were from a school that had implemented yoga in some form. I interviewed each participant individually, conducting semi-structured interviews. The average interview time was one hour and, for the most part, took place in the homes of the participants. I utilised Harvey’s concept of ‘guesthood’ (2013, 94) wherein meetings with interviewees are likened to a free discussion instead of a one-way exchange of information. I also heavily drew upon the methodological process of Ridgely (2012, 11) in that I did my best to ensure that when interviewing the children, the interview did not have an ‘adultist’ perspective but instead a child-centred one. I achieved this by essentially ‘allowing children to shape the research’ (Ridgely 2011, 82). I therefore created an atmosphere built upon mutual respect in which the teenagers (who were the experts with knowledge to impart) felt comfortable talking with me.

Given that my interviewees were children, I adopted BERA’s (2019) guidelines to ensure that my project and subsequent data were ‘ethically acceptable’. In my capacity as researcher, I did all in my power to ensure that the participants I interviewed were protected from any manner of harm at every stage of planning and execution of the project. I therefore thoroughly briefed each participant (including the guardians) about my project, provided an ongoing option to opt out at any moment, and ensured that I acquired informed consent. Names of all participants are anonymised, no residential addresses are disclosed, and no names of schools (or teachers) are given. I have assigned pseudonyms that reflect both gender and ethnic background to each participant. I do reveal the age of each participant. Finally, this project has also been approved by the University of Vienna Ethics Committee (reference number: 00782).

3. Results

The following results have been arranged thematically.

3.1 Apathetic and engaged

Regarding their religious identity, each students’ reported Hindu identity was assumed to be the same as their experience of Hinduism. Thus, the degree to which Hinduism was an important part of individual identity was both diverse and socially contingent. With this acknowledged, the 30 students all fell rather noticeably into one of two categories: apathetic or engaged. The slight minority of students had a sense of apathy towards their Hindu identity. 12 out of 30 of the students fell into this category. As the name implies, these students, although self-identifying as Hindu, gave no indication of actively engaging with their religion of their own accord. The cause of this apathy was due to two main reasons. The majority (eight) claimed that Hinduism was simply not something they gave much thought to. Indeed, these students thought that even wanting to discuss Hinduism was rather odd. Darshan (13), for example, was both bemused and surprised by my interest in his religion. He told me, ‘it’s really not something I think about’. Interestingly, these students perceived Hinduism as something that one does rather than something to believe. Dhriti (17) explained:

‘To me, talking about it isn’t really the point. I mean, there’s like a billion Hindus or something and they probably all believe different things. What’s important is what they actually do, you know? Like, it doesn’t matter if you pray to Ganesh or some strange god nobody has ever heard of. What matters is that you pray’.

When I asked her whether or not she actually believes in the deities she prays to, she told me that she did but ‘I just don’t really think about it’.

The remaining four perceived Hinduism as something of a family religious practice that did not impact them as individuals. Bhavna (15) told me:

‘Of course Hinduism is very important to me! It’s just that Hinduism is like, [modestly long pause] it’s like a family thing. Yeah it’s my religion but it’s not like I walk around being like “Hi I’m a Hindu”. It’s just like something really important that I do with my family.’

It is worth noting that, while not necessarily enthused by their religious identity, all 12 apathetic students perceived their Hindu identity as a religious one.

The engaged students, in contrast to the apathetic students, were very active in their engagement with Hinduism and, for the most part, had much to say to me about what Hinduism means to them. These students could describe in detail the direct impact of Hinduism on their day to day lives: the most common running thread herein, was their shared opinion on the dual importance of belief and practice. Whereas the apathetic students did not talk about their own personal practice (instead only talking about the collective practices they did with their families) or the specific Hindu beliefs, the engaged students were able to enumerate various practices and beliefs pertaining to their own lived Hinduism. They also, unlike the apathetic students, placed importance on scripture. Eshan (17) encapsulated the engaged ethos when he told me:

‘Hinduism is the biggest part of who I am. I can’t live without food and Hinduism is the same: I couldn’t live without knowing that I have someone to pray to’.

Interestingly, only half (8 of the 18) reported regularly attending regular religious meetings. However, all 18 reported the importance of frequent prayer. Giriraj (17), for example, described how he would have been unable to get through his GCSEs without ‘constant praying’.

3.2 Religious diversity

Although the students very much outlined various beliefs and practices that can be applied to Hinduism in general, 25 readily spoke about the vast diversity of Hinduism. Eshika (16) told me:

‘Everyone always wants to compare Hinduism to Christianity but I think that’s pretty stupid. I know you get differences in Christianity, but what some Hindus believe and do is like way different to what my family does! Like, I have this friend at another school, a Hindu friend, and I have never heard of half of the things she tells me about her religion. We’re both Hindus but it’s crazy how different we are!’

Similarly, a certain degree of religious flexibility was identified. Badal (15), who excitedly showed me a picture of Jesus next to a picture of Krishna in his family’s kitchen, was evidently proud of this aspect of Hinduism:

‘With Hinduism, I can be like, “Jesus? Sure I can pray to him! Buddha? Yeah I can pray to him too if I like!” I mean, what other religion is like that? Isn’t it badass?’

3.3 School experience

The overwhelming majority of interviewees (28 out of 30) were unhappy with their experience of secondary education in light of their Hindu identity. One of the two students who did not actively say that they were unhappy reported total apathy. Thus, only one student was happy: a student who attended a secondary school that receives visits from the local Hindu community. What instantly stood out was an overwhelming sense of anger, frustration, and shame with respondents unhappy with the lack of Hinduism in the RE classroom as well as the lesson content pertaining to Hinduism. Hiral (16), noticeably furious, aptly summed up this sentiment:

‘I have been at this school for five fucking years and I have had exactly three lessons on Hinduism. One was about the Trimūrti, surprise surprise. One was on the caste system, and the most recent was on Hindu violence against women. So, like, one was a shit CBeebies intro to my religion that said Jack shit about what I actually practice, and the other two made it look like my religion hates women and acts like it’s still the Middle fucking Ages.’

When I asked her what implications this has had on her religious identity, she elaborated:

‘Like, my friends know that I’m Hindu but I don’t like talking to them about it. I kind of try to hide it, you know? I’m only really a proper Hindu when I’m with my family.’

Herein, one finds a strong sense of cognitive dissonance pertaining to the religious identity of teenage Hindus: a juxtaposition between their home life and school life whereby the former is a healthy relationship with their religion and the latter is a sense of anger and shame. Karan (18), echoed this sentiment, stating that:

‘Hinduism is for home. I’m not a white Christian: I can’t come to school and just expect to hear reasonable things said about my religion’.

Ridhi (14), told me that she is embarrassed of her Hindu identity at school:

‘We had this one lesson when we learned about how women in Hinduism have to walk through fire to prove that they haven’t cheated on their husband. When I learned this, I felt really sad and embarrassed’.

She went on to explain the contrast between her feelings in school towards her Hindu identity and her feelings at home:

‘When I told my mum about it [the practice of sati] she was just like “that’s not Hinduism”. At first, I didn’t really know what to think but then, like maybe a month later, my brother got married and we had this massive Hindu wedding. I had this really nice feeling of “Oh! This is Hinduism!” I don’t know why we can’t learn about things like this in school’

Similarly, Manas (16) told me about how he hides his Hindu identity from his friends:

‘I am proud to be a Hindu. Very proud, actually. But I don’t think any of my non-Hindu friends know that about me’.

When I asked him why this was, he responded:

‘Have you heard how other people talk about Hinduism? In RE we learned about how the Caste system is like the most important thing ever in Hinduism. I mean, if I was someone who wasn’t a Hindu, I’d also be like “oh man that’s messed up”.’

3.4 Yoga in school

This sense of anger interestingly, for the most part, extended to the Hindu teenagers experience of yoga in school: 24 of the 30 interviewees were unhappy, five were indifferent, and only one was happy about it. Mihika (17) aptly described the sense of frustration:

‘Yoga is like one of the most important things in my whole life. When you ask me what Hinduism means to me, yoga is my answer. It’s not just part of my religion, it is [she pauses here]. It’s my way of getting close to god. So when this annoying woman comes to my form and explains that yoga has nothing to do with religion, I just want to be like “fuck you”.’

Nihal (18) was a lot more jaded about his experience of yoga at his school, but equally unhappy:

‘You learn about Hinduism in class and it’s all Caste system, strange elephant headed gods, and not killing cows for some strange reason, but the second it comes to, oh I don’t know, one of Hinduism’s best gifts to the world, they’re all like “oh yoga isn’t religious”.’

Significantly, 27 of the 30 believed that yoga was inherently a part of Hinduism. Indeed, they held that the yoga taught in their schools was not real yoga but rather a watered-down exercise. Prisha (15) told me that her friends, who knew that she practiced yoga every day, were surprised when she decided to opt out of the school-based yoga programme:

‘It wasn’t yoga. Maybe it works for some people but to me, just [she paused for a long time]. Just no. When this teacher came in and taught us how to say “Namaste”, I just couldn’t. Everyone was treating everything like it was all cute and I just couldn’t. This is my religion. It’s not some cute way of relaxing.’

3.5 What is lacking in the RE classroom?

Unsurprisingly, the interviewees had extensive views on what in particular is lacking in the teaching (or lack thereof) of Hinduism as well as what they themselves would choose to improve. The most common theme (which 26 students actively referred to) was that of Hindu values. For the most part these were humanitarian values such as compassion: most notably equality, honesty, non-violence (ahiṃsā), and love. Eshika (16) told me:

‘We have had, like, a million lessons about loving your neighbour in Christianity but Hinduism also teaches you this. Like, everyone thinks that Hindus all, like, think that everyone is different and unequal because they only teach us about caste in school.’

When I asked her to elaborate on what she thinks should be taught, she replied:

‘In Hinduism, everyone is equal to God. I wish they taught that instead of making it sound like I believe in, like, the total opposite!’

Vaidik (17), who had clearly reflected on this subject for a long time, even offered a reason as to the state of Hinduism in education:

‘I think it’s because Hinduism is so different from Christianity. It’s easy to see a ten-armed blue god or a god with the head of an elephant, so it’s easy to think that Hinduism is just this strange religion. If I taught Hinduism, then I would show both sides. Sure there are all of these cool gods, but that’s not the whole religion. It’s not even the most important part of the religion. As a Hindu, I have to follow rules. It’s actually kind of like Christianity. Like believing in god, being a good person, telling the truth, you get me?’

Indeed, these humanitarian values seemed to be at the very core of what students believed was lacking. Comparatively, only four students thought that there was a lack of Hindu scripture in the RE classroom.

The second theme that students identified as lacking was Hindu practice. 24 students spoke of how they believe that RE should teach about particular practices that Hindus actually engage in. Herein, yoga was a common theme. Mihika (17) told me:

‘If I was in charge, yoga would be the first thing I taught about Hinduism. You can basically use yoga to teach about all of Hinduism, actually. I mean, everyone knows yoga but hardly anyone knows that it is like basically a way of praying.’

Pūjā was also commonly identified as lacking. Giriraj (17), describing how he would teach Hinduism, told me:

‘You could basically do pūjā in class. Everyone could help make a shrine and then everyone could see what it is that everyday Hindus actually do.’

Finally, 19 students spoke about how they thought that more could be done to teach about Hindu festivals. Ridhi (14), for example, said:

‘There are loads of important festivals in Hinduism. I don’t think any of my friends who aren’t Hindus know any of them. Why can’t this be taught more at school?’

4. Discussion

This paper shall now turn to discussing the key findings of this data.

4.1 The key features of teenage hinduism

For the most part, the findings of this paper are in line with Santosh and Vij’s (2001, 15–16) five values. I would, however, replace one value.

Although some of the interviewees in this study mentioned scripture, only two believed that it was of central importance to their religion. This shift in perspective was aptly described by Gayathri (14) who thought that the very notion of reading the Rāmāyana hilarious:

‘Nobody actually reads the Rāmāyana! That’s for old people! It’s not like I’m a Christian and the Bible is like the most important book in the whole world.’

When I asked her to elaborate on the relationship of Christianity to the Bible and Hinduism to the Rāmāyana, she said:

‘If you want to be a really good Christian, you read the Bible. You like have to. You can be a really good Hindu and never read the Rāmāyana.’

Thus, instead of ‘scripture’, I believe that religious diversity is a core component of teenage Hinduism. Not only did the majority of interviewees identify this aspect of Hinduism, they believed that it made the religion unique. I would argue that this value is at odds with Santosh and Vij’s identification of teenagers thinking Hinduism ‘should be more like the other faiths’ (Ibid., 35). On the contrary, the majority of teenagers believed that Hinduism not being like other faiths was what made it special. Although they did indeed want their religion to exist within a multifaith context, the majority did not want to look at it through a Christian lens but rather wanted it to be defined in its own terms.

The entire dialogue pertaining to diversity was reminiscent of Davie’s (1994) ‘believing without belonging’ insofar as there was a clear disjunction between the hard indicators of lived religion and the softer ones.

The religious flexibility noted within this diversity is also significant in light of studies of bricolage (Bobineau and Hervieu-Léger 2000) or transnational religion. Badal’s (15) allusion to Jesus and Krishna is reminiscent of Pasura and Erdal’s (2016, 11) identification of ‘hybrid religious practices’ that draw on a variety of identities.

4.2 Religious dedication

In contrast to Vishwa Hindu Parishad UK and Berkeley, I believe that this project reveals that although Hindu teenagers may not place a large deal of importance on attending religious meetings (such as visiting a Mandir), they are for the most part very much religiously engaged. The aforementioned engaged students were very much actively involved in religious practice that often took the form of private practice such as prayer. Even the apathetic Hindus for the most part believed that their private family rituals were of great importance. I would therefore argue that simply measuring teenage attendance at formal Hindu gatherings is an insufficient measure of religious engagement and dedication. Herein, one also finds a degree of nuance added to Day’s (2011, 174) ‘nominal’ religion: unlike Day’s nominalised Christians who lack a strict (or any) form of adherence to their practice, some of these apathetic students placed all of their religious emphasis on ritual. Indeed, these observations are situated within the broader body of scholarship pertaining to more informal manifestations of religiosity as well as the field of lived religion. Hall (1997, vii), Ammerman (2007, 5), McGuire (2008, 12), for example, all draw attention to the ‘everyday’ lived religious experience of ‘nonexperts’. Brandom (2000, 81), criticising the phenomenological approach to RE, argues that neglecting less formal manifestations of religiosity leads to a ‘mere empirical description of religious and quasi-religious culture’. Finally, building upon the work of Certeau on la religion vécue (lived religion), Dessing et al. (2013, 2)⁴ seek to acknowledge the importance of ‘prescribed religion’ but crucially ‘shift the gaze from “hypervisible” forms of institutional religion which currently dominate social and discursive space to the less visible forms of religion’. It is clear that neglecting the less formal lived-religious dimension of Hinduism is perceived as lacking by the teenagers of this study.

4.3 Hinduism in secondary schools

It should already be abundantly clear that this study very much supports the previously identified dissatisfaction Hindu teenagers have pertaining to their religion within the context of their school life. However, although this study certainly echoes the findings of the 2021 ‘Report on the State of Hinduism in Religious Education in UK Schools’, I do take fault with the methodology employed by Insight UK. I believe that in order to truly examine the state of Hinduism in UK schools, the voice of Hindu students cannot be ignored.

I also take fault with the first four of Nesbit’s (1998) conclusions. Although the majority of the interviewed students placed a large deal of worth on schooling, the Hindu teenagers of this study most certainly did not take what a teacher says as authoritative when it came to the teaching of Hinduism. Moreover, rather than responding positively, the vast majority of students responded very badly to the content of RE pertaining to Hinduism. Similarly, there was absolutely no evidence of Hindus accepting the label of Hinduism for his or her religious identity on a teacher’s authority unless one wishes to argue that some of the students felt attacked by their teacher’s words which subsequently galvanised their faith. Although there certainly was evidence for Hindu students acting as resources and conduits of information that teachers often utilise, the students who spoke of this referred to it negatively. Iraj (13), for example, was unhappy that he, being the only Hindu in class, was ‘always’ singled out when the class studied Hinduism, but the same was never the case for any other student of faith. Finally, although I too found that many of the Hindu students reported discrimination from teachers, it was never for such obvious reasons such as attending school with hands stained with henna. Instead it was a sense of discrimination brought about by a sense of injustice towards how their religion was being portrayed.

These findings add to the ever increasing corpus of data arguing against the phenomenological approach to RE and the World Religions narrative. As early as 1993, Wright (1993) was already pointing the problematic nature of studying religion in this manner, and it is clear that the debate is still alive today: the students of this study referred to a tradition that the classic phenomenological approach might deem as ‘too disparate a practice to be considered a discrete body of knowledge’ (Revell 2012, 7). Furthermore, the discussion, in line with Shaw’s (2018) challenge to the ‘homogenisation of religious traditions’, demonstrated a need to ‘capture the complexity of personal faith and the relationship between the formal and the informal’. There remains a clear need to recognise diversity within Hinduism itself, inter-generational differences, the transnational component, and fusion of beliefs (Jackson 2016; Shaw 2018). Herein, as with the aforementioned discussion pertaining to lived religion, one finds a correlation with Dinham and Shaw’s (2015, 9) REforREal that found that students desired to learn about ‘the reality of religion in society’.

Interestingly, beyond a marked failure to teach Hinduism in a manner deemed acceptable by Hindu students, the findings of this study also (albeit briefly) hint at a broader possible issue within RE. The fact that Gayathri (14) directly associated Christianity with reading the Bible possibly betrays a lack of attention given to informal manifestations of religion in the classroom. Day’s (2011, 25) ‘cultural practice’ of Christianity, for example, has nothing to do with reading scripture.

4.4 How Hindu teenagers perceive school-based yoga

The past decade has seen something of a proliferation of yoga specifically targeted at schools and teenagers. ‘Yoga in Schools’ is a company that offers yoga lessons in secondary schools. Noting the multifaith ethos of UK secondary schools, they make it very clear on their website that it ‘is important to note that Yoga is not a religion’ (Yoga in Schools 2021). Indeed, this stance is wholly typical: yoga, when employed in secondary schools, is usually completely secular (Brook 2021; Kalama Life 2021; Teen Yoga Foundation 2021).

However, despite this recent burst in popularity, one could argue that the use of yoga in schools is somewhat controversial. Brown (2019, 287) argues that school-based yoga programmes risk inadvertent cultural appropriation and cultural imperialism: by extracting, and potentially distorting, cultural resources from one socially and politically less- privileged group of cultural ‘others’, and imposing those resources on still- less- privileged ‘others’, for the primary benefit of the socially dominant group. For the most part, the Hindu teenagers in this study were unhappy with how their school implemented yoga, holding that yoga is, at its core, a religious (specifically Hindu) practice. While I wholly agree with Brown’s (2019, 287) findings that school-based yoga programmes ‘risk inadvertent cultural appropriation and cultural imperialism’, I believe that her main argument – namely that yoga in schools is ‘misidentifying religious practices as fully secular’ (Ibid., 2) – completely misses the point. Indeed, what I found was that Hindu students believed that yoga should be fully religious but what was available to them in school was not true yoga but instead a form of secular relaxation or exercise. Thus, rather than a ‘Vedic Victory’ (Ibid., 6), the interviewees of this study perceived school-based yoga as a Vedic defeat: an inappropriate extraction of yoga from its inherently religious roots.

5. Concluding remarks

It should very much be acknowledged that this paper draws upon a small sample size within one individual city in England. I therefore do not seek to offer any sweeping conclusions regarding the lived religious practices and experiences of Hindu teenagers in the UK. However, what this paper does provide is much needed ethnographic data. It gives a small window into a field that is severely lacking in data. Although surveys are a necessary means of data collection, it is vital that studies like this one exist to not only provide an in-depth examination, but also either confirm or challenge the data accumulated through surveys. Although one could argue that ‘anonymous surveys may allow the expression of negative attitudes more easily than interviews’ (Niemi, Kimanen, and Kallioniemi 2019, 118), I believe that if the right ethnographic conditions are met – namely if one’s interviewees are made to feel truly comfortable in expressing themselves – this risk can be mitigated: indeed, I believe that the participants of this study were more than happy sharing, in some cases, extremely negative attitudes.

In short, the interviewees of this study demonstrated a lived juxtaposition between their Hindu life at home (a Hindu identity to be proud of) and a sense of anger, frustration, and guilt brought about by their experiences of secondary education. They had a clear sense of being, to varying degrees, let down by their experience of religious education. Specifically speaking, Hindu values, practice, and festival observation were identified as lacking in their secondary school experience. Indeed, I believe it is extremely telling that the one student who was satisfied with the teaching of Hinduism at his school, happened to attend the one school in this study that works together with the local Hindu community and receives visits from adult Hindus. The students of this school subsequently are afforded the opportunity to actively engage with lived Hinduism. I am acutely aware that Hinduism is a complicated and often daunting subject for teachers, many of whom have received no education in the study of Hinduism itself. I would therefore call on secondary schools to, in line with Salter (2020, 301), move towards working together with their respective Hindu communities in a required effort to limit misrepresentation and enable Hindu students to feel proud of their religious identity at school as well as just at home.

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to the participants of this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joseph Chadwin

Joseph Chadwin is an FWF Fellow in Religious Studies at the University of Vienna. Particularly favouring ethnographic methodologies, his teaching and research predominantly pertains to childhood and adolescent religiosity, Chinese religion, Buddhism, Hinduism, and religious education. References

Notes

1. Vertovec (2000), for example, speaks only very generally of a ‘Hindu diaspora’.

2. It should be noted that the Scottish curriculum is different.

3. No students attended schools of religious character. In theory this meant that there was an expectation that RE would cover a broad range of traditions.

4. Woodhead has especially emphasised a British and wider-European trend away from organised religion and towards a more informal ‘postconfessional’ religion. See, for example, Religion and Change in Modern Britain (2012).