Researching religious education pedagogy through an action research community of practice

Abstract

The Warwick REDCo community of practice was a group of religious education researchers operating in several contexts: English secondary schools and universities, English and European collaborations on religious education. The group undertook action research, seeking to illustrate and critically assess the interpretive approach to religious education. As a community of practice, processes of mutual conversation and support were prominent in its schedule. In the present article, attention is focused on its findings with regard to pedagogy. Recommendations are offered both for classroom teaching and the preparation of teachers, subject to re‐investigation in new settings. Benefits and conditions for the success of action research and communities of practice are identified, as are issues arising for further investigation. There is brief integration with some emerging European findings.

Keywords:

• action research
• community of practice
• interpretive approach
• religious education
• pedagogy

Introduction

This paper presents the career and findings of an action research community of practice, focused on religious education in several contexts (English secondary schools and universities, together with English and European collaborations on religious education). The background of the group, in religious education research at the University of Warwick, is described, before its theoretical orientations are traced. The process of the group’s research is outlined and then attention is given to its findings with regard to pedagogy. Some remarks are offered in relation to the interpretive approach, action research and communities of practice as drivers of pedagogical improvement, and briefly contextualised to some emerging European trends. Finally, issues arising for further investigation are identified.

Background and contexts

There is an established tradition of research into religious education, combining scholarly and empirical work, at the University of Warwick (e.g. Jackson 1989, 1996, 1997, 2003, 2004a, 2006a, 2006b). The Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit (WRERU: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wie/research/wreru/) has pioneered the use of ethnography in religious education research, pedagogy and curriculum development (e.g. Jackson and Nesbitt 1992, 1994a, 1994b; Nesbitt 1998, 2000,2004). The community of practice was a group of nine people including WRERU staff, associate fellows and former and current masters and doctoral students (Ipgrave, Jackson, and O’Grady 2009), catalysed by the formation of a European project on religion, education, dialogue and conflict – the REDCo (Religion in Education: A Contributor to Dialogue or a Factor of Conflict in Transforming Societies of European Countries) project (Weisse 2007, see below).

The interpretive approach to religious education is an outcome of Warwick religious educators’ interest in ethnography, although other sources are drawn upon (Jackson 1997, 2004a, 2006b, 2008a). The experience of studying Hindu communities in Coventry (e.g. Jackson 1989) led to recognition of the need for flexible, reflexive modes of description. The interpretive approach has three key concepts: (1) representation, (2) interpretation, and (3) reflexivity. Firstly, in representing religious traditions to school pupils, it is important to acknowledge the scholarly debate about defining and representing religions, especially through representing their internal diversity. Secondly, when pupils are interpreting the beliefs and practices of those traditions, teachers should ask pupils to consider their own language and presuppositions, in order that they should avoid unconscious projection. Thirdly, learning should be characterised by reflexivity; it is valuable for pupils to review and take personal account of what they have learned, including critical reflection on the methods of study; pupils can also experience ‘edification’, the term used in the interpretive approach to describe this aspect of reflexivity or form of learning. Initially, the pedagogical ideas and the data from the various ethnographic studies were used in school texts (e.g. Barratt 1994).

Later, the interpretive approach began to be used as part of the theoretical grounding for empirical classroom‐based enquiries, including pupil‐to‐pupil dialogue (e.g. Ipgrave 2005; McKenna, Ipgrave, and Jackson 2008) and using pupils’ own concerns and questions as a means to increase their motivation (O’Grady 2003, 2005, 2006). This latter work allied action research to the interpretive approach. The interpretive approach’s reflexive elements were in the foreground, pupils being encouraged to build their own items into learning plans and to reflect on and take personal account of what they had learned. However, the original formulation of the interpretive approach had little sense of what should happen next as a response to such reflection. Harnessing ideas on iterativity (Altrichter 1993) and the dynamic curriculum (Elliott 1991, 1997, 1998), a four‐cycle action research study was therefore undertaken together with one secondary religious education class (O’Grady 2007, 2008). A feature of this study was that student feedback could be built cumulatively into pedagogy. As lessons and topics were taught, the teacher acted as a researcher, keeping a participant observation log, asking pupils to complete diaries or questionnaires and to have their views recorded in audio‐taped interviews. The data would be analysed by ethnographic content analysis and motivation factors identified, influencing the planning of teaching and learning for the next cycle (O’Grady 2007, chap. 4, 2008, 365–7).

The conclusions of the study were that dialogue with difference, existential interest and ethical interest were drivers of pupil motivation. There were reverberations with work on adolescent agency (e.g. Cotterell 1996; Head 1997), creativity (e.g. Bailin 1994) and pupil voice (e.g. Rudduck, Chaplain, and Wallace 1996). Yet action research findings are always in need of reworking in new settings, providing action hypotheses rather than illustrating fixed cause‐and‐effect relationships (O’Grady 2008, 366). There was therefore a call for a group of follow‐up studies, which once published would further expand the pedagogical and methodological language so far gained (cf. Somekh 2006 chap. 1; Stenhouse 1981).

A research team then gathered around Wenger’s concept of the community of practice (1998), adapting his epistemological position to one where knowledge evolves via practice, reflection and conversation, in forms of ‘situated learning’ (Lave and Wenger 1991). It included ‘novice researchers’ who ‘learned by doing’ alongside more experienced ones, but all members gained insights into power relations and the processes of conceptual evolution (Everington 2009a). A hermeneutical relationship would emerge between our theory and practice, our understanding of pedagogy continually reconstructed in the light of experience. Influenced by Gadamer (1975) this is Elliott’s action research philosophy (Elliott 2009, 33).

As well as its role of investigating and documenting the interpretive approach, the Warwick REDCo community of practice should be viewed in the context of international interest in the interpretive approach (Jackson 2004b, 2008b), which has developed in a parallel way with interest in education on religious and cultural diversity in the European sphere (e.g. Council of Europe 2007, 2008; Organisation for Security and Co‐operation in Europe 2007). The European Commission Framework 6‐funded project REDCo 2006–2009 (http://www.redco.uni-hamburg.de/) was a response to these tendencies. A consortium was formed of research teams from universities in England, Estonia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia and Spain, combining a series of national investigations with a thematic agenda. The key concern was to investigate how religious discourse and dialogue in education can promote the peaceful coexistence of people in Europe (Weisse 2007). REDCo’s programmes are fully documented elsewhere (e.g. Jackson et al. 2007; Knauth et al. 2008; Valk et al. 2009). The REDCo policy recommendations document can now be accessed (see REDCo 2009). The Warwick community of practice contributed to European‐level summaries (e.g. Bertram‐Troost and O’Grady 2008; Ipgrave and McKenna 2008; Jackson and O’Grady 2007) and triangulation with data from the other national projects sometimes formed part of the community of practice’s schedule.

Process

Over 2006–2009, members of the community of practice met regularly for workshops, presenting research updates, supporting and criticising each other’s studies and reflecting on methodological issues. The team was geographically spread and most communication took place via email, but the face‐to‐face seminars were important in enabling collaboration and mutual constructive criticism. In addition to the analytic ‘first level’ of individual study data, second‐level analysis considered generic theoretical and methodological issues (Ipgrave and Jackson 2009; Ipgrave and O’Grady 2009). At a third level, the studies have been placed in conversation with REDCo’s summary European perspective (Skeie 2009). The individual study methods were adaptations of those developed by O’Grady (see Ipgrave and O’Grady 2009). We benefited from presenting and discussing our progress at European REDCo conferences. Materials were produced for a teacher readership (O’Grady and Whittall 2007, 2008) and the project was substantially reported in an edited book (Ipgrave, Jackson, and O’Grady 2009). In ‘research on research’, we made a partial self‐ethnography (Everington 2009b). Working as a community of practice strongly influenced the way in which research findings were gained: though the individual researchers pursued particular foci, the pedagogical issues for students in both schools and higher education came up in joint discussion as the studies were presented to the group.

Research findings (Level 1)

Necessarily, this is a synopsis of findings given elsewhere (Ipgrave, Jackson, and O’Grady 2009). Each study enables consideration of the interpretive approach from a different viewpoint.

Secondary school pedagogy

Nigel Fancourt explored the interrelationship between the interpretive approach and classroom assessment (Fancourt 2009). This is one area of pedagogy that is not explicitly considered by Jackson, who uses the word to describe one aspect of reflexivity as ‘pupils re‐assessing his or her understanding of his or her own way of life’, and also talks of the need for a ‘running critique of the interpretive process’ (Jackson 2000, 134), but offers no assessment scheme. Fancourt speculates that ‘traditional’ forms of assessment could be inimical to reflexivity, but illustrates discussion‐based ‘reflexive’ or ‘dialogical’ practices that engage his pupils in a rounded evaluation of how their own beliefs and values are developing. Fancourt’s research interviews about this process cannot easily be separated from the process itself.

Gemma O’Dell set out to enrich learning about religious identity by concurrently enabling reflection on gender identity (O’Dell 2009). O’Dell investigated boys’ perceptions of religious education as a ‘feminine’ subject as a possible barrier to dialogue. What if they are encouraged to see their own ‘masculine’ identities as diverse, and open to reconstruction? Adapting Jackson’s representation concept, O’Dell suggests that this move can enable boys to appreciate the heterogeneous character of religious traditions. Intriguingly, she finds that those most able to conceptualise religious traditions as represented at individual, membership group and wider tradition levels are those most open to conceptualising their personal identities in the same way. Drawing on Wilna Meijer’s hermeneutical approach (1995), O’Dell remarks that religious education’s notion of tradition might expand to include students’ personal influences.

Amy Whittall’s concern was the needs of gifted and talented pupils (Whittall 2009). She built on previous findings that, too often, religious education can be academically unchallenging (White 2004, 151ff.; Wintersgill 2000, 15). Yet Whittall identified several interpretive approach strategies (gaining representative knowledge and understanding, building bridges between one’s own life and the lives of others and reflecting on that process, analysing different influences and views, making links between beliefs and historical and cultural settings) as useful in promoting higher order thinking. Of additional interest in Whittall’s study is the use of direct dialogue between Muslim and non‐Muslim pupils, and how the Muslim pupils took some responsibility over the representation of Islam, involving themselves in the planning of learning tasks.

It has already been shown that Kevin O’Grady’s action research, together with the interpretive approach, was foundational to the community of practice project as a whole; later, one of the cycles reported in O’Grady’s PhD study (Cycle 2) was refocused as a community of practice individual study, the data now reinterpreted through the REDCo conceptual framework of dialogue and conflict (O’Grady 2009a). Here, a group of pupils followed a topic on interfaith relations, peace and reconciliation. Dialogue had appeared as Cycle 1’s main motivation category, and Cycle 2 aimed to provide more opportunity for dialogue (with other pupils and with different religious traditions) and to investigate what dialogue meant to the pupils and why it was important. Pupils preferred dialogues on concrete situations, such as the relationships between different groups around them in Sheffield, and preferred dialogues for two reasons: pragmatically, dialogue with others helped to generate ideas, and philosophically, dialogue extended the range and kind of ideas, for example, whether religious or secular. In terms of dialogue and conflict, pupils viewed the plurality of religious and cultural belonging in and around their class as an educational opportunity rather than a difficulty, although they also showed awareness of the presence of conflict and war in the world, a factor that would become more apparent and more challenging in the next cycle (see O’Grady 2009b).

Initial teacher education

The aim of Judith Everington’s study was to investigate how opportunities to explore and evaluate the interpretive approach might contribute to the professional development of her students, as they began their initial experiences of secondary religious education teaching (Everington 2009b). Her research questions were: How would the students respond to the theoretical propositions of the approach? How might engagement and evaluation opportunities be tailored to their responses? What would they gain from engagement with the interpretive approach? As the study progressed, Everington became increasingly interested in wider questions about the relationship between practitioner and academic theorising. She found that her students thrived when encouraged to problematise the interpretive approach in relation to their classroom experiences:

The interpretive approach offers a ‘good theory’ not because it answers all questions, but because it stimulates questions, both professional and personal. It is challenging and unsettling and, as a result, has the potential to require those who encounter it to see themselves, their personal and professional understandings and their work in a new light. (Everington 2009b, 111)

Her action research orientation was crucial in this respect, creating the conditions for an exploratory learning environment where content was dynamic rather than fixed. There was a form of horizontal expansion (cf. Afdal 2008) in which the teachers had a common awareness of an academic theory, but identified their own related questions, needs and responses.

Where Judith Everington’s students assessed the interpretive approach in the light of their teaching experience, those of Linda Whitworth tended to reverse the relationship (Whitworth 2009). Whitworth’s students were not subject specialists; they were beginning primary teachers, preparing to teach the whole curriculum, whose focus on religious education during university sessions would be limited to a short introduction. However, Whitworth investigated whether knowledge of the interpretive approach would contribute to their understanding of their religious education teaching responsibilities and build their confidence. As with Everington’s study, how to engage practitioners with a theory was a constant issue. Whitworth’s findings centre on phronesis (practical wisdom, cf. Elliott’s ‘deliberative reflection’ [2009]). The principles of the interpretive approach are best illustrated through a particular teaching or learning activity; students would elaborate a concept from the interpretive approach through discussion of such an activity, rather than in contrast to a concept from a different pedagogical framework (e.g. differences between ‘interpretation’ and ‘learning from religion’ were not built up significantly); and knowledge of the interpretive approach built confidence to the extent that pupils were engaged.

Continuing professional development

In work with the staff of a comprehensive school humanities faculty, Joyce Miller combined continuing professional development and practitioner research (Miller 2009). Miller formulated the following research questions. How might the interpretive approach impact on the teachers’ understanding of the school’s religious and cultural communities, professional practice and personal edification? Does the interpretive approach provide a sound basis for improving teachers’ understanding of and relationship with their religious and cultural communities? Various activities, including community visits and meetings with community members, especially those of the local Muslim community, were structured along these lines, before the teachers’ reflective diaries, questionnaires and other texts were analysed in relation to the concepts of representation, interpretation and reflexivity. Findings were mixed. Respondents were more confident about representation than interpretation, for example; awareness of diversity within Islam was gained, but the teachers sometimes found it difficult to make conceptual links between individuals and wider tradition, or comparisons and contrasts between their own values and those of the community members studied. Partly, this was because of their now expanded notion of diversity within Islam. However, it was also true that more time was needed for issues to be addressed at the necessary depth.

Critical discussion (research findings, Levels 2 and 3)

At Level 2 there was a thematic discussion of issues raised by individual studies under the headings of interpretive approach, action research and community of practice. Level 3 foci included commentary on the community of practice’s output from a critical friend, the leader of another national project within REDCo (Skeie 2009).

Level 2: interpretive approach

Ipgrave and Jackson (2009) reflect that the individual studies demonstrate the value of the interpretive approach for practice in various settings but that questions are also generated. One is the possibility of transferring the skills into different subject areas, for instance when considering assessment or the needs of the gifted. Specifically to religious education, the philosophical or theological depth of much pupil response is noted, and it is suggested that further clarification of the relation between interpretation, reflexivity and spiritual development would be of interest and use. Still, Ipgrave sees a possible tension between bringing out pupil responses and building understanding of religious traditions in that, if too much emphasis is placed on the former, the latter may be distorted. In a sense, the same problem also applies to the teachers consulted and researched by Miller. Both teacher education studies, on the other hand, pose a problem about the interpretive approach that could be read as a general theory–practice problem: it is clear that the interpretive approach cannot simply be applied in practice – instead, there are different forms of reinterrogation, through which some understandings emerge that sit loosely to the original; at what point do we cease speaking of the interpretive approach and begin speaking of versions or approaches? In this respect, members of the community of practice again felt that more time was needed, to work through issues in the necessary depth with respondents: for Jackson, tutors might devise activities to check that student teachers have understood the pedagogical principles fully (2009). Finally there is a complication with reflexivity. In the secondary school studies, it is particularly apparent that rich learning takes place through activities set up to enable reflection on previous learning and that learning and reflection on learning are hard to separate.

Level 2: action research

It is evident that the action research methodology offered benefits to community of practice members (increased reflexive understanding of their pedagogical styles, assumptions and outcomes, better attention to pupil student or teacher voice, a deepened appreciation of the nature of pedagogical processes) but there are potential drawbacks (Ipgrave and O’Grady 2009). Might a practitioner, now also under pressure to pursue a research agenda, identify questions prematurely or direct the pedagogical flow too forcefully? Moreover, is the practice of action research actually beneficial to teachers and their students, or does it distract from teaching and learning; does it bring unrealistically high demands?

The benefits of action research have to balance with the requirement that intrusive effects of research activity should be minimised (cf. Kemmis 2006; Meyer 2000). However, overall, it might be claimed that the richness of individual studies shows that our action research interventions have enhanced practice and pointed the way to further refinements in future. But any such claim has to be set in the context of ongoing debate over the nature and function of action research itself.

Is action research ‘nomadic research’, concerned with moving practitioners away from fixed points of reference and forcing us to explore hitherto unseen possibilities (Mayer 1997)? Alternatively, is it the enshrinement of a desire to establish ‘a mutually constitutive relationship between research and social change’ (Noffke 1997, 2)? For Kemmis (2006), any action research unreflective of that desire is inadequate and lacks critical edge, whilst writers including Altrichter (1993) define quality in action research more in terms of methodological rigour and consistency. Somekh, moreover, illustrates how action research tends to proceed according to national, cultural or systemic background orientation (Somekh 2006, chap. 2); thus, Elliott (2009) is unhappy to find that some action research serves the technical–rational bias presently dominant in education, thereby obscuring the virtue of practical pedagogical wisdom.

In trying to locate the action research of the Warwick REDCo community of practice in this web of views, it is necessary to remember that our research was an interrogation of the interpretive approach to religious education. The interpretive approach embodies broad, deep educational values, foremost amongst which are: the understanding of the other and the understanding of the self. Our action research could not and did not aim to document any narrower processes where, for example, teachers learned to boost pupils’ attainment against pre‐set targets. The interpretive approach also embodies social justice concerns, especially in relation to the reduction of stereotyping, an aim central to several of the action research cases reported above. As a team of researchers, we certainly grew in awareness of the potentials and complexities of our sites, though this is paradoxical (O’Grady 2008).

Level 2: community of practice

In members’ reflections on their experience of the Warwick REDCo community of practice appears a pattern of enablement‐through‐routine (Everington 2009a). Workshops were held in all but one instance at the same venue, and a pattern emerged. Individual researchers became highly accustomed to presenting work‐in‐progress updates, receiving constructive criticism from the group and participating in discussions where cross‐study themes were clarified. This steady familiarisation eased transactions and built confidence. Community of practice as rhetoric became community of practice as reality. Power relations were recognised (the project had three co‐ordinators, two of whom were recognised as project architects) but so was the gradual gaining of voice for the less experienced. It should be stressed that the gains were more than affective. As has been shown, the studies developed from common departure points in the interpretive approach and action research, then through the workshops points of mutual contrast and comparison were sought in order to elucidate Levels 2 and 3 data. In these ways, each researcher was challenged not to conceptualise findings in an isolated way.

Level 3: a critical friend’s perspective on the Warwick REDCo community of practice

Geir Skeie (2009) offers a critique of the Warwick REDCo community of practice from several angles (including the nature of action research and communities of practice, the concepts of dialogue and conflict and their relation, and comparisons and contrasts with other national projects within REDCo). For Skeie, the strength of the community of practice is its integration of different aspects of religious education pedagogy, the ‘combination of teachers’ subject knowledge, their knowledge about students and their context, and their actions in the classroom’. ‘The big question’, he asks, ‘is how to develop these capacities?’ (Skeie 2009).

At the same time as encouraging the form of research undertaken by the community of practice, Skeie also points to issues that need closer elaboration. He notes the greater attention given to dialogue than conflict in the individual study reports and their broad implication that dialogue is ‘normative’. Referring to two of the other REDCo national studies (Alvarez Veinguer and Rosón 2009; Jozsa 2009), Skeie sees a need for a critical perspective on dialogue: How do pupils understand its role, for instance, and does this correspond to teachers’ accounts?

Conclusion (recommendations for religious education pedagogy and its future development)

If the research of the Warwick REDCo community of practice has produced interesting case studies of religious education pedagogy and related activities, it has also generated questions for further investigation. Therefore, this final section will contain not just recommendations for religious education pedagogy (even these are qualified by the fact that action research findings are subject to re‐investigation in new contexts), but also issues to address in developing religious education pedagogy in the future.

Recommendations for religious education pedagogy

It can be argued that the findings of the Warwick REDCo community of practice have strong implications for classroom practice in religious education. Indeed, further publications are planned, to reach teachers who are not necessarily conversant with the language of academic research. It is also worth repeating that the community of practice’s findings have broad pedagogic appeal rather than addressing narrow competency‐focused or target‐focused learning. In their different ways, the school‐based studies show the value of the principles of the interpretive approach. Care is taken over the representation of religious groups and individuals. Pupils are asked to interpret their own backgrounds, ideas and experiences in relation to the religious material studied. They are also invited to reflect on and draw personal meaning from their encounter with religion. We see how deep and sometimes surprising learning can result when these principles guide pedagogy and how the action research process can serve as both monitor and driver of such learning. There are several very specific recommendations that result, though some of these go beyond classroom pedagogy into teacher education, in accordance with the broad remit of the community of practice.

First, assessment methods should be aligned with pedagogical principles. ‘Reflexive’ or ‘dialogical’ methods, based on discussion and reflection, can help pupils to have a broader view of how their ideas, values and capacities are developing. Second, when content and methods for religious education are decided, opportunities for students to consider their own personal backgrounds and influences should be included. Third, the interpretive approach’s key concepts of representation, interpretation and reflexivity can be operationalised as tasks to promote higher thinking skills, in ways that may be especially suitable for more able pupils. Fourth, a focus on concrete issues of religious or cultural plurality, together with the opportunity to discuss and present solutions in dialogue with others, can motivate pupils. Fifth, in relation to teacher education, the uses of religious education theory (e.g. the interpretive approach) are various, but it appears valuable for beginning teachers to interrogate theory via practice, whether through problematisation, horizontal expansion or pragmatic elaboration. Sixth, pedagogical awareness can grow via action research, whose demands must be balanced carefully against benefits. Seventh, a community of practice also offers affective and epistemological gains to practitioners; and meta‐research and the presence of a critical friend can enhance these.

Issues to address in developing religious education pedagogy in the future

Nevertheless, it has also been apparent that the community of practice’s research has generated as many questions as it has answered. There are reverberations with Lawrence Stenhouse’s suggestion that teaching is not a static accomplishment, like riding a bicycle (Stenhouse 1983, 189). Rather, it provokes perpetual enquiry and repositioning. Again, there are several specific questions that come forth in support of this point.

First, is the concept of reflecting on learning credible? Second, do the principles of the interpretive approach cue tasks for the gifted and talented, or offer ways to bring out the gifts and talents of all pupils? Third, is there a tension in practice between the principles of representation and interpretation, awareness of diversity tending to outstretch interpretive capacity? Fourth, in promoting dialogue between young people of different backgrounds, or between young people and different religious traditions, what precisely are we setting out to achieve, and how will we know whether we have achieved it? Fifth, in attempting to develop a theoretically informed pedagogy through action research by or alongside practitioners, how can we ensure that there is time to investigate issues in the necessary depth?

Finally, through action research in a community of practice, we may understand more and more about the multi‐faceted nature of religious education, but how do we build on this awareness? Perhaps the research questions identified here indicate parts of that agenda.

Notes on contributor

Kevin O’Grady is faculty leader for religious education, personal, social, health, economic education, citizenship and careers, Aston Comprehensive School, Rotherham, UK. He is an associate fellow of Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of Warwick, UK. Postal address: Aston Comprehensive School, Aughton Road, Swallownest, Sheffield, S26 4SF.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to acknowledge his colleagues in the Warwick REDCo community of practice, Judith Everington, Nigel Fancourt, Julia Ipgrave, Robert Jackson, Joyce Miller, Gemma O’Dell, Amy Whittall and Linda Whitworth, on whose behalf this paper has been written. We thank the members of the wider REDCo project team for their collaboration and feedback, especially Geir Skeie for his critical friendship and Wolfram Weisse for his inspirational leadership. Our thanks are also due to the Westhill Endowment Trust, for financial support.