Educating for the world or ‘religion and worldviews education’?

At the time of writing the world faces several global crises: the coronavirus pandemic; climate change; racism; an increase of mental health problems among the young; populism and nationalism; a resurgence in hostility between nation states; and, an increase in misinformation and ‘fake news’ – to name but few. Educators, along with other sectors of society, have an important role to play in countering these dangers. This role is important, not only for the present and near future, but also for the long-term, in preparing future generations for challenges yet unidentified.

Unlike most other enterprises, education has the peculiar function of fostering, forming and motivating people, equipping them to be able to rise to challenges presented to them and the world. It is for all these reasons that there has been a revival of interest in ethics and values education worldwide (Shirley, Wortham, and Kim 2020). Notably, transnational actors such the OECD and UNESCO are increasingly concerned with agendas other than literacy, numeracy and science education, such as the promotion of cooperation, teamwork and empathy, for example. This new international agenda is necessary because the existential threats to humanity will not be solved purely by technological means. Indeed, it could be argued that technological advances incur the need for greater ethical awareness as they increase the capacity for both good and bad.

The articles in this issue reflect the growing worldwide interest in ethics and values education. We can identify in them a common theme, similar to what the Korean educator Duck-Joo Kwak identifies as education for ‘caring-about the world’ (2020). In Kwak’s view, this involves the appropriate cultivation of love for oneself, as well as love for others. The articles in this issue follow similar assumptions by exploring the relationships between individual or societal health and wellbeing on one hand, and spirituality, beliefs or values on the other. They share to a lesser or greater extent, the assumption that there is an ethical foundation to living life well, and this should be promoted by education. Together, therefore, the articles contribute to a global conversation regarding the future not only of education, but of the world.

As a journal based in the UK, perhaps it is worth comparing the underlying theme of this international conversation with recent calls for Religious Education in England and Wales to be transformed into ‘religion and worldviews education’ (Commission on Religious Education 2018). According to the recommendations of the Commission on RE, supposedly competing secular and religious positions are to be conceptualised and explored as ‘worldviews’ – that is, the processes of institutions and individuals to ‘make meaning’ or ‘make sense’ of the world (Cooling 2019). On the face of it, this new focus and aim for Religious Education would seem to buck the international trend, which is more inclusive and post-secular in its search for a common ethics. Instead of advocating a grounding in essential spiritual or moral values common to all, the idea of ‘religion and worldviews education’ presents a binary between ‘religion’ and/or ‘worldviews’ – neither of which can be any more than a construction of ‘meaning-making’. This is a significant departure from the original aims and purpose of RE in England and Wales, reaffirmed in all its previous developments. It is also a strong epistemological assertion unpalatable for both secular and religious humanists.

In the past, Religious Education has always focused on the moral and spiritual values that unite divergent creeds and positions, not what has set them apart. The introduction of universal primary education with 1870 Education Act relied upon a compromise – undenominational instruction in scripture – that secular but cultural Christians, non-conformists and Anglicans alike could buy into. When this undenominational principle was expanded to include non-Christian religions in the ‘world religions’ approach a century later, the assumption was again a kind of ‘Kantian’ moral religion. That is, its aim was related to the moral worth of learning about and from ‘religion’ for the purposes of human development.

Disraeli made the astute observation at the passing of the 1870 Education Act that provisions for Religious Education would place authority in the hands of schoolteachers to dictate what religion would be. The new ‘sacerdotal class’ would create its own ‘schoolteacher’s creed’ – despite, Disraeli complained, having no mandated authority, nor requisite expertise. Over the years we can see how the RE community – Disraeli’s ‘sacerdotal class’ now in its fifth generation – has continued to develop and ‘re-form’ the subject and related ideas of what ‘religion’ is along with it. This ability and imagination as an autonomous professional group has been rightly lauded as the reason for its survival.

However, the most recent turn to ‘religion and worldviews education’ represents a continuation of the problems of all previous approaches, and a rejection of one of their most important assumptions – the common educational priority of caring for oneself and for the world. For while ‘undenominational instruction’ was always impossible, the ‘world religions’ non-existent, and ‘religion and worldviews education’ a conceptual muddle, we do live in a shared world as a single and indivisible humanity. The prospect of religion and worldviews education invites an unnecessarily strong form of perspectivism that precludes the common-sense and benign moral realism of past approaches. It presupposes there are distinct ‘views’ of the world, without the admission that this view is in itself just one view among many – a logical and educational problem that Socrates identified in the relativism of his sophist adversaries.

‘Educating for the world’ or education that promotes ‘caring-about the world’, on the other hand, foregrounds the notion that, for whatever discrepancies there may be between views, they relate to the external reality of the world – and a world that needs to be cared-for by all humans. For to counter the world’s problems, it could be argued, we do not need to view or make sense of the world insomuch as to seek to change it. This requires, it could be presumed, real values for values’ real sake, held in earnest out of concern for our common future. Caring for the world and for ourselves in the main requires the cultivation and refinement of our own best beliefs, not the exploration and critique of other people’s perspectives. For the problems faced by the world are not constructions of some or other worldview. They are realities that make educators’ ethical imperatives tangible.