The RE-searchers: promoting methodologically orientated RE in primary schools

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Ecclesiastical and religious factors which preserved Christian and traditional forms of education for citizenship in English schools, 1934-1944

Participants in the public discourse pertaining to religious education and education for citizenship in English schools between 1934 and 1944 included many 'Christian educationists'. They advocated a conservative and elitist form of education for citizenship as taught through indirect training, Arnoldian public school traditions and ecumenical, liberal Protestantism. This contrasted with the conception of education for citizenship promoted by the founder members of the Association for Education in Citizenship. They wanted pupils to be educated into a liberal, democratic and secular version of English citizenship by means of 'progressive' pedagogies and direct instruction. This article identifies the ecclesiastical and religious factors which preserved the Christian and traditional form of education for citizenship in English schools between 1934 and 1944. These factors included the revival of the Christian foundations of British national identity and citizenship, the development and acceptance of non-denominational forms of Christian education, the increasingly positive response which an evermore coherent and professionalised cohort of Christian educationists received from the Board of Education and the Consultative Committee, and the political power of the Anglican Church within the dual system combined with the religious settlement agreed in the 1944 Education Act

The triumph of religious education for citizenship in English schools, 1935-1949

The failure of the Association for Education in Citizenship to gain official support for the secular and pedagogically progressive forms of education for citizenship which its founder members endorsed has previously been explained by the political impotence of the association’s founder members and the professional conservatism of the educational establishment. However, this paper proposes that, as part of a wider cultural conservatism in England between 1935 and 1949, citizenship was recast in a Christian mould in response to foreign ‘secular’ political ideologies and that this enabled religious education to gain official endorsement as an essential form of education for citizenship

Review Essay. On Holy Ground: The Theory and Practice of Religious Education.

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Gender, age, attendance at a place of worship and young people's attitudes towards the Bible

This article discusses the outcomes of a questionnaire survey which sought to ascertain the attitudes of young people towards the Bible. One thousand and sixty-six pupils from Years 6, 9 and 12 in nine English schools participated. The young people's attitudes are discussed in relation to gender, age and attendance at a place of worship. The research team found that being female, in Year 6 and attending a place of worship very often are factors associated with the most positive attitudes towards the Bible, while being male, in Year 9 and never attending a place of worship are associated with the least positive attitudes. The article also discusses the difficulty of explaining individual correlations regarding age and gender

Three perspectives on religious education and education for citizenship in English schools, 1934–1944: Cyril Norwood, Ernest Simon and William Temple

publication-status: PublishedThis is an Author's Original Manuscript of an article whose final and definitive form, the Version of Record, has been published in the British Journal of Religious Education, January 2008. Available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/ or DOI: 10.1080/01416200701831036In recent years, in English schools, various linkages between Religious Education and Citizenship have been identified or proposed. Yet neither education for citizenship, nor its relationship with religious education, is new. Evidence for this is provided by an analysis of the public discourse pertaining to these areas, which took place between 1934 and 1944, with a focus on three influential participants: Cyril Norwood, Ernest Simon and William Temple. This paper highlights the extent to which (i) religious education was conceived as a form of education for citizenship and (ii) Christian educationists precluded secular and pedagogically progressive education for citizenship from developing in English schools. This helps to explain why Religious Instruction and worship became compulsory components of school provision in England and why education for citizenship took so long to gain a firm foothold in the curriculum

'Everything is in parables': An exploration of pupils' difficulties in understanding Christian beliefs concerning Jesus

publication-status: PublishedThis is an Author's Original Manuscript of an article whose final and definitive form, the Version of Record, has been published in Religious Education, February 2010. Available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/ or DOI: 10.1080/00344080903472758This article reports the findings of interviews conducted with students (aged 11–13) in four English secondary schools, examining reasons why young people find it difficult to understand Christian beliefs regarding Jesus' miracles, resurrection, and status as the Son of God. For the students in this sample, understanding and belief are closely related concepts. Many of them assume that belief is a necessary condition for understanding. The article argues that greater attention should be paid in Religious Education (RE) to the relationship between belief and understanding and to the ways in which young people experience and conceptualize their learning in RE

Editorial: Richard Aldrich and the Importance of Historians of Education

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Children's conceptions of Jesus

publication-status: PublishedThis is an Author's Original Manuscript of an article whose final and definitive form, the Version of Record, has been published in the Journal of Beliefs and Values, December 2008. Available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/ or DOI: 10.1080/13617670802465870This paper presents findings from a recent study investigating young children's (aged 10–11) conceptions of Jesus in England. The overall picture revealed by the study is that whilst there was a general assent amongst pupils in our sample towards an ethical and humanistic conception of the historical Jesus, there was less of a consensus about those issues which previous research claims children find difficult to understand, namely: the divinity of Jesus; the miracles of Jesus; and Christian beliefs pertaining to Jesus' continued presence in people's lives today. The paper concludes by arguing that the variety of conceptions of Jesus which are encountered in religious education (RE) may be seen by children as a barrier to learning rather than an opportunity to grow in understanding and highlights the need for further research into the relationship between children's hermeneutical horizons and RE curriculum content

Editorial: ‘Location, location, location’: Some reflections on geographical and spatial parameters

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