Editorial: ‘Ad fontes’

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the link in this recordEditorial to History of Education Researcher, Vol.97, published May 2016

The Country of the Blind: knowledge, knower and knowing (part 1)

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from RE Today Services via the link in this recor

Pedagogical bricoleurs and bricolage researchers: The case of Religious Education

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis via the DOI in this record.This article reconceptualises school teachers and pupils respectively as ‘pedagogical bricoleurs’ and ‘bricolage researchers’ who utilise a multiplicity of theories, concepts, methodologies and pedagogies in teaching and/or researching. This reconceptualization is based on a coalescence of generic curricular and pedagogical principles promoting dialogic, critical and enquiry-based learning. Innovative proposals for reconceptualising the aims, contents and methods of multi-faith Religious Education in English state-maintained schools without a religious affiliation are described, so as to provide an instance of and occasion for the implications of these theories and concepts of learning. With the aim of initiating pupils into the communities of academic enquiry concerned with theology and religious studies, the ‘RE-searchers approach’ to multi-faith Religious Education in primary schools (5-11 year olds) is cited as a highly innovative means of converting these curricular and pedagogical principles and proposals into practical classroom procedures that are characterised by multi-, inter- and supra-disciplinarity; notions of eclecticism, emergence, flexibility and plurality; and theoretical and conceptual complexity, contestation and context-dependence.This work was supported by the Culham St Gabriel’s Trust and Hockerill Educational Foundation. It was undertaken in a partnership including the University of Exeter, The Learning Institute and Sir Robert Geffery’s Primary School

Editorial: Fifty Years On

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher.2017 marks the 1000th anniversary of England's division into the four Earldoms (Northumbria, Wessex, Mercia, and East Anglia) by the Danish king of England Cnut, the 375th anniversary of the start of the English Civil War, the 200th anniversary of the death of Jane Austen, the hundredth anniversary of Rutherford's successful attempt to split the atom, and the 75th anniversary of the first broadcast of BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. Fifty years ago, in 1967, the summer of love was shared by many, Donald Campbell died on Coniston Water, and the UK won the Eurovision Song Contest, thanks to Sandie Shaw's Puppet on a string. And, in December of that same year, at the C. F. Mott College of Education, in the city of Liverpool, 150 people gathered together, and the History of Education Society was born. [...

Developing responsible leadership through a 'pedagogy of challenge': An investigation into the impact of leadership education on teenagers

This paper proposes a new model for understanding education through ‘responsible leadership’ – a term which draws on the models of distributed and authentic leadership and on a dialogic understanding of responsible action. It defines ‘dispositions for learning’ as different forms of the single quality of ‘openness to learning’. A ‘pedagogy of challenge’ is proposed as a way of developing these dispositions. The model is tested through a small-scale investigation into the effect of a two-day leadership education course on five 14-year-old students which conforms to the proposed model. This suggests a link between the students' participation and their dispositions for learning; in addition, it suggests change in their attitude towards, and perceived performance in, their academic subjects over a four-month period. It also highlights potential conflicts between promoting responsible leadership and curricular, assessment-focused learning. Larger-scale studies are recommended

Worldviews and big ideas: A way forward for religious education?

This is the final version. Available on open access from Karlstads Universitet via the link in this recordThis article explores the position of ‘worldviews’ in Religious Education, using England as a particular case study to illustrate contemporary international debates about the future of Religious Education (or equivalent subjects). The final report of the Commission on Religious Education (CoRE 2018) – which recommended that the subject name in England be changed from ‘Religious Education’ to ‘Religion and Worldviews’ – provides a stimulus for a discussion about the future of the study of religion(s) and worldview(s) in schools. The article offers a review of, and reflections on, the worldviews issue as treated in academic literature relating to Religious Education, before noting the challenges that the incorporation of worldviews presents. The article goes on to suggest ways in which a ‘Big Ideas’ approach to the study of religion(s) and worldview(s) (Wiggins and McTighe 1998; Wintersgill 2017; Freathy and John 2019) might provide criteria by which worldviews are selected for curriculum content. Finally, the article discusses what the implications of these recommendations might be for ‘Religion and Worldviews’ teachers and teaching

Theology in multi-faith Religious Education: A taboo to be broken?

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis (Routledge) via the DOI in this record.This article discusses the place of ‘theology’ in multi-faith Religious Education (RE) in English schools without a religious affiliation, highlighting reasons for its sometimes taboo-status, particularly since the emergence of Ninian Smart’s phenomenological approach to Religious Studies in the late 1960s. The article explores a diversity of definitions of theology within specific professional and ecclesiastical discourses, and recasts recent debates by focusing not on whether theology and theological inquiry should contribute to so-called ‘non-confessional’ RE, but on how different forms of theology and theological inquiry might do so legitimately. In the process, the article challenges binary oppositions that have traditionally distinguished the disciplines of Theology from Religious Studies, and argues in favour of the application of various forms of theology and theological inquiry within a critical, dialogic and inquiry-led approach to multi-faith RE. What this might mean in practice is discussed with regard to three concepts: positionality, empathy and critique. Ultimately, multi-faith RE is characterised as occupying a liminal space betwixt and between disciplinary, interpretative and methodological perspectives involved in the study of religion(s) and worldview(s).The work was supported by the Westhill Endowment Tust and Bible Society (England and Wales) as part of ‘The Art of Narrative Theology in Religious Education: Phase Four’ projec

A case study in Biblical interpretation: knowledge, knower and knowing (part 2)

This is the author accepted manuscript

Enriching the Historiography of Religious Education: Insights from Oral Life History

This article seeks to exemplify the extent to which oral life history research can enrich existing historiographies of English Religious Education (RE). Findings are reported from interviews undertaken with a sample of key informants involved in designing and/or implementing significant curriculum changes in RE in the 1960s and 1970s. The interviews provided insights into personal narratives and biographies that have been marginal to, or excluded from, the historical record. Thematic analysis of the oral life histories opened a window into the world of RE, specifically in relation to professional identity and practice, curriculum development, and professional organizations, thereby exposing the operational dynamics of RE at an (inter-)personal and organizational level. The findings are framed by a series of methodological reflections. Overall, oral life histories are shown to be capable of revealing that which was previously hidden and which can be confirmed and contrasted with knowledge gleaned from primary documentary sources

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 (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 the Institute of Christian Education at Home and Abroad, which became the principal body offering professional development provision for RI/RE teachers for some fifty 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