Teacher discourse constructing different social positions of pupils in Finnish separative and integrative religious education

Abstract

This article examines social practices within classroom discourse in two different Finnish religious educational contexts. The article critically observes the construction of certain positions and identities as part of the school discourse and the inclusive vs exclusive practices of language. The research material consists of classroom observations and staff interviews from two separate studies. The first study investigates two cases in separative religious education (RE), Islamic and Lutheran. The second study deals with integrative practices of RE. In this study, discourse analysis as a methodological tool is used to examine discursive practices in RE lessons. The study will explore the following question: What kinds of subjectivities are constructed through teachers’ discursive practices in separative and integrative RE? The study will demonstrate that teachers use scientific language to underline the objective nature of RE and use the language of belonging to engage their pupils on a personal level. The former ends up silencing the religious stance, while the latter often excludes those who do not share those specific experiences. The findings reveal some challenges in developing inclusive teaching.     

The professionalisation of non-denominational religious education in England: politics,organisation and knowledge

In response to contemporary concerns, and using neglected primary sources, this article explores the professionalisation of teachers of Religious Education (RI/RE) in non-denominational, state-maintained schools in England. It does so from the launch of Religion in Education (1934) and the Institute for Christian Education at Home and Abroad (ICE) (1935) to the founding of the Religious Education Council of England and Wales (1973) and the British Journal of Religious Education (1978). Professionalisation is defined as a collective historical process in terms of three inter-related concepts: (1) professional self-organisation and professional politics; (2) professional knowledge; and (3) initial and continuing professional development. The article sketches the history of non-denominational religious education prior to the focus period, to contextualise the emergence of the professionalising processes under scrutiny. Professional self-organisation and professional politics are explored by reconstructing the origins and history of ICE, which became the principal body offering professional development provision for RI/RE teachers for some 50 years. Professional knowledge is discussed in relation to the content of Religion in Education which was oriented around Christian Idealism and interdenominational networking. Changes in journal name in the 1960s and 1970s reflected uncertainties about the orientation of the subject and shifts in understanding over the nature and character of professional knowledge. The article also explores a particular case of resistance, in the late 1960s, to the prevailing consensus surrounding the nature and purpose of RI/RE, and the representativeness and authority of the pre-eminent professional body of the time. In conclusion, the article examines some implications which may be drawn from this history for the prospects and problems of the professionalisation of RE today.     

Teaching religious education as a second choice. The case of three male student teachers in Finland

This article explores the professional reflection of three male religious education (RE) student teachers during their one-year pedagogical training. The participants (n = 3) interviewed in this article were chosen on the basis of their self-report in the questionnaire in which they claimed no previous teaching experience. The participants were interviewed three times: at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of their one-year teacher education. The interviews were analysed with qualitative content analysis. The study showed some patterns in the student teachers reflections concerning developmental aims, professionalism, and convictions during the year. The article concludes that in RE teacher education developing pedagogical thinking should be accompanied with becoming aware of the role of personal life history and contextual situation play in the process of becoming a sound professional in RE.     

Paradigm shift in religious education: a reply to Jackson,or why religious education goes to war

This article provides a defence of my theoretical analysis of paradigm shift in contemporary religious education, particularly in light of Robert Jackson’s (2015) article published in this journal: ‘Misrepresenting religious education’s past and present in looking forward: Gearon using Kuhn’s concepts of paradigm, paradigm shift and incommensurability’. The core of Jackson’s concerns is my adaptation of Kuhn’s concepts of paradigm, paradigm shift and incommensurability to religious education. Defending in turn my use of these concepts – of paradigm, paradigm shift and incommensurability – I conclude that Jackson’s critique is in and of itself an apt demonstration of the position he seeks to attack. Drawing wider parallels with the methodological ‘paradigm wars’ in the social sciences I argue that the paradigms are why religious education too goes to ‘war’.     

Drawing a line between the religious and the secular: the cases of religious education in Sweden and India

Abstract

Religion as a school subject – Religious Education (RE) – is handled differently in various national contexts. This article discusses two different systems of managing (or avoiding) RE: those used in non-denominational Swedish and Indian schools. The article focuses particularly on what is allowed in the classroom with regards to religion. Both countries are secular, but where is the line drawn between the secular and the religious? Allowing the two contexts to meet reveals the particularities of each. The impact of Protestant Christianity, specifically Lutheranism, is evident in Swedish RE: religion is to be defined through beliefs and words, and religious actions should be excluded from classrooms. The Swedish context highlights ‘knowledge of’ religions, but avoids religious action. In India, there is no explicit RE, but Indian education does include learning from religion as well as ‘doing religion.’ The Indian approach is very inclusive, to the point of emphasising, as teachers put it, a common core of all religions. Both systems of RE offer particular opportunities and face certain difficulties in dealing with the contemporary globalised world.     

Islamic religious education in Belgian state schools: a post-secular perspective

Abstract

Based on Habermas’ normative theory of religion in post-secular society, this article elaborates on the organisation of Islamic religious education (RE) in state schools. Hereto, a brief sketch of the Habermasian concepts of reflexive religion and complementary learning processes will be given. Subsequently, the author addresses the role of RE in post-secular society and applies these Habermasian concepts to confessional RE, with particular attention to Islamic RE in Belgium, where this subject is included as an optional subject in the state school curriculum since 1975, but where it is also criticised today, in particular with regard to content, teacher-training, textbooks, and inspection. These deficiencies will lead us to one of the main problems of Islamic RE and of confessional RE in general: the absence of state control. Based on Habermas’ ideas, the author concludes that it is up to the state to elucidate under which conditions confessional RE can be part of the regular curriculum, and to facilitate these conditions, by funding and co-organising teacher training, reviewing curricula and textbooks, formulating a ‘core curriculum’ and controlling teachers, for example. If these conditions have not been met, confessional RE should not be a part of the regular curriculum in a liberal state.     

‘A touchy subject’: teaching and learning about difference in the religious education classroom

ABSTRACT

The present article reports research conducted during 2018 in a secondary school in South Yorkshire, England with a class of 11–12-year-old boys and girls and the class teacher of religious education (RE), in consultation with the head and deputy head of the RE faculty. The focus of the project was on the extent to which existing research findings can assist teachers to deal with issues of religious diversity, including how the classroom can be a ‘safe space’ for dialogue and discussion and how media influences can be managed. It was one of a number of projects conducted by members of the Signposts International Research Network, who have undertaken independent studies in the UK, Norway and Sweden, which address issues identified in the Council of Europe publication Signposts. The findings reported in the present article highlight: the need for teachers to be given support in learning skills for managing classroom dialogue; the interest of young people in exploring difference; and the benefits of participation in classroom-based collaborative research.     

Bridging separate communities: the aspirations and experiences of minority ethnic religious education teachers in England

This article takes as its starting point concerns about community separation that arose in 2001, following outbreaks of violence in English urban centres, and again in 2014, following the so-called ‘Trojan Horse’ case. Despite a series of reports which have highlighted the need to address ‘separation’, promote ‘meaningful contact’ between those who differ in terms of ethnicity and worldview and identify teachers of religious education (RE) as key players, researchers have paid no attention to teachers of RE from minority ethnic and religious backgrounds. The article draws on a qualitative study of teachers from Hindu, Muslim and Sikh backgrounds to explore their concerns about pupils’ perceptions of separation and the ways in which they attempted to address these in white majority and Muslim majority schools. Communication research and studies based on social capital theory are used to suggest that the teachers used ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ strategies as means of encouraging pupils to explore their perceptions of separation, engage in a mediated form of meaningful contact with ‘the Other’ and expand their thinking. The conclusion calls for further research in to the strategies reported and for policy makers to support the recruitment, training and career development of minority ethnic teachers of RE.     

The development of beliefs and values in early adolescence: a case study through religious education pedagogy

Remarks on current educational language precede discussions of: pupils’ educational development; pupil voice; adolescence and action research. There follows a report of an innovation in religious education pedagogy, designed to address concerns that pupils should be helped to understand the emergence of their own beliefs and values over time. This report then prompts some reflections on religious education’s turn in the direction of hermeneutics. A form of religious education is sketched where pupils’ awareness of changes to their own beliefs and values over time is a key feature. Such awareness marks spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, an issue granted less than adequate coverage in the present UK education agenda.     

Politics and religion beyond state borders: the activity of Spanish MEPs on religious issues

This study examines the interplay between the political and religious factors in the activity of Spanish members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in their work within the European Parliament (EP). First, we explore the impact of Spanish MEPs’ religious preferences and ideological beliefs regarding religious affairs on their parliamentary activity. Second, we analyse the parliamentary activity of Spanish MEPs (parliamentary questions and motions for resolution) related to religious affairs. We argue that the rapid and profound process of secularisation in the Spanish population is also observable in the stances of MEPs towards religious affairs. Most of them perceive religious issues as belonging to only the private sphere, and do not consider that their personal religious affiliation and preferences should play any role in their political activity in the EP. The analysis also shows that religion is mainly addressed in an indirect way in the EP and is not a central concern on the agenda. We conclude that despite the fact that religion plays a minor role, the analysis of the activity of Spanish MEPs permits us to detect an affinity between ideological and religious positions. Therefore we argue that the religious cleavage that has characterised the history of Spain, despite having lost its historical strength, is still detectable in the activity of MEPs: right-wing parties are defenders of the values and interests of the Catholic Church within the EP, while left-wing parties have a more secularist agenda and use the EP as an arena to denounce the privileges and attitudes of the Catholic Church in Spain.     

The 2007 Birmingham Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education: a new direction for statutory religious education in England and Wales

The aim of this article is to introduce and summarise the main feature of the new Birmingham City Council Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education (2007 Birmingham City Council (BCC). 2007. Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education, Birmingham: City Council.  [Google Scholar]), consider the relevance of its commitments and conclusions to ongoing debates within British religious education, and, finally, offer some kind of provisional assessment of its strengths and worth. By way of introduction, attention is given both to the mounting controversy that currently attends British religious education, which has given rise to conflicting opinions and estimates of its achievements and value, and to the historical role and legal status of agreed syllabuses within English and Welsh education.     

Problems of assessment in religious and moral education: the Scottish case

This article is concerned with assessment issues in Religious and Moral Education (RME) offered in Scottish non-denominational schools. The analysis of the findings in this article is weighed against the framework of the new ‘3–18’ Scottish curriculum called ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ (CfE). CfE was introduced in primary schools in 2009 and a year later in secondary schools as replacement of the much criticised ‘5–14’ Curriculum which had been in use since 1992. It is based on qualitative data collected from schools in five Scottish local authorities between 2009 and 2011 as part of a moderation project. What is being problematised in this article is the revelation from the data about issues that impact adversely on good assessment in RME in five key areas, namely: planning, religious knowledge, progression, self and peer assessment, literacy and values. The implications of these assessment problems for effective teaching and learning in RME are analysed.     

医学人文关怀应关怀什么和怎样关怀——美学视角下的人文关怀建设

从生命本体论立意出发 ,在对我国当下的医学人文现状进行了系统总结的基础上 ,以问题意识为线索 ,对医学人文关怀的哲学命题给予了反思 ,在重新界定医学人文关怀概念内涵的基础上 ,运用美学认识论与方法论 ,系统地阐述了医学人文关怀的“应然”、“是然”和“建设”的内容及其三者间的递进关系 ,在理论与实践上提出了建设性新观点     

Taking religion to heart: the relationship between the Five Factor Model and the New Indices of Religious Orientation among religious students

The relationship between religious orientation and personality has been investigated using several different measures and diverse samples. As part of a larger study, 114 undergraduate students were given the Duke University Religion Index (DUREL) to include only those participants who were considered religious. The final sample of 80 participants were given the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO PI-R) and the New Indices of Religious Orientation (NIRO). Based on the results of the bivariate correlations, higher levels of intrinsic religious orientation were associated with greater Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. Multivariate analyses further revealed that Agreeableness was the most important personality variable when predicting intrinsic and quest religious orientations, with higher levels of Agreeableness predicting greater intrinsic and lower quest orientations. While lower levels of Neuroticism predicted greater intrinsic orientation, higher levels of Neuroticism predicted greater quest orientations. Higher Conscientiousness predicted greater intrinsic and lower quest orientations. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Why God Has Left the Netherlands: Explanations for the Decline of Institutional Christianity in the Netherlands Between 1966 and 2015

Why has the Netherlands witnessed such a strong process of secularization? This article examines this process very extensively. Based on modernization theory, it follows several social cultural developments in Dutch society over the last 50 years and distinguishes between effects on the individual level as well as on the level of society. We are able to do so because of rich data availability, derived from micro‐level longitudinal surveys (God in the Netherlands, Social and Cultural Developments in the Netherlands) enriched with macro‐level statistics (Statistics Netherlands). With this integrated approach, we provide explanatory insights into the transition of the Netherlands from a predominant Christian nation to a predominant secular nation. Our analysis clearly shows that macro‐level educational expansion has affected this process of secularization in the Netherlands, supplemented with the increase in social security, as a so‐called cohort effect. Moreover, the long‐term effect of Christian socialization is waning; Dutch people who were raised in a religious way increasingly lapse later in their life.     

Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the Netherlands: concepts,developments, and backdrops

In recent years, the Netherlands has been frequently confronted with public incidents of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. After defining the complex concepts of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, presenting the theoretical approach to these phenomena, and sketching the societal context in which they are embedded, this article describes the development of the numbers of reported expressions of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the Netherlands since the turn of the century. It notes that the general level of annual numbers of recorded incidents of the phenomena has increased since 2000 and, at the same time, there are significant fluctuations in the numbers of notified incidents per year. These fluctuations correlate to outbursts of violence in the Middle East and to acts of violence committed in the name of Islam in the West, while the general higher level of incidents of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia relates to numerous and various threats experienced in the context of the Dutch multi-ethnic society, changes in national identity, and trends in globalisation.     

Cultivating spiritual intelligence in adolescence in a divisive religion education classroom: a bridge over troubled waters

Religion Education (RE) forms part of the curriculum of public schools in South Africa. The teachers are, however, not always certain how to deal with divisive religious plurality in multicultural classrooms. Our aim was therefore, to illustrate how the implementation of a spiritual intelligence (SQ) programme can in a constructive way encourage meaningful interaction among students in RE classrooms in secondary schools. Over a period of three months a programme to stimulate SQ was implemented by means of a qualitative case study with ten Grade 11 students of diverse religious convictions. This article reports on the impact of the programme in respect of self-awareness, as well as universal awareness and connectedness as key characteristics of SQ. The collection of the data included reflective activities, informal conversation interviews, focus group discussions, field-notes of observations, and a self-reflective journal. The findings indicate how the programme stimulated meaningful interaction and opportunities to deal with religious plurality in RE.     

Emotion valence,intensity and emotion regulation in immigrants and majority members in the Netherlands

We were interested in interethnic differences and similarities in how emotion regulation strategies (reappraisal, suppression and social sharing) can be predicted by emotion valence and intensity. The sample consisted of 389 Dutch majority members and members of five immigrant groups: 136 Turkish and Moroccan, 105 Antillean and Surinamese, 102 Indonesian, 313 Western and 150 other non‐Western immigrants. In a path model with latent variables we confirmed that emotion regulation strategies were significantly and similarly related to emotion valence and intensity across the groups. Negative emotions were more reappraised and suppressed than positive emotions. Intensity was positively related to social sharing and negatively related to reappraisal and suppression. The Dutch majority group scored higher on emotion valence than Turkish and Moroccan immigrants. Also, the Dutch majority group scored lower on reappraisal than all non‐Western groups, and lower on suppression than Turkish and Moroccan immigrants. We conclude that group differences reside more in mean scores on some components than in how antecedents are linked to regulation strategies.     

Manic depression and religious experience: The use of religion in therapy

In the article, I explore the use of spiritual strategies in the treatment of manic depression in religiously oriented psychiatric inpatients. Manic depression, a disorder primarily of mood, is characterized by bouts of mania alternating with depression. Religious themes and mystical experiences pervade the language of manic depressive illness, e.g., sensing one is God, being given a divine mission, receiving divine messages, having ecstatic experiences, and so on. Debate exists concerning the effectiveness of spiritual interventions in manic patients. I suggest that a trained religious leader may be able to work therapeutically with such patients, provided that two goals are kept in mind: emphasizing beliefs that facilitate positive coping and challenging irrational religious beliefs (i.e., beliefs that lead to negative coping). When examined psychoanalytically, patients’ religious symbols and beliefs reveal deeply held beliefs about themselves. In particular, splitting and idealization and devaluation can be seen in their religious belief system. The role of culture in promoting maladaptive belief systems must not be overlooked. In employing spiritual interventions in patients diagnosed with manic depression, potential dangers are imposing one's values on patients and overstating the importance of spirituality.     

Human rights and religious education in the contentious context of conflict-troubled societies: perspectives from human rights education

This article explores some of the tensions that are created from the entanglement of religion and human rights and offers a possible response to these tensions in the context of religious education in conflict-troubled societies. It is suggested that a historicised and politicised approach in religious education in conjunction with human rights education perspectives can promote three important aims: taking power relations between peoples, societies and cultures as sources of problematising the meaning(s) and consequences of both religion and human rights; developing a teaching and learning process in and through which the emphasis is not on identification with religious or cultural identity, but rather a process through which new and productive ways of relationality with the ‘other’ are developed; and, encouraging students to interrogate moralistic discourses of religion or human rights that often prevent the enactment of friendship, compassion and shared fate.