The language of friendship and identity : children's communication choices in an interfaith exchange

The development of partnerships between schools and school children of different religious and cultural backgrounds is currently being promoted at national level in an attempt to encourage social cohesion in ethnically and religiously diverse societies. This article reports on one such partnership, a programme of email communication between children from primary schools in Leicester and East Sussex. It uses concepts of presence and space to analyse the different linguistic and paralinguistic devices children employ to construct their identities as friends and as representatives of their communities, and to project these identities across a cultural divide. Evaluation of the children's language choices identifies tensions and limitations as well as possibilities. The article makes use of Derrida's deconstruction of hospitality as it questions a too ready adoption of the discourse of friendship for children's intercultural encounter, and suggests that the development of a more sophisticated language of interest, politeness and respect provides them with a firmer foundation for positive and productive dialogue with religious difference

Responses of three Muslim majority primary schools in England to the Islamic faith of their pupils

This paper considers the responses of three English primary schools to the education of their Muslim pupils. It begins by setting out the context of discussion about Muslims and education in Europe as well as by describing some of the structural and pedagogical characteristics and trends in English education influencing the schools’ options and choices. The main body of the article is a comparative analysis of the three schools, focusing on the approaches of teachers and school leaders to the faith backgrounds of their pupils, their constructions of Islam for these educational contexts, and their preparation of Muslim children for a religiously plural Britain. As the schools devise strategies and select between options, they provide in microcosm differing models of the inclusion of minority Islam in a western society

Children’s dialogue in the context of international research

In recent years, the study of religious diversity has become a significant educational issue in Europe and on the wider international scene. This is partly due to a recognition of the significance of religion as a factor in relation to issues of ethnic, national and cultural identity (Baumann, 1999), and as a factor in social divisiveness or social cohesion, for example as an indicator of what Modood calls ‘cultural racism’ (Modood, 1997).1 This development also reflects specific events such as the riots in some towns and cities in the north of England in 2001 (Home Office, 2001) and in Paris in 2005, and those of September 11, 2001 in the United States of America as well as their complex and ongoing consequences internationally (e.g. Beauchamp, 2002; Leganger-Krogstad, 2003). Such debates are especially relevant within states where migrants from a range of religious and cultural backgrounds have settled. The global and more local situations are related in a variety of ways, through the transnational identities of many families (Jackson and Nesbitt, 1993; Østberg, 2003) and the direct effects of international conflicts on community relations within particular states

Trinity and inter-faith dialogue : plenitude and plurality.

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'First the Original': the Place of Adam in Seventeenth Century Theories of the Polity

This thesis investigates selected seventeenth century writings from England and New England to explore the varying significances afforded to the Biblical figure of Adam in theories of the polity. It notes the strong impulse in this period of political upheaval to find foundations and patterns for the polity by returning to the original of Adam’s existence in the Garden of Eden as recorded in Genesis and reinterpreted in Christian tradition. An overview of the times and their political and religious order identifies contemporary preoccupations – legitimacy of sovereignty, security of person and property, freedom of religious conscience, direction of history, expansion to new parts of the world and encounters with new people – that coloured interpretations and political applications of Adam. Against this background, the thesis presents contemporary conversations in which interpretations of Adam played a significant part, proposing a categorisation of Adam as state (the pattern and condition of man and polity) and Adam as story (Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration). Under the general heading of Adam as State the conversations include discussions about patriarchalism, natural law and rights, covenant and conscience; under Adam as Story they are concerned with millennial expectation, mystical discourses of the inner man, and the incorporation of the American Indian into a shared narrative that begins in Eden. These themes are developed in detailed studies of selected works by individual authors; Roger Williams, John Eliot, Gerrard Winstanley, John Milton and John Locke. In these works varied approaches are observed as the authors interrogate, expand or contract the story and traditions of Adam in their interpretations of its significance to their times and nation; in particular distinctions are made between theories that use man’s natural state or fallen condition as the foundation of the polity, and those that give eschatological significance to the actions of men, to events and political change. The diversity of methods and theories that result demonstrates the creativity and wide ranging possibility of Adamic political thought at this time

Inter faith encounter and religious understanding in an inner city primary school

The subject of this thesis is the influence of encounter on the religious understanding of a group of primary age children in inner city Leicester. The research focuses on a minority of non-Muslim children in a predominantly Muslim area,, and is informed by small discussion groups in which the children were free to explore and share their own ideas. The study begins by presenting a view of children as active in the construction of their own lives. The young participants' contributions to the discussions are related to other theoretical positions on children's religion and a cognitive and language-based approach is advocated. A progressive, developmental model of children's religious thinking is rejected in favour of a model that allows multi-directional movement to and fro between different faith styles in response to a number of contextual factors. Detailed textual analysis of the transcribed conversations reveals the inffuences of social encounter on the children's understanding. It also recognises the creativity of the children's religious thinking when their perspectives are brought into dialogical relationship with the viewpoints of others. As they assimilate words and discourses from their wider environment, the children adapt them and employ them for their own ends. Their social context of religious plurality supplies a bank of understandings and associations. From this they select and negotiate meanings to suit the requirements of the immediate communicative context of the discussions. The outcome of the process is the children's ongoing theological engagement with questions of religious identity and belie

The interpretive approach to religious education : challenging Thompson's interpretation

In a recent book chapter, Matthew Thompson makes some criticisms of my work, including the interpretive approach to religious education and the research and activity of Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit. Against the background of a discussion of religious education in the public sphere, my response challenges Thompson’s account, commenting on his own position in relation to dialogical approaches to religious education. The article rehearses my long held view that the ideal form of religious education in fully state funded schools of a liberal democracy should be ‘secular’ but not ‘secularist’; there should be no implication of an axiomatic secular humanist interpretation of religions

Including the religious viewpoints and experiences of Muslim students in an environment that is both plural and secular

This paper sets out the context and some main lines of argument about the education of Muslim children in England, including concern over low attainment, over segregation and violent extremism. Three approaches to inclusion of Muslims in mainstream educational settings are identified. The paper describes and assesses the identity-based approach to inclusion common to many English schools using a distinction between permissive and affirmative stances to analyse practice. It proceeds to argue for an epistemology-based approach that makes room for students’ experiential and theological perspectives on the content of their learning