Does Religious Education Work? - A linguistic ethnography of the

relationship between policy and practice in Religious

Education in the UK

The study’ entitled, ‘Does Religious Education Work?’ sets out to track the trajectory of Religious Education in secondary schools in the United Kingdom from the aims and intentions

represented in policy through its enactment in classroom practice to the estimations of its impact by students nearing

the completion of their compulsory study of the subject.

The Project– Understanding current definitions of religious education

and their contested character.– An exploration of the enactment of religious education

policy and the criteria used to judge effectiveness in varied school settings across the United Kingdom.

– The creation of an ethnographic approach that focuses on the inner shape of teachers' and students' beliefs about both religion and religious education.

– To enhance the now substantial public conversation on whether the inclusion of religious education as a compulsory subject in the curriculum contributes to social cohesion and diversity or is constitutive of social division.

– An analysis of prevailing pedagogical practices in religious education across a range of contexts in terms of their consistency with espoused intentions and perceived impact.

RE – Policy in the UK– “shall reflect the fact that the religious traditions in Great

Britain are in the main Christian whilst taking account of the teaching and practices of the other principal religions represented in Great Britain” (Education Reform Act 1988)

– “on a number of practical levels, the influence of the Non-Statutory National Framework mirrors the influence of the National Curriculum in other compulsory subjects… the overwhelming tendency since 1994 has been for increasing centralisation in policy determination” (Barnes et al. forthcoming)

– “Whilst there is no legal requirement that students must sit public examinations, students deserve the opportunity to have their learning in religious education accredited.” (Dorset Agreed Syllabus, 2005)

– “traditional subject boundaries blur as schools centre upon broad domains of enquiry and skills-acquisition less firmly attached to traditional subject disciplines or forms of knowledge (Hirst 1970). In Scotland A Curriculum for Excellence, announced as the largest overhaul of the school curriculum for a generation, is symptomatic of this broader climate of innovation” (Baumfield et al. forthcoming)

The Delphi ProcessThe problem of Language – the appearance of agreement

3 Levels of discourse amongst professionalshigh level – aims

ground level – methodsmid-level – pedagogical intention

Delphi participants’ accounts– i) The influence of examinations

• “the business of deciding on policy in schools, in practice the person who does the teaching when they are with the kids is almost in the position of enacting policy “

• RE faces a more acute form of the challenge inherent in all attempts at balancing learner independence with induction into valued discourses.

• “instead of standing up and stating that things are confused, we’ve tried to work within that framework. The 1944 Act’s agenda has been totally overtaken by events, we live in a different society“

– ii) Teacher identity and pedagogy• Definitional ambiguity of what it means to be a specialist emerged in

the debate: ‘passionate impartiality’ or personal conviction approach. • “When young people are trying to work out for themselves what takes

on meaning for them… we simply throw an open door and say that all opinions count and all opinions are of equal worth… but increasingly that exploring of what has meaning for you has to have some sort of rigour to it, and we need to [help children differentiate] good thinking and something which is flawed.”

– iii) Truth claims• The possibility of a 21st century RE with common criteria for success

across contexts was not rejected. To do so requires the diversity and controversy within individual religious traditions, between traditions and with non-religious life stances to be the focus of pedagogy in RE

• The social and citizenship education claims made by RE were scrutinized, recognizing the element of subversion present in religious narratives

The Delphi Technique– “It can happen that a civilization can be imprisoned in a

linguistic contour which no longer matches the landscape of …fact” (Friel, 1996)

– Recognises that a constitutive feature of expertise can be its heterogeneity.

– Systematic, interactive forecasting technique, pioneered by the RAND Corporation for the US Department of Defense, which elicits expert opinion on a research question from a panel of independent experts.

– Expert panel included prominent figures in the philosophy of RE, policy development, support for the practice of RE in schools through teacher development.

– Included both known advocates and critics of confessional RE in the UK, drawn from faith school and state school sectors.

– Arranged for discussions to be digitally recorded. After the first day of the seminar, a brief summary of key points prepared. Questions arising out of these points were presented to the panel for discussion.

Delphi

In the second discussion round, which lasted 3½ hours, only two of the thirteen participants were responsible for

introducing new topics for discussion. This would suggest that professional reflections on such matters are strongly

embedded in pre-determined discursive patterns.

discussion of the attributes of the RE teacher;4 examples of good practice, 1 contested example 7 examples of how not to teach

Reflects those collective anxieties that engulf a subject so regularly traduced as having no place in the educational firmament (Conroy and Davis 2007) and of an educational community which exhibits no clear agreement as to how it might account for the teaching of its own subject?

Thompson questions the ‘official disapproval of confessional approaches to religious education in community (formerly county) schools’. (Thompson 2004, 61)

Contrary and competing perspectives on the engagement with Christianity

Growing religious illiteracy-apt to offer a kind of sanctuary to believer and sceptic alike, where they can indulge their hermetically-sealed ontologies

and epistemologies, ensuring that the claims of the Other are not simply deemed wrong but are, in fact, radically

declassified.

- the conversation concerning religion in both school religious education––and in the polity more generally––tends to ignore

those features of religion that appear, intellectually, emotionally and morally, to stand outside a normative liberal

discourse.

one of the schools the teacher had projected an image of an aborted foetus and then began the discussion around abortion

with the somewhat charged language of ‘murder’.

Linguistic Ethnography

– Acknowledges the sympathetic observer as part of a shared social process, one who sees and shares in the religious experience of the believing group.

– “a generic and genetic comprehension of who these individuals are… the social conditions… the circumstances of life… conditions, inseparably psychological and social, associated with a given position and trajectory ins [sic] social space” (Bourdieu cited Trondman, 2008)

– Examines linguistic phenomena “without entering the issue of the individual motivations for such behaviours… the notion of preference is not individually but collectively defined” (Duranti, 1997)

As Charles Taylor (2007) observes the dominant secular narrative, rooted in immanence, which shapes liberal antipathy to religion, is the beneficiary of a belief that the oppressive power of religion was the proximate cause for much human suffering and

that enlightenment will eventually witness the universal rejection of the religious. However, such a claim becomes less and less

tenable as we continue to witness the persistence of those ills that were supposed to disappear with the demise of religion. ‘Of

course’, Taylor argues, ‘the plausibility of the narrative can be sustained by stigmatizing the religious societies as hostile to

modern values, as many Europeans tend to do today with the United States; and even more with “Islam”. But unless we sink to a real “clash of civilizations”, this way of lending plausibility to the secularization narrative will give out sooner or later.’ (ibid 770)

Linguistic Microanalysis& Truth Claims

November 5th 2009, Period 1, Ms Shalima’s Yr 11 0:08:02.9-0:08:53.9Ms S: “... know the Prophet lef, left, or should I say was forced out of Medina to live in, m, m, was forced out of Mecca to live in Medina, and whilst he was there, he began, ah, creating the perfect ideal society, and one the things that he did whilst living in that community was introduce the idea of Zakah to help the community so that’s what we’re looking at today. [door opens and closes] Ah, so this is what we’re aiming to do* by the end of, end of today today, I want you to know the Islamic definition for the word Zakah, some people get confused, alright, I want you to know specifically what that means for your exam. I also want you to know why, eh, it’s important for every Muslim to give Zakah, and also how it helps the community, obviously Muhammed introduced it for a particular reason. We want to know if that actually benefits them or not…” * - at this point, Ms Shalima is reading from a powerpoint on the board at front of classroom which sets out the learning objectives for the lesson. On the powerpoint is the observer-neutral “Understand the importance of Zakah in the Muslim community” compare with Ms S’s words “why it’s important for every Muslim to give Zakah”

Multimodal Ethnography– “The construction of an account of the discrete

location… which is grounded in the collected data and which incorporates a conceptual framework that facilitates understanding” (Pole & Morrison, 2003)

– “How do modes interact with one another to make meaning? What effects, if any, do these modes have on the very forms of language itself and hence on the theorization of what language is and can be?” (Kress et al. 2001)

– Taking a broad view of language extending beyond the literary-verbal to encompass all interpersonal communication.

– Diverse forms of data and multiple methods used to gain a broad insight.

– Transcontextual analysis, an appreciation of the “absent presence” (Lefstein & Snell, 2009, p22) of texts and discourses outside the classroom

Multimodal Ethnography& Teacher Identity

Policy Into PracticeThe Changing role of the text

languagepurposeexamination boardsauthors

OECD report – Scotland more dependent on text books than other advanced industrial countries

• A language that presuppose consent?

• Limited opportunity for students to engage in forms of self-narration? Much of the conversation is not conducive to cultivating and probing a sense of self?

• Resources (iconographic, auditory etc) deployed carry pre-ordained conceptions of the religious or moral good? Or, are they used/deployed in such a way as to ensure that the conversation is morally monoglot?

• Is the undergirding epistemic framework consistent and coherent? does the teacher consistently articulate a particular understanding of what would count as good or right? This is quite important though establishing consistency or inconsistency does not of itself constitute grounds for any judgment as to moral propriety or priority or indeed educational efficacy.

•

• Does the teacher explore not only the content of faiths other than her or his own but also explore and engage with ideas beyond their own at a metaphysical or epistemic rather than at a descriptive level?

• Do they engage with the boundaries and borders between religious ideas where there is enhanced porosity? Do they step back from or go through these boundaries?

Policy Into Practice– “the business of deciding on policy in schools, in

practice the person who does the teaching when they are with the kids is almost in the position of enacting policy because they are the ones who make it, whatever ‘it’ is happen.” – a Delphi participant

– “I think the stuff the school teaches us...i think we have to kind of accept it when we’re in school because that’s what comes up in exams.”“but when we learned about different religions in Year 7, 8 and 9, we kind of got a respect for everyone’s religions because we were learning about different religions” – Pupil focus group comments

Summary and Conclusions

– A rich seam of data– Three complimentary qualitative

analytical frameworks, all of which take into account the complex contexts and subjectivities of the classroom

– Contested pedagogical claims, not two models but three:

• Confessional• Academic• Non-confessional affective

References– Barnes, P, Conroy, J and Lundie, D (forthcoming)– Baumfied, V, Conroy, J, Davis, R and Lundie, D

(forthcoming)– Dorset Agreed Syllabus, 2005– Duranti, 1997– Friel, 1994– Hirst, 1970– Kress, G, Jewitt, C, Ogborn, J and Tsatsarelis, C (2001)

Multimodal Teaching and Learning: the rhetorics of the science classroom [Continuum: London]

– Lefstein & Snell, 2006– Pole and Morrisson, 2003– The Education Reform Act 1988– Trondman, 2008