Learning to Teach and Teaching to Learn: research and practice in RE Professor Vivienne Baumfield University of Glasgow

Is there an approach to the study of religion in school that all fair-minded people can agree is a proper part of of education?

Religious Education in the UK: a curriculum subject in search of a discipline? Religion in schools is not a ‘piratical intrusion’ but has played a central role in public education from the outset Unique features of RE in the UK, which are gaining ground across Europe Locally agreed syllabuses promoting wider participation in curriculum development Identity crisis and implications for teacher knowledge and entailments that can burden RE

Approaches to Religious Education Theological Phenomenological Experiential Interpretive Practical Theology Critical Realist

Some Abiding Issues Education or nurture? Religion or religions? Role of religious belief in understanding religion(s) Alterity – insider/outsider perspectives Plurality and truth claims

The future of theory in RE: Most important question to ask is, ‘Is it fruitful?’

Does RE work? Project Delphi Conference – gathering expert perspectives Policy Analysis Textbook Analysis Feedback Conferences – harnessing professional feedback Practitioner Enquiry Ethnography – 240 days in 24 schools - Teacher and pupil interviews - Document collection - Classroom observation - Photographic and audio evidence Pupil Questionnaire Theatre workshop – reflecting pupil perspectives

What’s that subject called that’s like RE but in proper depth ? Valuing opinions and pressing for meaning The distorting effect of examinations in KS4 Theology, Religious Studies and Religious Education: clerical uncle, big brother and little sister (Cush, 1999) Revisiting Working Paper 36: false starts and wrong turns

Praxis “The place for understanding RE is the experience of pupils and teachers in classrooms.” (Cush, 1999) 3 message systems of education: – Curriculum – Pedagogy – Assessment

Praxis “The place for understanding RE is the experience of pupils and teachers in classrooms.” (Cush, 1999) 3 message systems of education: – Curriculum – Pedagogy – Assessment

Pedagogy as Theory Decision making in the moment in the enactment phase from intentions to outcomes Promotes dialogical inquiry and reflexivity Mitigates the tendency to conflate theory with the expression of a world-view Consistent with a feminist perspective on all knowledge as encounter leading to personal growth Promotes teacher agency

Can pragmatism provide a theoretical basis for RE? “It is evident that the term applies itself conveniently to a number of tendencies …set it at work within the stream of your experience. It appears less as a solution, then, than as a program for more work, and more particular as an indication of the ways in which existing realities must be changed. Theories thus become instruments, not answers to enigmas in which we can rest.” William James