Reflections on Allen and West’s paper: ‘Religious schools in London: school admissions, religious composition and selectivity’

Abstract

This paper is a reflection upon the research findings of Rebecca Allen and Anne West in relation to religious schools in London. While welcoming this contribution to the systematic study of faith schools (a neglected area of empirical inquiry), the paper argues that the use of ‘religious schools’ as a unitary category is problematic for the analysis. It also suggests that certain historical and cultural contextual knowledge is required when analysing the characteristics of different categories of religious schools. This response is intended to be helpful for future researchers into the different types of faith school.

Acknowledgements

I thank Professor Harvey Goldstein and Dr Andrew Morris for helpful comments on the first draft of this paper. Any remaining shortcomings are my own.

Notes

1. The British Humanist Association may want to argue that their case is a principled one and therefore not in need of empirical substantiation. However, it can also be argued that their case is an ideological one and therefore should be subject to empirical examination.

2. See also the European Convention on Human Rights (incorporated into UK law in 1998):

First Protocol: Article 2: ‘No person shall be denied the right of education. In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the state shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions’.

I am grateful to Dr Andrew Morris for drawing this to my attention

3. These schools were largely a sample serving inner London and it must be acknowledged that their FSM figures would be likely to be above national averages.

4. Allen and West accept that more research on this point is required. Self‐selection at secondary school entry level is a crucial but largely unexplored issue.

5. This observation is speculative. More research is needed to investigate the teaching cultures of faith primary schools and secular primary schools.

6. For a more developed argument on this point, see Grace, 2003b.

7. See the Preface, ‘Nationally, our schools are places of great diversity and their ethnic and cultural profile reflects the universal meaning of Catholic.’ On the ethnicity question, Allen and West point out that in religious schools in London ‘black ethnic minority groups are over‐represented with around two black pupils in religious schools for every one black pupil who lives close to the school’ (p. 484).

8. For an attempt to put all of these issues related to Catholic schools in an international context, see Grace & O’Keefe (2007).