The religious–secular interface and representations of Islam in phenomenological religious education

Abstract

Alongside community-based education, a principal agency which has contributed to defining multi-faith identities in England and Wales over the past five decades has been the subject of religious education in state maintained schools. Over this period, formulations of the social category of ‘Muslims’ and the curricular concept of ‘Islam’ in religious education have been significantly influenced by the application of the phenomenology of religion, a methodology derived from religious studies that has come under question for its decontextualised readings of religion. Drawing upon critiques of this approach, this article seeks to examine representations of Islam and Muslims in religious education based on the phenomenological model, with particular reference to the interface between the religious and the secular. Looking ahead, the article considers proposals on intercultural education which aim at preparing the young for a contributive role in society.

Keywords:

• Islam
• religious education
• phenomenology of religion
• secularity

Notes

1. See Copley (1997) for some of the debates and controversies on religious education that have taken place from 1944 to 1994.

2. Smart would later add a seventh dimension, ‘the material’, referring to artefacts, aids, and places linked to worship.

3. It is claimed that the phenomenology of religion in its methodological complexity became reduced to a fact-based dimensional approach in the classroom. Nevertheless, even in their simplified form, the principles of bracketing, essentialising, and empathising exerted a significant influence on how religions were conceptualised in religious education.

4. The following agreed syllabuses were examined: Brent (2002), Bromley (2013), Cornwall (2014), Cumbria (2011), Essex (2015), Kent (2012), Lewisham (2009), Luton (2004), Sutton (2006), and Worcestershire (2015). The textbooks reviewed were: Aylett and O’Donnell (2000), CEM (1997), Egan (2002), Harris (1997), Keane (2007), Lovelace and White (1996), Neal (2013), Self (2005), Taylor (2009), and Weston, Orchard, Clinton, Lynch, and Wright (2005).

5. Examples of such Muslim majority states include Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Tajikistan, and Indonesia.

6. While Working Paper 36 does not cite Smart as its author, it was produced under his direction and guidance as the director of the Schools Council Project on Religious Education in the Secondary School.