This article is a revised version of the author’s contribution to the 2006 meeting of the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values in Driebergen, the Netherlands and is concerned with the need for continuing discussion about the identity of religious education. The article begins by arguing that, despite current criticisms, Smart’s original intentions for phenomenological religious education were far from inappropriate for a critical religious education. It then attempts to introduce some fresh ideas about how we might understand the commonly used terms of learning about and from religion. It suggests that in learning about religion it is important to engage students with the soteriological dimensions of religious traditions. The article then goes on to offer a revised version of learning from religion based on the Mahayana Buddhist concept of upaya or ‘skilful means’.

Learning from religions as ‘skilful means’: a contribution to the debate about the identity of religious education

During recent decades, many European societies have become increasingly culturally diverse. Local neighbourhoods now include people from different ethnic, linguistic and religious backgrounds. The extent to which different communities integrate has implications for social cohesion in the receiving countries. In addition, schools across Europe face growing pressures to respond to immigration and adopt more inclusive practices (Faas, 2010). It is generally accepted that schools play an important role in the integration of ethnic minority2 students and in promoting their feeling of inclusion through involvement in the academic and social spheres (Darmody et al., forthcoming). The importance of integration is evident in the rhetoric on multicultural and intercultural education in various policy documents across Europe (see, for example, European Commission, 2008). Some sources have referred to various barriers to integration at school (Caulfield et al., 2005; Devine and Kelly, 2006). One of the areas where potential tensions may arise is in relation to the provision of religious education and to the broader religious ethos of the school.

Religious Diversity and Schooling in Ireland

Because of rapid globalization today, almost everyone lives everywhere. This entails challenges including that of living together harmoniously at local, national, and international levels. Appreciation of the religious faith of the other is an important factor. This calls for a kind of religious education that is highly inclusive. Many attempts are being made to do this. However, in the process, there can be a tendency to overemphasize sameness and downplay difference, therefore often sidestepping the question of truth. This chapter argues that there is need to adopt an approach that recognizes difference and promotes dialogue, where attention is given to the truth claims of religions in a way that enhances rather than undermines the creation of community.

Interreligious Education and the Question of Truth

This paper challenges the overly positive image of the contribution made by religious education in England and Wales to the attainment of liberal educational aims that was recently presented in this journal, in the context of a review symposium on a festschrift celebrating the work and achievements of the influential British religious educator, Professor John Hull. An alternative reading is pursued that provides a more accurate and fair interpretation of the evidence. There is a discussion of the ideological character of British religious education and a consideration of the reasons why assertions of its ‘success’ by religious educators are currently so vocal. Critical attention is focused on two particular issues over which the influence of Hull on contemporary policy and practice is acknowledged: that of his dismissal of the accusation that multi‐faith religious education confuses pupils, and that of current strategies in religious education to promote inter‐religious and intercultural understanding.

An Alternative Reading of Modern Religious Education in England and Wales.

This paper is drawn from a research project that investigates the relationship between teachers’ understanding of the religious identity of Asian background students, and recent Australian curriculum initiatives focused on religion and religious identification. Based on responses from an Australia-wide survey, and follow-up interviews from teachers and principals in several Australian states, the project examined the ways that Australian teachers understand, respond to and talk about the religious identities of their students, and the implications of these demands for teacher practice and education. This paper is concerned with the findings from the interview phase that for a significant number of teachers, notions of religion were often elided with culture and race, and often subsumed by broader notions of a nominal ‘white’ Australian culture. Research conversations appeared framed by an often Christian perspective and sense of self, as opposed to a putative and Asian religious and cultural other. We argue that a better understanding of the ways that teachers participate in discourses of representations about Asian religious identities negotiated by Australian diasporic communities has direct implications for the refinement of policy and for teacher professional learning. In the light of our findings, we further argue that there is a need for curriculum, teachers and researchers to move beyond an understanding of culture and identity that is based on monolingual, monocultural and Anglocentric perspectives that frame the foreign as the ‘exotic’ other, and define it through references to limited, tokenistic artefacts of culture, which are reinforced by iconic use of language to talk about culture, religion and identity.

/pdf/re-imagining-asian-religious-identity-towards-a-critical-f8pg06qtkt.pdf

Re-imagining Asian religious identity: towards a critical pedagogy of religion and race in Australian schools

Part 1. Religious Education, Pluralism and Global Community Introduction 1. Religious Education and International Understanding 2. Intercultural Education and Religious Education: A changing relationship 3. The Contribution of Philosophy of Religion to Religious Education 4. The Teaching of Human Rights in Religious Education: The case of Genocide 5. Open Minds, Ongoing Heritage, Open Future: The educational theology of John Hull Part 2. Current Issues in Christian Education and Practical Theology Introduction 6. Christian Education and the Charge of Indoctrination: A German perspective 7. Telling a New Story: Reconfiguring Christian education for the challenges of the twenty-first century 8. The Concept of Relationship and its Centrality to Religious Education 9. Perceiving Self Deception in Teaching and Learning 10. From Conflict to Community 11. Does the Church Need the Bible? Reflections on the experiences of disabled people Part 3. Religious Education: Theory and Practice Introduction 12. Children as Theologians: Developmental psychology and inter-religious education 13. Strangeness in Inter-religious Classroom Communication: Research on the 'Gift to the Child' material 14. Playful Orthodoxy: Religious education's solution to pluralism 15. The Role of Dialogue in Religious Education: A Russian perspective 16. Is there a Place for Youth in Religious Education? 17. Religious Education and the Life-World of Young People: Psychological perspectives

Education, Religion and Society: Essays in Honour of John M. Hull

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Dennis Bates

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

Education, Religion and Society: Essays in Honour of John M. Hull