ISREV 2012 - COLLEGIAL PAPER ABSTRACTS

Changes from original list: Changed abstracts: Mario D’Souza, Marilyn Naidoo, Kevin O’Grady, Karen Walshe

INDEX OF PRESENTERS, in surname order.   Click on a name to go to their abstract.  Or click on ABSTRACTS to go to the first abstract.

Stefan Altmeyer - The Contribution of Religious Education to a Culture of Remembrance within the Context of Secondary Schools in Austria, Germany and Switzerland Trine Anker - Beyond the Pale: Respect and otherness in a Norwegian multicultural school Tania ap Sion - Religious experience among Catholic and Protestant sixth-form pupils in Northern Ireland: looking for signs of the presence of God Elisabeth Arweck - Religious Diversity in the UK: Attitudes and Views of 13–16 Year Old Students Cok Bakker - “Religion in public schools...”; This is not what we expect! Philip Barnes - Representing Religions, Developing Respect for Others and Interpretive Religious Education Jenny Berglund - Translating Religions: admitting the power of educational choices Gerdien Bertram-Troost - The positioning of Protestant primary schools in the 21st century. Results of an empirical research project in the Netherlands Doug Blomberg - A narrational, multi-dimensional approach to religious education research Sherry Blumberg - The Otherness of Teaching: Reflections from a Jew teaching in Catholic Schools Lorna Bowman - A Legacy of Failure: Canada’s Religious Education of Aboriginal Children Oddrun Bråten - A comparative perspective on the history of religious education in England and Norway Halldis Breidlid - Remembrance in Norwegian RE: the case of martyrdom in Sikhism Michael Buchanan - Fashioning Peer Review Strategies to Enchance the Formation of Pre-service Teachers of Religious Education: What Teacher Educators Should Know. Mette Buchardt - ’The negro’, ’the Greenlander’ and ‘the missionary’ as heroes of bildung for ‘the whole population’. Social-epistemological traces between colony and metropol in Danish missionary- and school pedagogy from 1900s to 1930s Sara Cohen-Fridel & Shimon Ohayon - Knowledge of Jewish History and Tradition and the relations to Jewish Identity among Students from Abroad Studying in Israel Trevor Cooling - The appropriate contribution of constructivist approaches to the Bible in conservative Christian approaches to Religious Education Denise Cush - The ‘Living Religion’ Project – exploring and enhancing the use of fieldwork placements in Theology and Religious Studies undergraduate programmes in the UK. Marian de Souza - Spirituality in Religious Education: An examination of historical and contemporary understandings of spirituality to inform and enhance curriculum development and professional practice in Religious Education. Jonathan Doney - The overlooked ecumenical background to the development of English RE. Mario D’Souza - The Challenge of an Outcomes Based Education to Religious Knowing Petro du Preez - (Re)searching intersectionality through memory and narrative as basis for developing curricula for diverse education contexts Leona English - The British North America Society for Educating the Poor: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Religious Education in Newfoundland 1823-1850 Vladimir Fedorov - Patriotism, Nationalism and Confessionalism as Subjects of the Pilot Course in Basics of Religious Culture at Russian HIgh School. René Ferguson - Remembering the ancestors in Jozi: implications of a (white) experience of initiation into sangomahood for Religion education research and practice John Fisher - Have God - Be happy, sometimes Kari Flornes - Promoting democracy, citizenship and human right education in Initial teacher education in Norway Leslie Francis - Researching attitudes toward religious diversity: quantitative approaches from psychology and empirical theology Geert Franzenburg - Sharing the Gospel: Religious education with children and adults in the European context

Rob Freathy (with Stephen Parker) - Religious Education and the Mary Whitehouse Experience. Stephen Parker (with Rob Freathy) - The Christian Education Movement (1964-1980) Jun Fukaya - An era of preschool Christian education conducted by non-Christians Brian Gates - Religion in lifespan experience - Another installment Bill Gent - The significance of hifz within the Islamic tradition: ethnographic findings; religious and educational considerations Michael Gillis & Martin Ubani - Jesus the Jew in Jewish and Christian school books Peta Goldburg - Remembering and critiquing the development of Religious Education in Australian Catholic Schools: A fifty year report card. Jan Grajczonek - “Interrogating the ‘Spiritual’ in Australia’s First National Early Years Learning Framework” Bruce Grelle - Toward a Global Ethic for Religion Education in Public Schools Gunnar Gunnarsson - Young people in Iceland in times of diversity and change Elisabet Haakedal - Maps and Stories in Identity Formation: A multimodal comparison of some Norwegian pupils’ texts from 1955 to 2009 applying sociological theory of collective memory and theory of moral and cultural philosophy. Mary Hayward - Freeing Religious Education: a study of a key curriculum moment Hans-Günter Heimbrock - Taking Position: An Empirical study about religious orientation of RE teachers in German Public Schools Mark Hillis - Intergenerational Worship and Learning – an exploration of theory and practice with reference to congregations of the Uniting Church in Australia. Dzintra Iliško - From positivism to a collaborative action research tradition in teacher training in Latvia: paradigmatic and narrative orientation Shira Iluz & Yaacov Katz - Evaluation of Remedial Teaching in Ultra-orthodox Talmud Torah Schools: A First Look into a Closed World Sara Irisdotter Aldenmyr - Therapeutic Education, Teacher-Student Relations and the need for Professional Ethics Robert Jackson - From Empirical Research To Pedagogy: Reflections on Research Findings from the EC REDCo Project and the AHRC/ESRC Project on Young People’s Attitudes Towards Religious Diversity in the UK Janet Jarvis - Religion Education: The religious identity of student teachers Elisabeth Johnsen - Rethinking child centred reform pedagogy with a Vygotskyian perspective Arto Kallioniemi - How primary school student teachers view religious education as school subject? Kasonga wa Kasonga - Christian Rituals for the Luba Kasai ‘Special Children’ Yaacov Katz - Religious Education and Spirituality: Complimentary or Contradictory Concepts Shira Iluz & Yaacov Katz - Evaluation of Remedial Teaching in Ultra-orthodox Talmud Torah Schools: A First Look into a Closed World Recep Kaymakcan - Do teachers of RE support pluralistic religious education in Turkey? Chae Young Kim - The Development of a Preventive Education Program Concerning Religious Discrimination among Civil Servants in the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Ole Kjørven - The religious literacy of RE teachers: An analysis of RE teachers as readers and interpreters of the biblical narrative The Prodigal Son Heinz Streib & Constantin Klein - Violence, Xenophobia, Religion and the Readiness for Mediation in German Schools Ina ter Avest & Cees Kom - Principals’ Dilemmas, the school’s Christian identity in a pillarized educational system in a post-pillarized society Valentin Kozhuharov - Respecting History in Establishing RE at public schools Bernd Krupka - More equal than others? What Christian Youth appreciates about Church Youth work Arniika Kuusisto - Recognizing Worldviews in Multi-Faith Day Care Context Manfred Kwiran - Genocide Education and Human Rights Johannes Lähnemann - Interreligious Textbook Research and Development: A Proposal for Standards David Lankshear - Church going children attend their local Church: an exploration of the reality underlying this assumption. Alma Lanser–Van der Velde - Young Adults: An Open Future Rune Larsson - Religious education - in whose interest? Changing history of Religious Education in the in Swedish schools over the last century

Heid Leganger-Krogstad - The Understanding of Learning in a ‘nonschoolish’ Church Educational Reform Sidsel Lied - The Speech Genres of a Classroom and a Dialogical RE David Lifmark - Emotions and accounts of continuity and change in values education Heike Lindner - What about standards and competencies? The contribution of the historical religious education research to the formal education discussion today Miriam Martin - The Urgency of Remembering: A Religious Educator Reflects on a Challenge from Thomas Berry Mia Matilainen - Human Rights Education in Religious Education Roseanne McDougall - Making History and Creating Memories: Integrating Service Learning into the Undergraduate Religion Curriculum Paul McQuillan - What difference do we make? Examining school contribution to children’s belief and religious practice Wilna Meijer - Time is not a line. The spatio-temporality of education Karlo Meyer - How Do 13-Year Old Youngsters Gain Motivation for Visiting the Christian Sunday Service? Results from a triangulation of qualitative and quantitative research in Northern Germany. Siebren Miedema & Coby Speelman - Liberal democratic societies and the need for religious citizenship education Joyce Miller - Terrorism, religious education and the interpretive approach Reinhold Mokrosch - Remembrance in Religious Education Research in Germany: Is Dietrich Bonhoeffer's prison confession “God is beyond in the midst of our life” a religious pedagogical foundation? And is it still relevant today in the light of young peoples concept of God? Mary Moore - Youth Seeking to Understand the World: Yearnings for a Past and a Future Marilyn Naidoo - Values education and religious identity formation in South Africa Elisabeth Naurath - German children and their knowledge about Jewism and the Holocaust Elizabeth Newton - Remembering RE? Towards an oral history of RE teachers and teaching Tove Nicolaisen - Religion as practice in the context of Norwegian Religious Education (RE) Kati Niemela - Religious change in the transition to adulthood – Longitudinal study of young people aged 14-25 (2001-2011) Karin Nordström - Between objectivity and subjectivity. Swedish secondary school teachers’ perspectives on identity formation in REBaruch Offir & Niva Wengrowicz - Role of the mediating teacher in the classroom in a distance learning environment when teaching humanistic subjects Kevin O’Grady - Action Research and Religious Education Sara Cohen-Fridel & Shimon Ohayon - Knowledge of Jewish History and Tradition and the relations to Jewish Identity among Students from Abroad Studying in Israel Üzeyir Ok - Individual Modernity and Religiosity in Turkey Bernadette Eyewan Okure - Religious Education: An organizing principle in what graduates of St. Augustine’s College, Lagos Nigeria do? Hideko Omori - Religious Education for Women in Japanese Modernization: Jinzo Naruse and the times Christina Osbeck - To appropriate language of “Being in the World” - Teaching and learning in RE and Social Studies for 12 year old children in Sweden Anthony Ozele - Crossroads at the Niger: Contextual Challenges of Interreligious Collaboration in Nigeria Heon-Wook Park - Education for Morality and Religion in Japan: Past and Present Glynis Parker - Respecting history and remembrance in Religion Education Research: What has happened to traditional African culture, rituals and religious practices in modern-day South Africa? Stephen Parker (with Rob Freathy ) - The Christian Education Movement (1964-1980) Rob Freathy (with Stephen Parker) - Religious Education and the Mary Whitehouse Experience. Manfred Pirner - ‘Translation’ as fundamental category for a public theology of education: Historical and systematic perspectives Annebelle Pithan - RE in Nazi-Germany - Protestant Work with girls and young women Ferdinand Potgieter - Spirituality as educative (thres)holding experience: from individuality to purposeful and peaceful coexistence Margaret Power - The Roots of Memory and the Space of Religious Education in Catholic Schools in Canada Alice Pyke - Christian affiliation, Christian practice, and attitudes to religious diversity: a quantitative

analysis among 13- to 15- year-old female students Lynn Revell - Orientalism and Religious Education Yisrael Rich - Student Identity Development in Orthodox Jewish Secondary Schools Norman Richardson - Carefully Taught? Teacher and Student Teacher Perspectives on Religious Diversity in Northern Ireland’s Primary Schools. Mandy Robbins - Religious beliefs and public life: an empirical enquiry among Christian, Muslim and religiously-affiliated adolescent males in England and Wales Martin Rothgangel - From “Catechetical Theology” to “Religious Educational Theology”. Cornelia Roux - Respecting History and Remembrance in Religious Education Research: Research In Religion Education: A Circle of Trust Sturla Sagberg - Religious education as culture education Thomas Schlag - Holocaust remembrance and human rights education: Visual trust and responsibility as a task for religious and interreligious education - in Switzerland and beyond Peter Schreiner - A Protestant Perspective on Religious Diversity in Education in Europe Bernd Schröder - RE and mission - historical links and present challenges Ulrich Schwab - Having or losing rememberance – is history the source of a new Protestant identity? Friedrich Schweitzer - Children and Religious Difference: Construction – Deconstruction - Co-Construction John Valk & Mualla Selçuk - An Islamic Worldview: Religion in a Modern, Secular, Democratic State Makoto Shibanuma - Historical Survey of the Religious Education in Japanese Public School Shan Simmonds - The now generation of girls: (Re)respecting gender equity in religion and culture? Geir Skeie - Memory and heritage in history education and in religious education: a cross-disciplinary investigation into social sciences and humanities education Siebren Miedema & Coby Speelman - Liberal democratic societies and the need for religious citizenship education Karin Sporre - Human dignity in global citizenship education (GCE). A critical exploration and analysis of GCE texts. Julian Stern - The Influence of Research-Oriented Professional Development on RE Teachers: A Case Study of the Westhill Seminars Heinz Streib & Constantin Klein - Violence, Xenophobia, Religion and the Readiness for Mediation in German Schools Howard Summers - Respecting History and Remembrance in Religious Education Research: A glimpse into present-day South Africa Ulrika Svalfors - How to Become an Environmental Moral Subject Geoff Teece - John Hick’s Religious Interpretation of Religion: An Unexplored Resource for Religious Educators. Ina ter Avest & Cees Kom - Principals’ Dilemmas, the school’s Christian identity in a pillarized educational system in a post-pillarized society Phra Nicholas Thanissaro - What makes you not a Buddhist?: A preliminary quantitative survey Valerie Torres - Recuerdos, Multiple Belongings & Traditioning: Respecting History and Remembrance in Religious Education from U.S. Hispanic Perspectives Michael Gillis & Martin Ubani - Jesus the Jew in Jewish and Christian school books John Valk & Mualla Selçuk - An Islamic Worldview: Religion in a Modern, Secular, Democratic State Johannes van der Walt - The anatomy of religion: implications for religion in / and education Jon Vestol - Textbooks and Students’ Interpretation of Religious Text. Doerthe Vieregge - Socially disadvantaged young people and religious diversity in daily life Kerstin von Brömssen - Religion as a resource? Marie von der Lippe - Competing discourses: An analysis of young people’s talks about religion and diversity Karen Walshe - Understanding ‘understanding’ in Religious Education Kevin Wanden - Going Digital: Student and Teachers Voices Wolfram Weisse - Interreligious Dialogue at University and at school. The example of Hamburg. Baruch Offir & Niva Wengrowicz - Role of the m ediating teacher in the classroom in a distance learning environment when teaching humanistic subjects Charl Wolhuter - Policy on Education and Religion in South Africa : Toward Social Justice? Andrew Wright - The Rehabilitation of the Pursuit of Truth and Truthfulness in Religious Education

Elina Wright - Teaching and Learning with All Faiths and None: Supporting Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development of Young People Yaacov Yablon - The Role of Self-Motivation in Understanding the Contribution of Intergroup Encounters between Jewish and Muslim students in Israel Yoshimasa Yoshioka - The Significance of Comenius Pedagogy in the post-modern age.

COLLEGIAL ABSTRACTS, in Presenter's surname order.   Click on Top after any abstract to go back to the INDEX OF PRESENTERS.

Stefan Altmeyer - The Contribution of Religious Education to a Culture of Remembrance within the Context of Secondary Schools in Austria, Germany and Switzerland

The paper presents an international comparative research project that is going to be implemented as a cooperation between universities and educational institutions in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. The leading research question is: What is Religious Education in secondary schools able to contribute to developing and fostering a “Culture of Remembrance” (especially of Holocaust remembrance)? The main objective is to explore and analyse forms of Religious Education in schools dealing with the specific religious perspectives of memory as well as its impacts on social forms of remembrance. The research approach aims to integrate three perspectives:

(1) The hermeneutical and comparative study of the normative social, theological and didactical discourse on Remembrance with special focus on national conditions,

(2) The empirical exploration of the attitudes and perceptions of religion in the context of remembrance in pupils’ and teachers’ implicit frames of reference,

(3) The development of educational concepts to foster school-specific formats of memory culture through Religious Education.

One leading hypotheses of research is that neither normative positions nor didactical conceptualizations realize the fundamental gap between objective models of the relationship between religion and the memory culture and the subjective theories on it. That’s why the main focus is put on students and teachers: What do they think about the relationship between religion and remembrance, which indicators of a school-specific Culture of Remembrance do they see, which possible contributions of Religious Education do they imagine? The collegial paper primarily aims to present and discuss the project’s qualitative empirical approach to these questions. Top

Trine Anker - Beyond the Pale: Respect and otherness in a Norwegian multicultural school

In the Norwegian curriculum for primary and secondary education (LK06) in general, and in the specific subject curriculum for Religious Education, the aim of learning to respect is emphasized. Knowledge about “the others’” culture and religions contributes to achieve this aim, according to LK06. However, what respect is, and who the others are, is neither questioned, nor explained.

If learning to respect “the others” is an important matter for education, we need to know about different practices related to otherness in schools. Taking LK06’s aims of learning to respect and moral philosophical discussions of respect and recognition (Axel Honneth and Charles Taylor) as points of departure, this paper discusses who the others are, and how borders between we and others are practiced?

The question is addressed empirically. My methodological approach is ethnographic and the material was constructed through fieldwork in a Norwegian multicultural school from January to June 2009. The main methods for constructing material are participant observations in classroom and schoolyard and group interviews with students. This material shows how students enact and discuss respect according to their own categories “Norwegians” and “foreigners” in a blurred and border crossing manner. To which group one belongs, is dependent on different characteristics, interests and practices. These students’ practices carry possibilities for new discussions of respect and otherness in moral philosophy and in education. Top

Tania ap Sion - Religious experience among Catholic and Protestant sixth-form pupils in Northern Ireland: looking for signs of the presence of God

John Greer conducted major surveys of sixth-form religion in Protestant schools in Northern Ireland in 1968, 1978, and 1988. Greer’s colleagues continued that research tradition in Northern Ireland in 1998, and extended the survey to include sixth-form pupils in Catholic schools. Greer’s survey included an open question on religious experience, drawing on the approach of Alister Hardy and the Religious Experience Research Unit. Reporting on the findings for the 1998 survey in Archive for the Psychology of Religion, ap Sion (2006) was able to report for the first time on the comparison between the ways in which religious experience was reported by sixth-form pupils attending Protestant and Catholic schools. The 1998 study was repeated in Protestant and Catholic schools in 2010, and provides qualitative data from around 3,000 sixth-form pupils analysed in the present paper. These new data offer two main points of contrast, between pupils in Catholic and in Protestant schools, and between pupils in 1998 and 2010. The content analysis preserves Greer’s historic descriptive categories of religious experience styled: help and guidance, exams, God’s presence, answered prayer, death, sickness, conversion, difficulty in describing, and miscellaneous. These new data confirm the key differences in reported religious experience established in 1998 between the Catholic and Protestant communities. They also demonstate a decline in the level of reported religious experience, especially in the Catholic community. These findings are discussed against the wider background of the changing religious and political climate of Northern Ireland during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Top

Elisabeth Arweck - Religious Diversity in the UK: Attitudes and Views of 13–16 Year Old Students

Like other countries in Europe and elsewhere, the United Kingdom has experienced increasing religious diversity in recent years. This presents both challenges and opportunities for the relationships between social and religious communities and institutions. In one public sphere—in the media—differences and divisions in local and national contexts are highlighted, while in another—at the level of government—there is recognition that religion cannot be relegated to the private sphere. Also, it is acknowledged that education in school (through religious education and citizenship education) can further community cohesion by teaching young people about religious diversity. However, not much research is available on young people’s attitudes to religious diversity or the factors that shape their attitudes. A three-year study (2009–2012) in the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit (WRERU) at the University of Warwick, UK, funded by the ESRC/AHRC Religion and Society Programme, has sought to investigate the attitudes of 13–16 year-old pupils towards religious diversity across the United Kingdom. Comprising both qualitative and quantitative research methods, the present paper will report findings from the first phase of the project, which was qualitative in nature, using ethnographic research methods, in this case focus group discussions with young people in British schools. The questions in these discussions were framed by range of academic approaches, including sociological, pedagogical, theological and psychological aspects. The views of and the comments on religious diversity as expressed by the young people will be presented in the light of the different school and community contexts in which their lives are embedded. Top

Cok Bakker - “Religion in public schools...”; This is not what we expect!

Respecting History and Remembrance in Religious Education Research means that public primary schools in the Netherlands (roughly 30% of all Dutch primary schools) are struggling with the question if and how religion and religious affiliation of teachers and/or children should be dealt with.

On the one hand, a century of ‘pillarized’ education tells the Dutch to keep the public school strictly neutral. In line with this, confessional RE is offered in public schools, not being covered by the school’s responsibilities, but by external denominational bodies; only for those children the parents have made a request for, differentiated in specified types of RE (christian, muslim, hinduistic, humanistic, etc.).

On the other hand, the increasing general interest in the public domain in issues as spirituality, life questions and sensemaking, is easily reflected in the public school’s population, which challenges public schools to regard ‘life issues’ as essential themes of ‘good education’.

A multiple case study is presented that shows how public schools in the city of Rotterdam deal with this historically generated dilemma. In this interesting case, ‘dealing’ means actively pioneering, challenging juridical restrictions and developing the teachers’ professional interests. Crucial for understanding is to observe and evaluate the historical, local and national context. With a research team we are part of this

development, making use of different methods: participating as consultants, developing ‘experimental gardens’ and interviewing key players in this proces of transition.

The ambition is to develop Religious Education and Life Orientation for all children under own direction and supervision. Top

Philip Barnes - Representing Religions, Developing Respect for Others and Interpretive Religious Education

The aim of this paper is to identify and assess the commitments of interpretive religious education, particularly with regard to its relevance to inter-cultural education and to fostering positive attitudes toward the religious “Other”. The paper focuses on two central issues: (i) that of the extent to which interpretive religious education faithfully represents the nature of religion, and (ii) that of how successful interpretive religious education is in developing respect for those who are perceived as different, where this denotes those who belong to different cultural, ethnic, racial and religious communities or groups. Much of the discussion will focus on the writings of Robert Jackson. His work has been widely influential; it has provided the theoretical basis for a number of major European research projects on religious education. An attempt will be made to trace the development of his position and to identify the theoretical and practical commitments that are both explicit and implicit in it; reference will also be made to other religious educators who identify their work with interpretative religious education and who express the same commitments. The paper develops a number of critical questions for advocates of interpretive religious education that centre on its interpretation of the nature of religion, its understanding of the relationship of religion to culture, and finally its contribution to responsible and respectful relationships between different individuals and communities. The paper draws upon the disciplines of anthropology, religious studies and (religious) educational theory. Top

Jenny Berglund - Translating Religions: admitting the power of educational choices

Both in historical and contemporary literature about Islamic religious education (IRE), the process of teaching Islam to the younger generation is often referred to as ”transmitting Islam”. To use the term transmit is not specific for Islamic religious education, but common in both literature about religious instruction and religious education research. Obviously, there are certain “facts” that often are transmitted from one generation to another, such as, in the case of Islam; historical events, names of prophets, the five pillars of Islam and the words of the Quran. But, what significance and meaning these events, persons and concepts have, is not necessary “transmitted”. Depending on in what society, what time and what classroom they are “remembered” and taught, teachers fill these events, persons and concepts with meaning they find useful for their pupils.

In this paper I use examples from ethnographic field work in IRE-classes in Swedish Muslims schools to argue that the term “transmit” is not fully accurate and that it brings about several problems; such as giving a static view of the process of religious education, as well as neglecting the role of the teachers and the contextualisation that is an important part of all teaching. Drawing on Homi Bhabha I instead suggest that the concept of translation is more accurate to describe what teachers of religious education do, since translation includes notions of interpretation and thereby shows the power teachers have when they teach religion and that the educational choices they make in this process is of great importance. Top

Gerdien Bertram-Troost - The positioning of Protestant primary schools in the 21st century. Results of an empirical research project in the Netherlands

As a result of changes in society and individualization of religiosity, the formal identity of schools in the Dutch (post)pillarised educational system is neither fully representing the religious identity of teachers, or pupils or of their parents anymore. Religious schools make their own decisions regarding the way they give shape to their religious identity. However, we lack information on how they actually do this nowadays. In order to discover which are nowadays useful conceptualizations of the way Protestant schools for primary education give, in the light of actual developments they are confronted with, shape to their identity, a couple of (sub) research questions have been formulated. Among them are the questions:

‘How do Protestant schools give shape to their identity nowadays?’

‘Can we distinguish ‘categories’ or ‘types’ in the ways schools give shape to their identity, in relation to the developments they are confronted with and the motives they give for the way they relate to these developments?’

On the basis of explorative semi-structured interviews, an (online) survey has been constructed. Via internet school leaders throughout the whole country were invited to participate in the research. This resulted in a sample of approximately 200 schools. The findings of the study will be presented in terms of a new or updated categorization and will provide a taxonomy of school identity modi of Protestant primary schools in the Netherlands in the secular age. This taxonomy will stimulate the (pedagogical) dialogue on school identity. Top

Doug Blomberg - A narrational, multi-dimensional approach to religious education research

The Conference theme invites religious education researchers to consider the implications of “respecting history and remembrance” in their investigations. This points to the situated, particular, contingent character of experience and the challenge researchers face in finding ways to disclose rather than to obscure this, as can too readily happen in traditional theoretical approaches in their pursuit of generalisation. My philosophical inquiry will employ Jerome Bruner’s distinction between paradigmatic and narrational modes of thought to argue that an important purpose of research is the narrative articulation of the excellences developed over time in communities of practice (cf., MacIntyre), rather than to prescribe a uniform best practice to be implemented irrespective of the demands of time and place. In the context of Nicholas Maxwell’s definition of wisdom as ‘the realisation of value’, the knowledge researchers seek would thus be in the service of wisdom.

This is not merely to rehearse the “paradigm wars”. Respecting the multi-dimensionality of experience, narrational thinking as I construe it acknowledges a quantitative dimension to all events, while rejecting the reduction of phenomena to this dimension. Correlatively, whereas all contexts display normative functions, some are more value-saturated than others. Because education always concerns formation unto an ideal of mature humanness, and religious education explicitly addresses convictions concerning the source of order and meaning that inform visions of the good life, matters of normativity necessarily loom large in research into these fields. I will explore ways in which these normative dimensions may be honoured in research methodologies and reporting. Top

Sherry Blumberg - The Otherness of Teaching: Reflections from a Jew teaching in Catholic Schools

Most of my more than forty years of teaching, directing schools and doing research in Jewish education has been in Jewish institutions with Jewish students and colleagues. Over the past decade, however, my work has tended increasingly to be in Catholic Seminaries, Catholic Colleges, and Christian Churches. My reflections on being “other” in these institutions is one of the seeds for this paper. Building on Martin Buber’s observations about God as both the “wholly Other, but…the wholly Same” is another.

As a teacher I have always been aware of what I share in common with my students and how we differ. The feeling of “otherness” comes mostly from our differences. While teachers and students differ in interests, intellectual abilities, backgrounds, and ethnicities, a difference in religious traditions can give rise to the feelings of “otherness.” How this feeling of “otherness” influences the way the teacher responds to the students, the institutions, and the subject matter is an important area to study.

The research begins with a qualitative study of “otherness” in religious, philosophical and psychological terms. It will include a reflection on my own practice. Interviews with other teachers working in institutions grounded in religious traditions that differ from their own will make up the third section. A proposal for future study will end the paper.

“Otherness” of teaching can result in great learning for the teacher, and for the students. In Buber’s words, God is also “mystery of the self evident, nearer to me than my I.” Top

Lorna Bowman - A Legacy of Failure: Canada’s Religious Education of Aboriginal Children

At ISREV XVII, in a paper entitled Freedom of Religion and Publicly-Funded Religious Schools in Canada, I examined Canada’s British North America Act of 1867 with particular reference to Section 17 and the manner that provision of publicly funded religious education was historically negotiated and implemented

(or not) by each of the ten provinces. Due to time and space restrictions, Canada’s three territories were not addressed; nor were the residential schools administered by various religious groups throughout the provinces and the territories.

In this paper, I shall look at the manner in which Section 17 of the BNA Act 1867 was interpreted and dealt with across the territorial regions of Canada and in the residential schools established for aboriginal children living on reserves – areas of land set aside by the federal government for the use of specific groups of Aboriginal people. Since the territories and reserves fall under federal jurisdiction, the national government was involved with the many Christian religious groups in their missionary endeavors in the education of Aboriginal children – often at great geographic distance from the children’s homes. In part, I wish to look at the effect of these religious groups on these children in the name of Religion.

This essay falls into the disciplines of Church and Educational History, with particular attention to the relationship between the Church and State. Primary and secondary sources provide an overview of the history of the publicly-funded religious schools among Canada’s Aboriginal peoples, and the social and political forces at work. Top

Oddrun Bråten - A comparative perspective on the history of religious education in England and Norway

In this paper I present a comparative perspective on the history of religious education in England and Norway. The bulk of the paper will be focused on the period from the establishment of the first school laws, in England 1870, Norway 1739, untill the establishment of multifatih aproaches to religious education, in England in 1988, in Norway in 1997. The history of religious education and the history of the school systems are in both cases intervined. In England it was the dual system of cooperation between the Church of England and the state which brought schools to all parts of the country. In Norway it was the reformation which was the direct cause for the establishment of (religious) education for all. At the same time it is in the distinct histories of each of the countries that we find explanations for similarities and differences, even today. Today England and Norway along with many other countries, are faced with new challenges to religious education, which are of a supranational nature, for instance globalisation. However, these challenges are met differently in England and Norway, reflecting differences in the national traditions. One significant difference is, for example, that while historic studies has been a main focus in religious education research in Norway this has not been the case in England, tough there is a new interest in historic studies precently. In my paper I will suggest some possible explanations for this difference, using the methodology for comparative studies developed in my PhD thesis. Top

Halldis Breidlid - Remembrance in Norwegian RE: the case of martyrdom in Sikhism

Stories of martyrs in Sikh history are core elements in socializing the young Sikh generation. Even though the historicity of some of the martyrdoms is disputed among Sikh scholars (Fenech 2010) the stories are crucial in the self-perception and formation of Sikh identity. The paper discusses how Sikh perception of martyrs in Sikhism can be interpreted through the discourse of collective memory. My discussion is partly based on Maurice Halbwachs’ La memoire collective (1950) which emphasizes the social construction of human memory by arguing that the latter can only function within a collective context. Various people have different collective memories, which legitimize different modes of behavior. Applied on the Sikh communities the mediation of Sikh martyrdom in stories, pictures and rituals have strongly formed their collective memory and self-perception. While initial discussions on collective memory inspired by Pierre Nora (1984-92) focused on “sites of memory” by providing stable points of reference for individuals and communities recalling a shared past, there is a shift in the contemporary debate towards a more dynamic cultural memory as an ongoing process where remembrance is seen as active engagement with the past (Erll & Rigney 2009) through different forms of remediation. The paper seeks to explore how remediation and remembrance of martyrdom is formed and practiced to instruct a religious-cultural literacy among young Sikhs in Oslo, and to further explore how such remembrance, through curriculum and textbooks, is addressed in a multicultural Norwegian RE, which may include rivaling memories. Top

Michael T Buchanan - Fashioning Peer Review Strategies to Enchance the Formation of Pre-service Teachers of Religious Education: What Teacher Educators Should Know.

There is a growing body of literature focussing on the benefits of peer review on student learning and achievement (Bernstein, 2008; Malone & Riggsbee, 2007; Topping, 1998; Van Weert & Pilot, 2003) and in recent times in the field of religious education (Buchanan, 2010; Buchanan & Stern, 2012; Urbani, 2011).

However, less prominence has been given to the development and design of peer review instruments for pre-service teachers of higher education particularly in the area of religious education.

This paper sets out to explore certain factors that should be taken into account when developing peer review strategies. The general aim of any peer review strategy should be to improve student achievement; and the design of peer review instruments should be oriented towards this goal.

This paper draws on the insights gained from pre-service teachers of religious education who participated in a study about their experiences of peer review. The data generated from the study was mainly drawn from a questionnaire and focus group discussions. It captures the perceptions of pre-service teachers about their experiences of peer review in a religious education class.

This paper makes a contribution to our knowledge of the development of peer review strategies in higher education. In particular, it identifies factors that lecturers should consider when developing peer review instruments. These factors are generated as a result of listening to the voices of pre-service teachers who shared their experiences of peer review. Top

Mette Buchardt - ’The negro’, ’the Greenlander’ and ‘the missionary’ as heroes of bildung for ‘the whole population’. Social-epistemological traces between colony and metropol in Danish missionary- and school pedagogy from 1900s to 1930s

In the making of a mass education system in Denmark directed towards “the whole population”, experience and experiments with education and conversion of colonized populations, of slaves and of former slaves seems to have been of major interest to theologians and to e.g. geographers and historians, who at the time involved themselves in the educational field. Especially in the 1900s to the 1930s colonial experience is reactualized in e.g. educational materials, popular science writings and missionary pamphlets; texts with a colonial content though directed towards the metropolitan context and the metropolitan population.

The paper, which is part of a research project in the disciplinary field of Curriculum History, is theoretically inspired from historical social epistemology of modern state and state schooling and its colonial relations (Baker, Stoler, Rabinow, Colonna et al.). Based on source material consisting of educational handbooks, educational materials for e.g. teachers education, pamphlets and popular science publications, the paper will examine how colonial figures such as ‘the negro’, ‘the Greenlander’ and ‘the missionary’ are used in popular education and in state schooling, e.g. in Religious Education, in metropolitan Denmark on its road towards decolonization and development of a modern national welfare state. The focus will be on the popular and educational writings of the first Danish chair in Missionary Studies Lorenz Bergmann (1875-1966), doctor in Missionary Studies and school founder Herman Lawaetz (1864-1949), founding father of Comparative Religion Studies in Denmark Edvard Lehmann (1862-1930), and Historian and secretary for the popular education association Johannes Knudsen (1872-1929). Top

Sara Cohen-Fridel & Shimon Ohayon - Knowledge of Jewish History and Tradition and the relations to Jewish Identity among Students from Abroad Studying in Israel

Weber (1997) defines an ethnic group as a collection of people based on a common origin, with history and values presented as differing from those of society at large. The ethnic group has a subjective belief in its common origin due to physical similarity and/or customs, or because of memories. Phinney (2000) indicates that ethnic identity is dynamic and multi-dimensional and shares one or more of the following elements: culture, race, religion, language, kinship and origin. It changes with age, time and context.

According to Levy (1985), Jewish identity is comprised of three components: religion, nationality and biological birth. Most empirical studies on Jewish identity today focused on the behavioral aspect, although researchers emphasized the need to study opinions and attitudes as well (Cohen & Cohen, 2004).

The aim of the present research is to examine the relations between the perception of Jewish identity and knowledge of Jewish history and tradition among Jewish students from abroad, who come to Israel for one year of studies in a religious university. We hypothesize that the relations between these concepts will differ according to length of staying in Israel. Two groups of students will be compared. One includes students that had recently arrived to Israel for studies, and the second includes students from abroad after one year of studying in Israel. Both groups will respond to questionnaires that examine their perceptions. Statistical analyses will be carried out to test the hypotheses. Top

Trevor Cooling - The appropriate contribution of constructivist approaches to the Bible in conservative Christian approaches to Religious Education

More theologically conservative Christians are sometime suspicious of multifaith Religious Education because, for them, respecting history and remembrance is intimately tied to accepting the Bible as definitively “God’s Word”. Hermeneutical debates about the treatment of texts can be interpreted as a threat by these communities, particularly in public educational contexts where it is sometimes assumed that meaning is constructed primarily by the reader rather than the author. The influence of constructivist theories of knowledge in education, with their emphasis on the autonomy and creativity of the reader, can therefore bring Religious Education into conflict with more conservative Christian, transmissionist approaches to religious nurture.

This paper will assess constructivist approaches to Religious Education through the the work of British scholars Michael Grimmitt and Clive Erricker and argue that their inisghts can be of great benefit to more conservative Christians. However the suggestion will be made that there will need to be a shift from what is usually called radical constructivism to an approach based on critical realist understandings of texts. This alternative approach will be explored through the work of modern theologians including Anthony Thiselton and his notion of “responsible hermeneutics”, Lieven Boeve and his notion of “interruption” and narratival approaches as exemplified, for example, in the work of Stanley Hauerwas.

The paper will suggest ways constructivist models of Religious Education can be reconciled with the respect for history and remembrance desired by more conservative Christians and will make suggestions as to the implications of these insights on research in pedagogy. Top

Denise Cush - The ‘Living Religion’ Project – exploring and enhancing the use of fieldwork placements in Theology and Religious Studies undergraduate programmes in the UK.

The paper will report on a two year project, Living Religion: Facilitating Fieldwork Placements in Theology and Religious Studies that aimed to explore and enhance the provision of fieldwork placements and other forms of experiential learning as methods of study for students on Theology and/or Religious Studies degree programmes in the UK. The project’s focus was pedagogical and aimed at improving teaching, learning and assessment in Higher Education. The methods used in the research included a quantitative survey of the use of placements and other forms of experiential learning by Theology and Religious Studies Departments in Universities, and qualitative methods such as interviews and focus groups with both religious communities and students. The outcomes included a number of resources which will enable the further use of this form of learning, engaging students in ethnographic fieldwork and direct encounter with religious communities.

The project sought to explore in more depth with students and religious communities the factors that made for successful learning. Questions about the value of experiential and ethnographic/interpretive approaches to learning about and from religion were raised, as were questions about the representation of religious traditions, the connections between experiential learning and religious experience, and the skills and attributes gained from such activities which will be valuable for future employment.

The main output of the project is a website www.livingreligion.co.uk which is intended to stimulate further sharing of good practice. The website is not the end of the project but the beginning of its second phase. Top

Marian de Souza - Spirituality in Religious Education: An examination of historical and contemporary understandings of spirituality to inform and enhance curriculum development and professional practice in Religious Education.

Spirituality has traditionally been so closely aligned with religion in western cultures that it has often lost its own identity. This has meant that its use and application in religious education has usually been restricted to religious expressions related to prayer and liturgy.

More recent understandings have coaxed spirituality out of this narrow framework to recognize it as an innate element of being. In particular, it may be perceived as the relational dimension of being where one lives with an awareness that self is connected to and a part of everything other than self in the human and non-human world. The spiritual journey, then, may be seen as the human journey towards Ultimate Unity when self becomes one with everything other than self, and expressions of this relational dimension

become expressions of spirituality. For instance, the various experiences that are often associated with spirituality like joy, awe, wonder, the mystical and so on, are expressions of the connectedness that the individual experiences to Other. Accordingly, not all expressions of spirituality are religious since not all people are at the stage in their journey where they feel a connectedness to a Transcendent Other.

This paper, then, will draw on past and current research to examine this movement from historical to contemporary understandings and applications of spirituality and discuss why it is essential that religious educators explore contemporary understandings to inform curriculum development and pedagogy in order to address the needs of contemporary children and young people. Top

Jonathan Doney - The overlooked ecumenical background to the development of English RE.

During the 1960s and 1970s, a new chapter in the history of English Religious Education began. Christian Confessionalism, whereby children were nurtured in and encouraged to adopt the Christian faith, was swept aside (Barnes 2006). It was replaced by a phenomenological (multi-faith) approach, which enabled ‘students both to gain an authentic understanding of religion and develop the virtue of tolerance’ (School Council WP 36, 1971).

These developments have been widely promulgated and discussed. There is a wealth of historical analysis undertaken through the lenses of pedagogy, curriculum theory and policy (Bates 1996; Barnes & Wright 2006; Copley 2008). However, a robust theological analysis is lacking (Copley 2008; Teece 2010; Freathy & Parker 2010). This has allowed an oversimplified narrative to gain wide acceptance and to influence the development of Religious Education. It has been predicated on an inappropriate binary opposition between the success of the Non-Christian groups on the one hand, and the failure of the pro-Christian groups on the other (Bates 1994; 1996; Freathy & Parker, in press).

To address this misconstruction, this paper uses primary and secondary historical sources to examine the relationship between national and international developments in ecumenical theology during the 1960s and 1970s, and the development of multi-faith Religious Education in England. It seeks particularly to analyse the influence of inter-faith discussion upon English Religious Education. This was increasingly seen as a legitimate activity of the Christian Church, especially in the light of Nostra Aetate and the World Council of Churches (Addis Ababa, 1971). Top

Mario O. D’Souza - The Challenge of an Outcomes Based Education to Religious Knowing

An outcomes based system requires that teaching and learning, but specially learning, be measured and evaluated by previously specified outcomes at the end of a teaching phase - a semester or a year. It is maintained that an Outcomes Based Education [henceforth OBE] is student-centered, as evaluation and measurement are the means by which discernable progress in teaching and learning are confirmed or denied. Students must be able to demonstrate that they have learned the required skills and content outlined in specific outcomes, as demonstration of learning and acquisition of skills are central to the methodology. OBE views education as concluding at particular stages, thus raising questions as to how the various subjects of the curriculum are related, as well as to the more traditional conception of education as a journey where discovery cannot be determined in advance or expected at particular and previously determined stages. It also raises questions as to whether human knowing concludes with the end of each stage of education that is being measured or assessed. Religious knowing is cumulative, but it is also a non-time based and a non-measurement based heuristic process. Can the immediate failure to measure successful knowing and learning be considered as an educational failure, per se? When set out as a terminus, do measurement and evaluation narrow and distort education? Is religious knowing and learning not a more expansive process than allowed for by the strict demarcations of OBE? Top

Petro du Preez - (Re)searching intersectionality through memory and narrative as basis for developing curricula for diverse education contexts

Intersectionality is a feminist theory used to examine the nature of intertwined social and cultural categories (Knudsen, 2006). In this sense it aims to explore the complex relationships between categories such as class, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, etc. In this paper the importance of (re)searching intersectionality through memory and narrative will be explored. More specifically, it will be argued that narratives that employ the principles of memory-work (McLeod & Thomson, 2009) are useful because it creates an enabling space to understand how human experiences - especially of people who cross the boundaries of constructed categories - unfold (McCall, 2005). Shields (2008) contribute stating that intersectionality is a

good theory to use to understand and promote social change. Therefore, it will be argued that knowledge that emanate from such exploration might assist in developing curricula that is sensitive to diversity and social change. In this paper the methodology of intracategorical complexity (McCall, 2005) will be used to analyse the memory of a participant that was expressed in a narrative form. The narrative deals with the intersection and complexity of class, ethnicity, gender, race and religion; as remembered by a participant who experienced the insufficiency of socially constructed boundaries. The findings of this analysis will be applied to curriculum development processes that have the potential to augment a curriculum that is responsive to diversity. Top

Leona M English - The British North America Society for Educating the Poor: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Religious Education in Newfoundland 1823-1850

This paper uses the lens of critical discourse analysis to examine the religious education efforts of The British North America Society for Educating the Poor (now the Intercontinental Church Society) which was the main provider of religious education in a number of British colonies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (1823-1923). The Society, first named the Newfoundland School Society, was established by an evangelical merchant named Samuel Codner after a traumatic event at sea on his return to England. The Society in its 100 years in Newfoundland (now eastern Canada) provided teacher missionaries to preach services and most importantly to foster literacy with children, offer Sunday School and hold night classes for adults, all in very remote areas. Selected annual reports and occasional sermons of the Society are examined, showing how benificient discourses are created, in effect privileging certain actors and producing resistances. Attention is given to redemptive narratives in the annual reports which effect a form of positive self-representation (of the Society) and negative other-representation (of the local people). This paper disrupts the “traditional historical” narrative of the Society by tracing how its teachers reinforced colonial agendas and salvation discourses. The author holds that critical discourse research contributes not only to the body of knowledge on religious education history but also to the problematizing of seemingly benign practices such as reporting on religious education initiatives. The implications for the history of the field are explored in the conclusion: Who writes the history? Who are the actors? What was the agenda of the those who provided religious education? What were the effects? Top

Vladimir Fedorov - Patriotism, Nationalism and Confessionalism as Subjects of the Pilot Course in Basics of Religious Culture at Russian HIgh School.

Several regions of the Russian federation were chosen by the Ministry of Education to assess the experimental course in the Basics of Religious Culture and Secular Ethics. The project was started on April, 1st, 2010. Fourth graders from the target schools, helped by their parents, were to make a choice among the six options: the Basics of the Orthodox Culture, the Basics of the Islamic Culture, the Basics of the Buddhist Culture, the Basics of the Judaic Culture, the History of the World’s Religions and the Basics of Secular Ethics. Programs and instructive materials were prepared by the corresponding confessional educational structures (the History of Religion and the Secular Ethics, by secular institutions). However, the first and the last lessons of the thirty lessons course were written by one and the same author, so that all the six manuals would begin and end with the same text. The first lesson is called Russia is our Homestate; the last, Love and Respect for our Motherland. Such a program makes dubious the implications of the above subjects because it may mislead to a conclusion that patriotism is somewhat alien to religious values. Introduced in school curriculum, such a course should by all means. This presentation will indicate how the abovementioned experimental curriculum may be able to clarify the notions of patriotism, nationalism and confessional belongingness for pupils. Top

René Ferguson - Remembering the ancestors in Jozi: implications of a (white) experience of initiation into sangomahood for Religion education research and practice

This paper is written in the genre of narrative scholarship with analytic commentary (Martin 2004) shaped by the tools of reflexive ethnography. It documents the initiation of a white South African man as isangoma, the isiZulu term for a diviner, or one, who in African tradition is called to mediate between the ancestors and the living. I observed the events in a township in Johannesburg South Africa in 2011. My observation of the initiation of a white man and three black African women provided a first-hand experience of a time-honoured communal celebration of individuals who had heeded the call of their ancestors, paying tribute to them as the custodians of traditions, morality, customs and a communal way of life. That white people in Africa believe that they too can be chosen by their ancestors to be diviners is somewhat ironical since African traditional religions were dismissed as heathen by proselytising religions such as Christianity and Islam. The “re-cognition” of African traditional religions after democracy in South Africa as a legitimate way of being religious has lead to the inclusion of traditional religions in Religion education. This paper will show

how the journey into “sangomahood” of a friend provided a window on the world of African children for whom the drumming, the dance, the singing that accompany the rituals are common place and yet may be silenced by insensitive teachers. Sensitivity to the importance of acts of remembering in traditional religions by teachers demonstrates a concern for developing a practice of caring and inclusivity. Top

John W Fisher - Have God - Be happy, sometimes

The title of this presentation is based on a popular TV Western series from around 1960, called Have Gun –Will Travel. The premise of that show was that a person carrying a gun would expect to keep on the move. If the title of this presentation was simply ‘Have God – Be happy’, that would indicate a cause and effect relationship in which all people connected to God should expect to be happy. However, the proviso of ‘sometimes’ raises the question, ‘In what circumstances does relating with God influence happiness?’

A report on university students reported that the personal, communal and environmental domains of spiritual well-being contribute to happiness over and above personality constructs but that relating with God (transcendental spiritual well-being) had no significant effect. This result seemed counter-intuitive to this author, so a closer inspection of the results was warranted.

A study with 514 university students from Australia and Northern Ireland using the Oxford Happiness Inventory and the EPQR - Short Scale examined happiness and personality. In addition spiritual well-being was determined using Fisher’s Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire.

Results revealed significant differences in the way that relating with God contributed to their happiness, based on their stated religious affiliation. Another study with 493 people attending churches in Ballarat also showed significant variations by religious affiliation. A further study with 1072 secondary school students in Victoria revealed comparable results in three types of schools with religious bases at junior secondary, but variations at higher levels.

The outcomes of these studies provide empirical evidence to support the claim made in the title of this presentation, that relating with God does influence happiness, for certain people. Top

Kari Flornes - Promoting democracy, citizenship and human right education in Initial teacher education in Norway

Religious education in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in Norway seeks to promote both professional and personal development among future teachers. In the present situation in the country, teachers will need to develop new competences and skills in order to support a more vigorous educational program for democracy, citizenship and human rights (EDC/HRE) and put this educational program into practice in the classroom, throughout the school as well as in the wider community.

This paper seeks to explore how teacher educators, student teachers and mentors can create appropriate learning environments for the construction of such an educational program and for the modeling of specific EDC/HRE values, attitudes and dispositions within the framework of religious education. A group of 24 student teachers in their second year of the new teacher education program (GLU 1-1), their mentors and some RE teacher educators will participate in this study. The student teacher participants have chosen to specialize in RE as part of their teacher education training and have successfully completed the first part of the program. Teacher educators are in a key position for developing a culture of sharing of pedagogical ideas and classroom experiences and, in this study, will emphasize the importance of demonstrating democratic styles of teaching and learning and find opportunities for student teachers to participate in decision making, planning of educational activities, evaluation and assessment. Top

Leslie J Francis - Researching attitudes toward religious diversity: quantitative approaches from psychology and empirical theology

This paper analyses data from the quantitative component of the Religious Diversity Project managed by the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit. The project was established using mixed methods to explore the range of responses to living in a religiously diverse society held by young people living in the UK. The quantitative component was designed on the basis of three sources of theory, derived from the qualitative project, the psychology of religion, and empirical theology. Quantitative data for this project were provided by 10,000 year 9 and year 10 pupils (13- to 15-years of age) attending state-maintained schools

within the UK: 2,000 pupils were recruited from each of the five nations (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and London); half of the pupils were recruited from schools with a religious character, and half from schools without a religious character. The project was designed to assess the relative strength of factors that shape an attitude of openness to religious diversity. These factors include personal variables (like sex and age), psychological variables (like personality, empathy and self concept), theological variables (like God images and religious practices), contextual variables (like geographical location and type of school) and environmental variables (like family and media). Multivariate regression models (taking attitude toward religious diversity as the dependent variable) demonstrate the key importance of both psychological and theological factors in shaping the young person’s attitude toward religious diversity, in addition to contextual and environmental factors. The findings confirm the importance of religious education addressing issues of religious diversity. Top

Geert Franzenburg - Sharing the Gospel: Religious education with children and adults in the European context

The paper discusses different kinds of religious (protestant) education in (German speaking) European parishes (in Latvia, Belgium, Denmark, Hungary, Germany) concerning educational work with children and adults. The focus of the research is on the role of the different elements in the educational process (individual person – group – material/topic – society) and on their interdependencies. It combines historical research with didactical purposes by following the main historical influences on the topic of religious child and adult education (in times of Reformation - in the age of enlightenment - in modern times) and put the stress on the issue/question of spirituality in education. In this context it evaluates the role of socialization in family, peer group and society under different circumstances (biographical and cultural identity, rituals, common narrations) and analyses the theoretical background of traditional and innovative models of spiritual education within their framework. Therefore, in its theoretical frame, it integrates historical, sociological and theological methods of research (triangulation). Concerning the practical consequences, it integrates methods of counselling (finding solutions, coping with challenges), education (didactical strategy to realize them) and creative work (expression of the process and its results). The main aim of the study is to evaluate different kinds of sharing the gospel with children and adults in communities and to suggest others to transfer the results of this evaluation into their own (educational) situation. The study is experienced in seminaries with students and based on own experiences with educational groups in different countries (combined with text-evaluation). Top

Rob Freathy (with Stephen Parker) - Religious Education and the Mary Whitehouse Experience.

In 1964, in opposition to the ‘permissive society’ and ‘new morality’, an English school teacher called Mary Whitehouse launched the ‘Clean-up TV’ campaign (renamed National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association in 1965). Whitehouse sought to combat the subversive ‘propaganda of disbelief, doubt and dirt’ on radio and television. Despite gaining widespread support, she was ridiculed by left-wing liberal progressives, partly because of the evangelical Christian beliefs which underpinned her moral crusade. Memories of Whitehouse and her indomitable campaigns remain vivid in UK popular culture, but one aspect of her career is conspicuously ignored, that is, her nation-wide campaign, launched in January 1976, to ‘Save Religious Education in State Schools’ (SRESS).

Drawing upon previously unutilised archival material, this paper will address this gap in historical knowledge by providing a narrative re-construction of the origins, aims and results of SRESS. First, it will summarise the provocative curriculum developments, theoretical innovations and policy proposals to which SRESS reacted. Second, it will discuss the connections, perceived by the campaigners, between Christianity, national identity and morality on the one hand, and Humanism, Communism and immorality on the other. Third, it will contextualise SRESS with regard to other examples of cultural restorationism and political and religious conservativism at the time, which later influenced the religious clauses of the UK’s Education Reform Act (1988). Overall, the paper seeks to provide new insights into a significant period in the development of multi-faith RE in the UK on the basis of a rigorous assessment of original primary sources. Top

Jun Fukaya - An era of preschool Christian education conducted by non-Christians

The realities of modern Japanese society dictate that non-Christians make up the majority of Christian preschool educators. It is now time to explore new modes of Christian preschool education which take into account those realities. An examination of this issue first requires a review of the relevant history. The direction that Protestant Christian preschool education in Japan has taken since the middle of the 20th century falls into the following three categories: 1) The decades following the Second World War (1950’s

and 1960’s) which overlap with Japan’s era of rapid economic growth. The mission of Christian education focused on young children in preschool. 2) After experiencing a phenomenal period of economic growth, from the 1970’s to the 2000’s, a certain focus came to be placed on individual affluence and individual personalities. The purpose of Christian preschool education was not just the mission. Rather, the focus was placed on such education as a means for broadly developing well-rounded individuals. 3) From 2010 to the present, low birth rates and secularizing trends have contributed to a sharp decrease in numbers of Christian preschool educators. As a result, Christian preschool education conducted by non-Christian educators is increasingly becoming the norm. The purpose of this presentation is to explore new possibilities for Christian preschool education in Japan through an examination of the Shin-Kiristokyō Hoiku Shishin (“New Christian Preschool Education Guidelines”), which were published in 2010, in light of the characteristics of these three eras. Top

Brian Gates - Religion in lifespan experience - Another installment

At the Ankara ISREV I set out the background of my intention to engage in an investigation of religion across the lifespan. Its scope is both lateral and longitudinal. By that I mean that it takes in the breadth of a person’s life experience and religion’s part in that. It does so in terms of deepest convictions about the meaning of life and death and how these interact with moral, social and scientific understandings. It also takes in the continuities and differences that are evident in the changed beliefs and understandings of the same individuals after several decades.

This is a progress report which provides particular examples of religion in the remembrance and ongoing life-worlds of a selection of the individuals who have been reinterviewed. In addition to the original hour’s written interview plus the hour long individual oral interview when they were aged between 6 – 16 years, there is now more than forty years later the repeat of both of these, followed by a sharing of their original writing and recording and discussion of it.

My strategy is to locate up to a third of the 340 individuals who I originally interviewed. The subset selected for this presentation will include people from contrasting religious backgrounds: Christian, Jewish, Sikh and Unattached. The media of expression used include story and picture, gesture, ritual and role ranking. The themes explored include death and beyonds to it, wishing and praying, limits of loving, notions of God and alternative religious identities. Personal history and remembrance are central. Top

Bill Gent - The significance of hifz within the Islamic tradition: ethnographic findings; religious and educational considerations

Hifz – the memorisation of the entire Qur’ān – has a key place within the Islamic tradition and the hafiz/hafiza, the person who has achieved this, is highly esteemed by fellow Muslims. Little, however, has been written about either how the process of hifz takes place or the role and self-understanding of huffaz (plural form of hafiz) within the Muslim community.

The author places Qur’anic memorisation within the context of Muslim beliefs about knowledge, learning, transmission and the orality of the Qur’ān. Drawing from a number of his own ethnographic research projects, he then: • describes some of the processes and issues facing British Muslims who have chosen to undertake hifz; • points to a number of regional variations in the hifz process; • explores the statement that ‘achieving hifz is not the end, but rather the beginning’; • outlines the role of the hafiz within the Muslim community, particularly during Ramadan; • records ways in which huffaz strive to keep the Qur’ān ‘fixed’ in their memories.

The author concludes by suggesting that the material that he has gathered is significant for a number of reasons, including: • giving insights into the key role of transmission within the Islamic tradition; • correcting received Western views emphasising the text of the Qur’ān in favour of a more accurate appreciation of the Qur’ān’s orality within Muslim experience; • raising educational questions about the significance and validity of memorisation as a distinct mode of learning; • suggesting ways in which Muslim supplementary schooling and non-Muslim state schooling might work together to mutual benefit. Top

Michael Gillis & Martin Ubani - Jesus the Jew in Jewish and Christian school books

The purpose of this research project is to contribute to establishing grounds for good educational practice for religious education in pluralistic societies. The research project concentrates on Jesus and Judaism/Christianity in Jewish and Christian religious education. In complex ways the person of Jesus is a focus of both continuity and difference between Judaism and Christianity, dialogue and conflict. The project will consist of empirical data concerning teacher’s view and textbook and curriculum analysis. This presentation will focus on the results of a comparative qualitative analysis of school textbooks concerning religion in Israel and Finland. The concrete research question is: How is Jesus and Judaism/Christianity being portrayed in the texts? The preliminary analysis shows some imprecision in details concerning the other tradition’s view of historical Jesus in Jewish text books and distancing of 1st century Judaism from Jesus. The books seem to reflect the classical scholarly interpretations of the respective traditions. The presentation will also serve as a call for international research cooperation. Key words: Religious Education, Jesus, Christianity, Judaism Top

Peta Goldburg - Remembering and critiquing the development of Religious Education in Australian Catholic Schools: A fifty year report card.

2012 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Described as a watershed moment in the Catholic Church, the Council promulgated a number of documents which would shape the Church into the future. Among one of the shorter documents was Gravissimum Educationis, the Declaration on Christian Education, which highlighted the importance of religious education and in particular specific training for people to teach religious education. Over the following years, a series of documents which amplified the original statement were issued: The General Catechetical Directory (1971); On Catholic Schools (1977); Catechesis tradendi (1979); Lay Catholics in Schools (1982); The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School (1988). These documents formed the foundation of Religious Education Guidelines developed by various dioceses across Australia.

This paper, building on research conducted in 2010, will examine the Roman documents and critique the manner in which they were received and implemented in Australian Catholic schools. It will examine the language used in the documents to identify shifts in understandings of the purpose of religious education in Catholic schools and map the intended changes in approaches to learning and teaching. It will then present a chronological analysis of the pedagogical approaches used in religious education during this fifty year period by analysing and critiquing classroom religious education texts. While the official documents begin to make the distinction between catechesis and religious education, the catechetical assumptions of some teachers have blurred the distinction highlighting a gap between official documents and classroom teaching and practice. Top

Jan Grajczonek - “Interrogating the ‘Spiritual’ in Australia’s First National Early Years Learning Framework”

In 2009, the Australian Government released its first national early childhood curriculum document, Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (Australian Government Department of Employment Education and Workplace Relations, 2009). The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) is a landmark document, not only because it is Australia’s first statement articulating the nature of education for all young Australians in early childhood settings between birth and five years, but also because it is the first to make explicit references to the spiritual aspects of both children’s learning and their lives. In addition, the document assigns educators particular roles associated with the acknowledgement and development of children’s spirituality. However, the articulation of that spiritual aspect of children’s lives and learning is limited and vague. Educators’ roles in being required to intentionally attend to those spiriutal aspects of children’s learning as well as to their diversity, then become ambiguous and unclear as they are not qualified or elaborated upon in explicit terms. This paper reports on a research study that drew on the methodological perspective, Ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1984) applying the analytic tool of Membership Categorisation Analysis (Sacks, 1992) to interrogate the word ‘spiritual’ in the EYLF document. Specifically the study investigated: How children’s spirituality is constructed in the EYLF document, as well as how educators’ roles are constructed in terms of their required response to the spiritual aspects of both children’s learning and their lives. The implications that such constructions have for educators in early years settings are then explicated. Top

Bruce Grelle - Toward a Global Ethic for Religion Education in Public Schools

This paper identifies what appears to be an emerging international consensus or “global ethic” regarding the rationale and guidelines for a non-religious and pluralistic approach to religion education (RE) in public schools. This emerging consensus rests on several assumptions and arguments about the relationship

between RE and human rights and is evident in such disparate documents and initiatives as the Toledo Guiding Principles on Teaching about Religions and Beliefs in Public Schools , promulgated in 2007 by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe; Quebec’s Ethics and Religious Culture program implemented in 2008; and the Guidelines for Teaching about Religion in K-12 Public Schools in the United States, published by the American Academy of Religion in 2010. Proceeding from the perspective of comparative religious ethics, this paper will explore the basic features of the consensus framework. It will also identify issues on which there is less consensus. These include debates over whether public school RE should be justified primarily on the basis of its alleged civic contributions to the promotion of human rights, social cohesion, tolerance, and a culture of peace? Or is there a scientific, non-instrumental, or more purely educational rationale that should be offered in support of the academic study of religion in state schools? Debates regarding pedagogy and curricula, teacher education, and the appropriate role of “stakeholders” (parents, religious leaders and communities, and government officials as well as religion scholars and professional educators) in shaping religion education policies will also be considered. Top

Gunnar J Gunnarsson - Young people in Iceland in times of diversity and change

The aim of the paper is to present some of the findings in an ongoing research project on young people’s (age 18-22) view of life and values in a society of diversity and change in times of crisis in Iceland. The project uses interdisciplinary approaches and the scholars working on it have different theoretical backgrounds (religious education, multicultural studies, history of ideas, pedagogy). The study is a three year project based on quantitative and qualitative research methods. In the spring 2011 529 students in four different high schools in Iceland answered questionnaires. The questionnaires included 75 statements on which the pupils were asked to take a stand. The statements included themes like view of life, background and self-understanding, relation to others, values and value judgments and diversity. In the autumn 2011 four focus groups will be established, one in each school. The aim is that the focus groups will reflect the increasing diversity in the Icelandic society. Some of the participants in the focus groups will also be interviewed individually.

The theoretical background of the project is the broad framework of critical multiculturalism as it critically considers power positioning within particular settings, within or between societies, communities or schools. Also, as an important basis for the project, are theoretical concepts like life interpretation and life questions, together with an understanding of culture that emphasizes what is meaning-giving and interpretive. In the paper special focus will be on the young people’s religious/nonreligious view of life and how it influences their life interpretation. Top

Elisabet Haakedal - Maps and Stories in Identity Formation: A multimodal comparison of some Norwegian pupils’ texts from 1955 to 2009 applying sociological theory of collective memory and theory of moral and cultural philosophy.

The paper is an empirical study of selected multimodal texts from a diachronic collection of primary school workbooks (pupils’ writing and drawing booklets). Basic to the selection criteria is the concept of map, discussed with reference to particular (multi)modal characteristics of tentative text units. The paper asks what functional changes various types of embedded maps in the workbooks bear witness to regarding identity formation. It also puts forward normative questions of school values. Sociological theory of collective memory is combined with moral and cultural philosophy in discussions of value issues drawn from the material. Multimodal social semiotic analyses are applied as a method for close reading. In the paper multimodality mainly refers to map drawings embedded in religious narrative. Two types of geographical maps are found, physical maps embedded in biblical stories, and border marking maps illustrating themes of cultural religious encounters. Not only geographical maps are included. Outlines of the interior of buildings are supplemented with drawings of buildings interpreted as representing large scale mapping. Value-laden issues regarding identity formation are highlighted. Maps made before 1997 (when Norwegian religious education changed its profile from ecumenical Christian confessionality to cultural diversity) are interpreted as primarily representing a Christian and Humanistic formative perspective. After 1997 hardly any geographical maps are found in the workbook collection. Multiple possible reasons for this are indicated. A final discussion of challenges in the identity formation of the multicultural Norwegian school favours values respecting individual equal rights above values of group particularities, but also attempts a value balance. Top

Mary Hayward - Freeing Religious Education: a study of a key curriculum moment

It is widely accepted that Schools Council Working Paper 36: Religious Education in Secondary Schools had a seminal role in the shaping of post 1960s RE in the UK. 2011 marked the 40th anniversary of its

publication. Discussion of facets of the report continue to engage writers in our field: for example, they may comprise an essential thread in tracing the development of RE (Alberts, W., 2007; Copley, T., 1997); be a focus of exposition (Jackson, R., 1997, 2004), or prompt critical debate (Barnes, P. 2002 & 2007 - for example; O’Grady, K. 2005, 2007; Thobani, S. 2010). Such debate is invariably rooted in writers’ understanding of the working paper’s use of a phenomenological approach in the context of RE. But there is more to be said.

This paper argues for a contextualised approach to discussion of Working Paper 36; it suggests that the paper should be understood in the historical, social and educational contexts in which it emerged; that it should be seen as rooted in a period of curriculum change and innovation, characterised by partnership across the different phases of education facilitated by the then operative Schools Council. Exploration of these contexts and recognition of the working paper’s rootedness in a curriculum development project established in a university department of religious studies, arguably leads to a fuller understanding of its place in English RE - and to the significance which my title suggests. Top

Hans-Günter Heimbrock - Taking Position: An Empirical study about religious orientation of RE teachers in German Public Schools

Social changes in western societies during the last decades influenced deeply the role of religion and world view in the public sphere as well as people’s personal approach to express one’s stance towards “the ultimate concern” Philosophical debates after Habermas and Taylor address the issue of whether religious positions and religious truth claims may be expressed in public anyhow. Of course, this touches also public education systems. Politicians, scientists as well as the mass media often take for granted that growing religious plurality in society leads to growing relativism concerning personal religious convictions.

However, as to RE teachers, until now there is only a little empirical knowledge, if this assumption is fitting, little knowledge about their attitudes concerning their personal way to deal with religious truth and with taking position concerning religion within the class room. The paper reports on a research project and preliminary results of an empirical study about RE teachers’ positions in chosen German public schools. Within this particular national context the tension between an official function to pass religion “in accordance with the main teachings of the religious bodies” (German Constitution) and the personal translation of this function into daily teaching practice marks a fundamental problem for teachers.

The study is based on the concept of “lived confessionality”.   The paper: • will clarify this theoretical construct; • will give information about the research design (qualitative and quantitative methods applied in the research project; • will present some results from the qualitative part of the study. Top

Mark Keith Hillis - Intergenerational Worship and Learning – an exploration of theory and practice with reference to congregations of the Uniting Church in Australia.

Ministry leaders in some Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) congregations have attempted to address the decline in attendance at worship and traditional Sunday schools by younger generations and to become more intentional about supporting the formation of Christian faith. Some UCA churches approach these concerns by adopting various forms of age-inclusive worship, often modeled on practices discerned from world-wide current expressions and movements such as “Messy Church.”

Some congregations try to blend liturgical and Christian religious education (CRE) elements in their worship times, retaining all age groups for the whole gathering time. Others vary activities or pursue rotational methods within their worship which may include age-specific activities and/or separate groupings for allotted times.

In the preparation stage, this research will explore relevant literature (in the fields of CRE and liturgical theology) and will develop case studies based upon interviews and direct observation with congregations that may opt-in with the study. One key question is: “What are the educational and liturgical implications of intergenerational worship?” Other questions currently being considered include: How do liturgy and education interact? How is Christian religious education practiced in the context of liturgy? To what extent may liturgy be an educational act? How does the liturgy form people in Christian faith (as an expression of Christian religious education)? What happens in worship when younger generations are deliberately

excluded? To what extent may children in Sunday Schools (or their equivalents) be said to be engaging in worship? Top

Dzintra Iliško - From positivism to a collaborative action research tradition in teacher training in Latvia: paradigmatic and narrative orientation

This article elaborates on changing research traditions in teacher training institutions in Latvia. Collaborative action research in this article is viewed as an active, open-minded and cooperative research tradition that undermines any single, privileged perspective, affirms the importance of experimentation, and emphasizes a continual growth in religious education teachers’ awareness leading to ‘phronesis’. The world is changing, students are changing, the Church is changing, so the teachers of religion need to change themselves and the approaches and the ways they are teaching religion.

The qualitative data gained from the teachers’ narratives in focus group interviews and unstructured interviews with individual teachers highlight the meaning that teachers assign to being researchers and agents of change in their own classrooms. This article attempts to explore what practising teachers view as significant in framing their professional landscape as a result of participation in collaborative action research. The article highlights changes and difficulties in RE teachers’ willingness to accept greater ambiguity, uncertainties, and practice of exercising judgments within the narrative inquiry tradition and teaching process, instead of complete reliance on predetermined rules and procedures. Various tensions between paradigmatic and narrative orientations towards teaching RE and within teachers’ lives are explored and ultimately seen as contributing in complex and ambiguous ways to teachers’ professional knowledge landscape. Teachers come to realization of how differently learning might be structured and handled and what different values alternative approaches might represent in order to prepare children as literate and responsible citizens of an inclusive and sustainable community.

Collaborative action research allows teachers to generate embodied, contextualized and situated knowledge by actively co-constructing meaning that becomes a powerful means for teachers’ professional development. Top

Shira Iluz & Yaacov Katz - Evaluation of Remedial Teaching in Ultra-orthodox Talmud Torah Schools: A First Look into a Closed World

Talmud torah schools in Israel are private elementary schools operated by the Jewish ultra-orthodox stream for boys aged 5-14. These schools offer their students an exclusively religious curriculum, based mainly on the study of the bible and the Babylonian talmud. Approximately 10% of Jewish boys in Israel attend talmud torah schools. The Ministry of Education provides between 55%-75% of the talmud torah schools' budgets but has minimal control over policy, curriculum planning and student admission. No comprehensive research study has been conducted in talmud torah schools for ideological reasons as the governors of these schools insist on full independence in all areas without any outside interference.

In order to facilitate the inclusion of students with learning difficulties in regular classes, the talmud torah framework has developed a unique remedial program for students with special needs. In this remedial program an informal assessment of the student's difficulties is made, and a curriculum designed for student's needs. The student is allotted a personal teacher who receives close guidance from an experienced facilitator who oversees the student's progress.

The present research will provide a formative assessment of the various aspects of the remedial program. The study will examine the initial assessment, students, teachers, t program facilitators who teach and supervise teachers, and the curriculum context.

The research will combine mixed method quantitative and qualitative evaluations of the data. Top

Sara Irisdotter Aldenmyr - Therapeutic Education, Teacher-Student Relations and the need for Professional Ethics

In the past decade we have noticed increased interest in therapy, psychology and behavioral management within the educational field. This is manifested in therapeutic activities and exercises, often organized in programs. Educational philosophers and sociologists have pointed out potential risks of this educational trend, which seems to have connotations with the Western macro-discourses of individualisation,

popularized psychology and privatisation of the public space I will raise the following questions: 1. In what regards do these kinds of activities differ from other, more traditionally established subjects as Religious Education or activities of Moral Education? 2. Are other types of relations and processes between teachers and students developed within these therapeutic activities and if so, how can they be described and understood? 3. How can ethical guide lines be fruitful tools for teachers to navigate the landscape of therapeutic education?

The first part of the paper is an analysis of teacher interviews and observation studies from three different schools in Sweden (two lower secondary schools and one upper secondary school). The second part of the paper is a presentation of and discussion on a communicative ethical approach. I will advocate that teachers need to be ethically oriented in order to counteract some of the problematic aspects of the current educational trend. It is suggested that a communicative ethical approach can provide fruitful conditions for ethical approaches towards students. Particular emphasis is placed on Iris Marion Young's (2002) remarks on greetings, in which recognition and distance are important elements, but there will also be discussion about criticism of this approach. Top

Robert Jackson - From Empirical Research To Pedagogy: Reflections on Research Findings from the EC REDCo Project and the AHRC/ESRC Project on Young People’s Attitudes Towards Religious Diversity in the UK

Religious diversity in the UK presents challenges and opportunities for the future of society. There are regional variations in the way religious diversity is experienced, especially through the growing visibility and self-confidence of a range of faith and belief groups. Many young people participate in this diversity or learn about it at school.

Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit’s (WRERU’s) contribution to REDCo included a qualitative study and a quantitative questionnaire eliciting views on religion in school and society of adolescents in different parts of England. Analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data suggests that the majority of students are interested in diversity and learning about other religions.

Many of the students sampled: • have a high view of the importance of living together with difference • see peaceful relations between different religious views as dependent on learning about and listening to each other with interest and respect • feel expressions of religion such as the wearing of religious symbols should be accommodated in school • perceive tension and conflict potential in current relations between different religious views

The Warwick AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Project aimed to build on this study by checking findings against much larger samples. This paper compares the results of the REDCo English study with that of the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Project, which covered the whole of the United Kingdom. The paper will concentrate on findings which are especially relevant to practice, and will reflect on pedagogical issues and ideas prompted by young people's responses. Top

Janet Jarvis - Religion Education: The religious identity of student teachers

The South African Religion and Education Policy (2003) requires teachers to adopt a multi religious approach to Religion Education. This presents a challenge to student teachers given the religious diversity in South African classrooms. This paper focuses on final year student teachers, in the Faculty of Education at a South African university. These student teachers will be expected to facilitate Religion Education as part of the school curriculum. I explore their understanding of religious freedom as a constitutional right and how their religious identity influences their approach to the teaching of Religion Education. This qualitative case study, which draws on the theory of identity negotiation, shows that to varying degrees, the student teachers struggled to adopt a multi religious approach to Religion Education. In analysing the data I used the following categories to understand the influence that their religious identity exercised on their approach to teaching Religion Education: ‘religious identity paralysis’, ‘religious identity paradox’, ‘religious identity flexibility’ and religious identity transformation’. I argue that student teachers need to negotiate their religious identity to a position of ‘religious identity transformation’. In order to assist student teachers to engage in this transformation I contend that initial teacher education needs to create space for student teachers to explore and negotiate their religious identity. This is necessary for the effective implementation

of the Religion and Education Policy (2003) which expects teachers to encourage pupils to grow in their own religious beliefs while also empathetically respecting the religious beliefs of others in society. Top

Elisabeth Tveito Johnsen - Rethinking child centred reform pedagogy with a Vygotskyian perspective

This paper will examine Christian education in the Church of Norway. Christian education has never reached more than ten percent of the baptised population (except confirmation with a much higher attendence rate). Up untill now the church educational activites have mainly been for children with parents who participate in church activities and services. This is about to change, and the number of children whithout a Christian upbringing are now increasing.

The Church of Norway, with financial support from The Norwegian goverment, initiated a national reform of its educational progam in 2003. The ambition is to revitalize its educational efforts and thereby engage about 70 percent of the baptised population between 0-18 in more than 300 hours of systematic and continuous education in Christian faith and tradition. One contributing factor in this refom are changes in RE in the school system. The public school no longer regards RE as a place for religious nutrition. RE in school is a non-preaching and multi-religous subject for all pupils regardless of religous affiliation.

My paper will discuss the child centred reform pedagogy revitalized by the educational reform of the church. The paper will ask whether such a pedagogy risks underestimating many children’s need for competent guidance in the Christian faith and tradition. This will be done by analyzing empirical material originating from ethnograpic fieldwork in two congregations who have been involved in the refom since its outset. Questions concerning communication and cooperation between the educators and the children will be focal. The emprical material will be put into dialogue with the theoretical perspectives from Vygotsky and the pedagogical tradition following him. Top

Arto Kallioniemi - How primary school student teachers view religious education as school subject?

The purpose of my paper is to study how primary school student teachers view religious education as a school subject. For the future of RE it is important to investigate what kinds of views students have. In Finland there are previous studies about primary teacher students views of RE in almost every ten years. So the results give also an opportunity to study how the students’ views have changed and what are directions of changes. Student teachers were represented by the second years students around Finland from different teacher education departments (N = 200). Students’ attitudes towards religious education were measured with quantitative instrument that was adapted from earlier studies. The students used semantic differential scale to assess their attitudes toward religious education. Difficulties in teaching RE and the importance of subject and contents were rated with Likert-scale. The questionnaire includes also open questions in which student teacher could express their own ideals that make RE as important, positive and boring. Furthermore students also express their conception about the current Finnish model of RE.

Students’ assessments were analyzed with the basic statistical indicators including the means and standard deviations of their ratings. Furthermore students’ ratings were analyzed by factor analysis to find out the main dimensions. The correlations between the demographics and variables representing the factors were calculated using the ANOVA. The sex, location of teacher education unit and religious activity explained some of differences in students’ ratings. The results of this study can be used in developing RE in the departments of teacher education all over the country and internationally. Top

Kasonga wa Kasonga - Christian Rituals for the Luba Kasai ‘Special Children’

The effects of confrontation between African cultures and Christian faith can still be observed in the life of the Africans of the 21st century. Some Christian Luba-Kasai peoples of the Democratic Republic of Congo exhibit certain ambivalence toward the two, while they experience some anxiety concerning the well being of their ‘special children. When one thinks of the initiation into Christian faith (catechization) of the concerned children, one is caught in the middle of various questions expressed as follows: (1) Some Christian Luba-Kasai parents who have “special children” and opt to organize traditional rituals meant for protection and well being of these children wonder whether by clinging to these traditional rituals their faith has been corrupted? (2) Some Christian Luba-Kasai parents have abandoned these practices; they have chosen to trust solely in God’s protection of their children. When they endure time to time the recurring anxiety, they wonder if they have made good choice? (3) Some Christian Luba-Kasai ‘special children’ who have undergone traditional cleansing rituals experience some misfortune in their life while some who have

not undergone these rituals experience undisturbed life even though the anxiety is present. The question is what form of Christian initiation would be appropriate, one that would be faithful to the Christian teachings and at the same time avoiding causing more harm to the existing cultures than was done during missionary era? Cases are presented based on the views of respondents. They illustrate how parents and children face these problems given their faith in Jesus Christ. Catechetical considerations are drawn and catechesis guidelines for Luba-Kasai ‘special children’ are suggested. Top

Yaacov J Katz - Religious Education and Spirituality: Complimentary or Contradictory Concepts

Religious education in educational systems in the western world is widespread and in many countries is regarded as mandatory for all pupils. There are two clear-cut philosophies underlying religious education: a) knowledge-oriented religious education b) faith-oriented religious education

In knowledge-oriented religious education pupils are taught about religion, the history of religion, religion as a part of culture and religious tradition and folklore. Pupils are encouraged to understand how religion developed, its place in the moulding of national identity and its connection to the values consensually accepted within western society. In knowledge-oriented religious education, the prevalent religion of the country is usually on centre-stage but other religions may also be studied from a pluralistic point of view.

In faith-oriented religious education pupils are not only provided with religious knowledge regarding the history of religion and religion as a culture but are also encouraged to perform the precepts and commandments of the religion. When religious education is confessional then usually only one religion is taught according to the particular denomination of the school student body without emphasis being placed on the pluralistic study of religions.

Research has indicated that faith-oriented religious education is tenuously correlated with spirituality and well-being of students while knowledge-oriented is not at all correlated with the spirituality of students. It is the aim of this presentation to highlight the issues related to religious education and spirituality and to suggest what may be done in order to bring these two important educational and social concepts into harmony and congruence. Top

Recep Kaymakcan - Do teachers of RE support pluralistic religious education in Turkey?

Religious education is a compulsory school subject in Turkey. Recently, the European Court of Human Rights released a decision that RE is not pluralistic and objective enough in Turkey. In spite of changes of curriculum for RE by the Turkish Ministry of Education in line with this criticism some people argue that one of main reasons for implementation of a confessional and non-pluralistic form of RE stems from the understanding of religious education teachers. In this paper we will try to respond to this argument in terms of the findings of recent nationwide empirical research entitled “Turkish religious education in schools according to teachers of RE”

This empirical research was carried out in 25 different cities in Turkey on 774 RE teachers. It examined the attitudes and opinions of RE teachers on different aspects of religious education. The findings of the research pertaining to the following topics will be presented and evaluated in the paper. These are; 1. Theological and socio-cultural attitudes of the teachers to interreligious relations, 2. Teaching of non-Islamic religions in RE 3. Teaching of Alewism as a part of internal pluralism in RE. The results of the research indicate that teachers of RE are more positive to socio-cultural pluralism rather then theological pluralism in interreligious relations. The teaching of non-Islamic religions and Alewism in religious education in schools is highly supported by the teachers of RE. However, the reasons for positive attitudes regarding the teaching of non-Islamic religions and Alewism are different from the scale of confessional to pluralistic. Moreover, female teachers of RE exhibit more positive attitudes to pluralism. Top

Chae Young Kim - The Development of a Preventive Education Program Concerning Religious Discrimination among Civil Servants in the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism

Apart from some years in the early nineteenth century, Christianity and other religious traditions have existed harmoniously in Korea. However the harmonious spirit among Korean religions has been upset since the present government took office in 2009. Many cases of religion related conflicts have erupted in present Korean society since 2009.

Recently two religious conflicts have broken out in Korean society. One conflict is about religious education in the public school. Most Korean public secondary schools are Christian schools except for a few non-religious public schools, a few Buddhist school and the New Religion school. Most students attend the local school close to their place of residence. But recently students and parents have begun to complain the religious education program in school. The other conflict is one between Christianity and Buddhism in relation to the civil service. The civil service policy of the present government has been criticized due to the preference of Christianity. So Buddhism has challenged this policy very critically.

In this challenging conflict situation, the Korean government has established a committee to investigate religious discrimination in the civil service as well as to introduce religious education into the school curriculum as part of civic education. The Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has developed a concrete educational program to combat religious discrimination and is actively engaged in the education of civil servants in Korea.

In this paper I will focus on the background of religious discrimination in the Korean secondary school and in the public civil service and then critically examine the prevention program developed by Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. Top

Ole K. Kjørven - The religious literacy of RE teachers: An analysis of RE teachers as readers and interpreters of the biblical narrative The Prodigal Son

The purpose of the Phd-project is to set focus on and to explore and describe RE teachers’ religious literacy. The larger issue is approached by focusing on one central area of RE teachers’ content knowledge: religious narratives. In concrete terms, I ask: How do RE teachers read and interpret the biblical narrative The Prodigal Son (Luke 15,11-32)?

The study is qualitative empirical. RE teacher texts and semi-structured interviews have brought about written and oral responses of RE teachers’ readings. These responses, highlighting the role of the teacher as a key reader of religious narratives in school, have been analyzed in light of reader response theory, which specifically pinpoints the role and activities of particular readers, the role of particular texts, and also the role of the particular situation and context in which the reading takes place.

First of all, the analyses have brought about an extensive picture of RE teachers’ as readers of The Prodigal Son. Further, and secondly, the analyses have provided the basis for a nuanced description of what characterizes the interpretations of the RE teachers.

The study primarily addresses RE practitioners - RE teachers in school and RE teacher educatiors. The ambition is that the findings will contribute to enhancing the RE teachers consciousness and knowledge about their role as key carriers of content knowledge in RE. The study also addresses the field of education research more broadly, calling for more research on teachers’ content knowledge in regard to all subjects in school. Top

Valentin Kozhuharov - Respecting History in Establishing RE at public schools

In many ways, history became irrelevant in most of the Eastern European countries after the changes in 1989/1990 where not only communism was renounced but also some traditional national values were rejected. Certain historic facts were re-interpreted in new way, and religious education (RE) as an obligatory school subject could not be efficiently introduced in most of those countries even now, more than 20 years after the political changes.

The paper deals with two main issues of establishing and functioning of RE at publics schools in two countries: Bulgaria and Russia. It shows the relations between religious organizations and state in the efforts of establishing RE at school and then focuses on the practical implementation of RE and its relation to history and national values. The paper reveals the inability of the government to properly deal with the issue of RE at the public schools in Bulgaria, although the church had proposed a nation-acknowledged document on the principles of introducing RE at school, and on the other hand the research shows the strong governmental involvement in the issue of introducing RE at the public schools in Russia where the church and the other religious organizations were not able to offer appropriate forms and content for RE at school.

The type of RE, as currently functioning in Bulgarian and Russian public schools, and the recent (2010-2011) textbooks and teachers’ aids clearly show a certain shift in understanding and interpreting history in the modern historical development of the two countries, and the paper brings abundance of evidence on this. Top

Bernd Krupka - More equal than others? What Christian Youth appreciates about Church Youth work

This paper will present results from approximately 24 semi-clinical interviews with Norwegian youth aged 15 and 16 years (after confirmation). The interviews were conducted with both youth that involved in Christian youth work after confirmation and those that did not continue with Christian youth work after confirmation.The interviews focussed on their impression of confirmation work, the reasons why they engaged in Christian youth work any further or not, and what participation in Christian youth work meant for their Christian identity. Our findings show that youth appreciate a social atmosphere of inclusivity and acceptance in confirmation time. To become more conscious about one's own social behaviour and impact on a group is by some described as an important discovery of confirmation time. This paper will focus on the following questions: What are the differences in the description of social atmosphere in Christian youth work and in school? Why is it that Christian youth work by the youngsters is considered to be less challenging than the social arena of school? Can this be explained by Christian youth work being less inclusive than school by being an arena that gathers youngsters with a homogenous cultural background, where youth with challenging behaviour are excluded, voluntarily or not? In 2012, the interviews will be followed up by a survey aimed at the same group. First results from the survey will be included in the paper. Top

Arniika Kuusisto - Recognizing Worldviews in Multi-Faith Day Care Context

This paper presents a pedagogical examination on the position of religions and worldviews in the increasingly pluralistic educational context of the Finnish day care centres. Both the informal visibility of religions and other worldviews and the implemented religious education are examined, through a multi-method action research carried out in four multicultural kindergartens in Helsinki. The data includes curriculum guiding documents, focus group discussions and surveys with the staff, participatory observation in the kindergartens, and parental interviews.

The findings illustrate that religious diversity is often seen through the limitations that religions are perceived to bring to the day-to-day running of the kindergarten and to the customary ways of organizing educational activities. The worldview diversity within the ‘native Finns’, as well as that within the immigrant background families, often remain disregarded in the discussion on diversity. In order to provide education suitable to the children representing a multitude of faith backgrounds, religion-based elements are more or less omitted from those contexts of early years education that are regarded as ‘multicultural’ ones. This easily leads into the thinning of educational contents as well as leaves out the opportunities for strengthening the child-specific identities connected to worldviews. Furthermore, the lack of sensitivity and understanding towards the worldview backgrounds may cause exclusive practices in the day care context and in the educational partnership with the families.

It is argued in this paper that new approaches are needed in developing a more sensitive, inclusive and actively anti-oppressive multi-faith worldview education better suited for the pluralistic context. Top

Manfred Kwiran - Genocide Education and Human Rights

In past decades the RE curriculum has sometimes dealt with human rights issues, has spoken to anti-semitism, to racism, to integration, to tolerance and to the enrichment of diversity. Very seldom was the Holocaust discussed and even less has genocide been addressed as a topic to be confronted. Researching genocide strategies, the policy which led to the deliberate murder of a specific people, a specific society, a certain nationality or ethnic group, seems totally lacking as an important issue. Too often have such human rights issues been seen as being the task for political discussion or defined solely as issues historical interest and too often seen as being “internal busines” of dictators or totalitarian governments. Genocide has been ignored as a serious global issue that needs attention especilly in the school.

In all countries one has been aware of the importance of historical knowledge, sometimes of historical consciousness. Memorial days were founded in order to enhace historical reference and knowledge. It is important that we also deal with historical and present actions of genocide, research the roots, examine

why so few people resisted or challenged such nationalistic human rights perversions. Human rights education, historical remembrance, must be more than just theory. It challenges us to be involved, to educate, to improve practice for the enhanced well being of all mankind. Top

Johannes Lähnemann - Interreligious Textbook Research and Development: A Proposal for Standards

The importance of textbook research – even in the age of audio-visual media – lies in the fact that school textbooks pass on fundamental knowledge to the younger generation: selected, methodologically prepared texts (historical and religious sources, stimulus texts, material for commiting to memory), key themes, pictures, suggestions. In a situation of limited specialist training for teachers, textbooks often “teach the teachers” and play a substantial role in lesson planning.

Interreligious textbook research is of particular relevance in the face of the sweeping generalizations, prejudice and stereotypes regarding other religions and cultures (“Islam is like this” – “The West is like that”) that were, and still are, to be found in school textbooks. They are not infrequently reinforced by the media and can easily be misused for political ends. In the tension between a “Clash of Civilisations” and the “Dialogue among Civilisations” that is needed, school textbooks have an important task. In this respect, we look at cultures not as fixed entities. Differentiations and changes in the different beliefs and in different regions are to be taken seriously.

Based on this understanding and the experience of the research project “The representation of Christianity in textbooks of countries with an Islamic tradition” (supported by the “Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft”/DFG) a set of “Standards” for interreligious school textbook development as possible guidelines for author teams and publishers, for education authorities and curriculum planners is proposed. The Standards show how interreligious issues should be handled in curriculum and textbook design. A special focus will be on “Respecting history and Remembrance”. Top

David W Lankshear - Church going children attend their local Church: an exploration of the reality underlying this assumption.

There is a tacit assumption in much of the writing about children being nurtured within the church in the United Kingdom that the children are local to the church and that most of them will attend schools that are also local to the church. This assumption appears to be unchallenged within research literature until a paper on a sample of 1,202 children presented by Lankshear and Francis at a research conference in 2010 questioned the assumption.

The current paper develops and extends the arguments presented in that initial report. During 2009 and 2010 an extensive survey was carried out amongst 21,000 people attending 216 Anglican churches in South London. This has provided an opportunity to explore these issues. The survey was undertaken at the request of the churches and was designed to explore factors that might be contributing to the growth in the numbers of people attending the Anglican Church in this area. 2,825 (13.4%) of that sample were children of statutory school age, that is between the ages of 5 and 16. This paper will explore the profile of these children with particular attention to their engagement with the church and the location of the school that they attend. Preliminary analysis of the data from this survey suggests that some long held assumptions may now have to be qualified. Top

Alma Lanser–Van der Velde - Young Adults: An Open Future

One of the assignments of the students in a course in the Master Religious Education was to keep a research interview with a person in the age group of 20 – 35 on the topic of religious development and life changes. They all left the interviews to me for further research. Forty interviews with young adults are about to be analyzed. Most students interviewed a person they already knew, so in no way does the group serve as a representative sample of all young people. Many of those interviewed were university graduates and had a comprehensive academic education. But the data are interesting enough to produce knowledge about this age group and religious development.

Until now it is obvious that young adults, as far as they are involved in religion, seek to participate in religious rituals viewed by them as family occasions rituals based on life events such as confirmations, weddings and funerals. The human need of "belonging" appears as part of the search for solidarity in religion, especially in situations of uncertainty or identity crises than in everyday life. Still remaining is the question or the need for belonging mostly as inspired by individual wellbeing or also as exists in the sense

of personal devotions. The most relevant data in the interviews will be selected regarding the relevance of the questions included in the interviews. Top

Rune Larsson - Religious education - in whose interest? Changing history of Religious Education in the in Swedish schools over the last century

Religious education (RE) in the Swedish school system has undergone a dramatic transformation over the past hundred years. The "old" society with its unity of church and state was based on the unity between citizenship and membership. In the authoritative society RE was a tool for society and the Church's common interest in stability and continuity. Today's RE has been shaped by demands of a democratic and pluralistic society, where religious communities have become equals with other actors in the public arena. The school with its RE has become an integral part of the secular society and is accepted as part and parcel of general educational strategy and policy. While the mandate of the RE curriculum previously determined by society and the Church (state), today's primary determinants are the community, the pupils - and to some extent teachers in the profession.

Now, if we claim that the determinants of RE are community, students and professionals, the question arises what these are, how they are designed, which instances determine what these are and what role they should be allowed to play for the subjects of the school with its objectives and content. This paper will attempt to highlight some features of the changes in the last century and the role the various determinants play in the shaping of the Swedish school system's school's RE curriculum. Top

Heid Leganger-Krogstad - The Understanding of Learning in a ‘nonschoolish’ Church Educational Reform

The paper will focus on the understanding of learning that is practiced within a Church Educational Reform with the aim to fascilitate a nonschoolish, participatory learning in line with a socio-cultural theory. How do local congregations in Church of Norway establish an education which is different from RE in a school context? This reform can be seen as a reaction to the implementation of compulsory multireligious RE in 1997. Church experienced the need to reestablish a systematic, continuous lifelong education on its own. Baptismal education was the main reason for the founding of a school system for all citizens in 1739, and Christian education had therefore a central place in this state school until 1969 when its legal status changed to RE on cultural pedagogical bases. Most RE-research for nearly 250 years has for these reasons been school related, and practical theology has been developed without a pedagogical strand. The Church Educational Reform from 2003 is changing this. The implementation was followed by extensive evaluation research. And the LETRA research team at MF Norwegian School of Theology conveys from 2010 to 2014 a qualitative study on LEarning and knowledge TRAjectories in Congregations (http://letra.mf.no/). My project is to shadow cathecists or educators in three congregations to be able to describe their view on learning expressed in educational practice and in their way to develop professional learning. Others in the team will focus professional learning among ministers and diaconical workers, or learning among 6-year olds, confirmands and volunteers. Top

Sidsel Lied - The Speech Genres of a Classroom and a Dialogical RE

Dialogue has been launched as a main method to promote mutual understanding and coexistence among pupils. Research shows, however, that pupils’ potential learning in RE is related to how we talk about religions and beliefs in RE – that is: to the hegemonic speech genres of a classroom (von der Lippe, 2009; Osbeck and Lied, forthcoming; Lied and Osbeck, forthcoming). Dialogical approaches may therefore be understood as a tool for reflection and understanding in some RE classrooms, while they may turn out to be a risky business in others.

Important questions are therefore: What characterises the speech genres in RE classrooms where dialogue is a safe and not a risky business? How do teachers arrange for a respectful, critical and tolerant dialogue in their teaching?

I will pursue this question by, at first, presenting the Bakhtinian concept of speech genre. On this background I will discuss the relation between pupils’ potential learning and speech genres used in RE on the background of an empirical study in Norwegian and Swedish classrooms (Osbeck and Lied, forthcoming; Lied and Osbeck, forthcoming). I will then present two empirical student teacher projects, one taking place in primary school (Hansen, 2010) and one in upper secondary school (Barane, forthcoming), which show how the project teachers prepared their classes for dialog about religions and beliefs. Finally I

will show how the problem presented in the research questions will be pursued further in empirical research during the academic year of 2012-2013. Top

David Lifmark - Emotions and accounts of continuity and change in values education

My thesis in Pedagogical Work, Emotions and Values Education: On Teachers, Ethics and Pupils in a Multicultural School (Lifmark 2010), explores teachers’ obligation to implement and discuss what are referred to in the Swedish national curricula as “fundamental values”. In group interviews with Secondary school teachers, dilemmas in interpretations of and practical work with these values are described and analyzed, in relation to three themes. They concern (1) ethnicity, and the obligation of counteracting xenophobia and intolerance, (2) religiosity within Swedish society and a non-denominational educational system, and (3) ways in which teachers view and teach about sexual orientation.

The theoretical framework is Martha Nussbaum’s (2001) thinking on emotions as judgments of value. She argues that emotions have four common cognitive components. They (1) are directed towards external objects, (2) are intentional, reflecting a person’s particular point of view, his or her special way of beholding the object, (3) consist of judgments, i.e. views of how things in the world are. According to Nussbaum’s Aristotelian ethics, emotions also (4) mirror the individual’s vision of a good human life, and its vulnerability. The concept of eudaimonia, a fulfilled or flourishing life, is central.

The paper focuses on one outcome in the thesis, how views of historical continuity and change can be part of emotions directed towards people of another ethnical or religious background than one’s own. To discuss and deconstruct simplistic and ethnocentric accounts of moral continuity and change in different social settings appears as an important feature in values education. Top

Heike Lindner - What about standards and competencies? The contribution of the historical religious education research to the formal education discussion today

During the last ten years competencies and standards have become an established aspect of assessment at all places of learning and teaching: in the curriculum of subjects for the different forms of schools and in the teacher training programs at university and for the further education.

Religious education research has taken up this theme, too. Competencies and standards are discussed here for the religious instruction, and also for the pedagogy of the congregation. But the main exciting question remains: how can the output-oriented pedagogy be compatible with the protestant commission of a responsible education?

Here is a big chance for respecting history and remembrance of Religious Education research in the form of a bit of soul-searching: where have we arrived, what have we let behind us, what have we given up and where do we now want to go?

This contribution sets the actual debate of the output-oriented pedagogy into correlation with the results of historical religious education research. The outcomes will be the connecting lines between the phenomena of a protestant answer and responsibility to Religious Education in former times, beginning in the time of the reformation and going through the main periods until today. On the other hand it will discuss the question, what we can learn from the remembrance of religious education research in the actual RE-Processes. Top

Miriam K Martin - The Urgency of Remembering: A Religious Educator Reflects on a Challenge from Thomas Berry

“Our present urgency is to recover a sense of the primacy of the Universe as our fundamental context, and the primacy of the Earth as the matrix from which life has emerged and on which life depends. Recovering this sense is essential to establishing the framework for mutually enhancing human–Earth relations for the flourishing of life on the planet.” ~ Thomas Berry

The need to remember indicates that there is something significant that has been forgotten. Thomas Berry insists that we as a human species have forgotten our primary connection with earth, and the whole earth community. Remembering and recovering our sense of the universe as a communion of subjects is imperative if we are to renew our commitment to integrity of all life. Echoing these insights the discourse of

eco-theology challenges our self understandings and the worldviews which sustain them, raising questions of meaning. How does the work of eco-theology interact with a vision of a reawakened humanity - who will we remember we are? How does the human longing for wholeness and holiness impact on our relationships with Earth, with God? Will our remembering draw us away from a foundational grounding in Christianity or lead us to seek deeper connections?

From the perspective of a religious educator, this paper explores the connections between Berry’s idea of recovering our enchantment with creation – our remembering - and aspects of eco-theology as they impact on our self understanding and our religious worldview. Top

Mia Matilainen - Human Rights Education in Religious Education

This presentation focuses on linkages between human rights education (HRE) and religious education (RE). The presentation is based on a PhD-study in which the conceptions of human rights and RE among students and teachers were examined at a particular general upper secondary school. The study is based on qualitative theme interviews, which were analysed using qualitative content analysis.

The aims of HRE as specified in UN documents on education seem not to have been achieved in the Finnish context. The concept of human rights was unclear to many of the students. In a way, human rights were both familiar and strange to the students. The teachers and students connected HRE especially with RE, history and social studies. Human dignity is mostly dealt with in RE, while matters concerning the history of human rights are mostly dealt with in history classes.

RE has an important role from the perspective of HRE and there are many possibilities for HRE in RE. Education for human dignity links together the core values and aims of both RE and human rights education (HRE). HRE includes also education about the holocaust. The Holocaust education in the Finnish 2010 additions to national core curriculum treat the Holocaust as an example of genocide and HR-violations. The human rights viewpoint should be strengthened when dealing with the aims, contents and organization structure of RE. At the moment, the quality and extent of human rights education is heavily reliant on individual teachers and their personal interest in the field. Top

Roseanne McDougall - Making History and Creating Memories: Integrating Service Learning into the Undergraduate Religion Curriculum

This author’s collegial paper at ISREV XII, “Service Learning: Actualizing Freedom of Religion and Belief” was attended by twenty-some participants who, along with the author, would like to have seen greater development of the paper with a more deeply content driven literature review, and more complete delineation of specifics involved in implementation and evaluation of the service learning component of “Exploring Christianity,” a course taught in the La Salle University core curriculum. This collegial paper provides both indepth review of selected literature in the field of service learning pedagogy, and incorporates classroom based research, focusing upon the implementation and evaluation of service learning aspects of “Exploring Christianity.”

The literature review comprises works read and discussed by the service learning cohort, a group of university faculty from a variety of disciplines who range from novice to veteran in teaching service learning courses. Pertinent additional works are also discussed. The classroom based research section addresses such questions as: What percentage of the final course grade is based upon service learning activities? What have been the actual practice and outcomes of service learning pedagogies implemented in the undergraduate religion course? Theological reflection in service learning is emphasized along with its practical expression in the application reflection paper, which provides a framework for thoughtful remembering, thereby helping students to make conections between service learning activity and course content. Examples are given of educational experiences through which students and their professors alike both create memories and make them part of their individual and collective history. Top

Paul McQuillan - What difference do we make? Examining school contribution to children’s belief and religious practice

This paper will explore the further analysis undertaken of the data from “Who’s coming to school today”, a project undertaken by Brisbane Catholic Education in 2009. The project collected survey responses from years 3, 6, 9 and 12 across all schools. Over 16 000 students, 6700 parents and over 4500 staff across all

schools responded to comprehensive survey of their beliefs, their values and their opinions about their catholic school.

The statistical analysis described in this paper will aim to compare the belief and practice of staff members within individual schools and the level of belief and religious practice among students in those schools. The analysis will begin by assuming that there are numerous factors that might contribute to a particular student’s level of belief and religious practice. Some of these include influences that the survey was not designed to measure, such as the influence of peer groups, the mass media and the particular unique circumstances of each child’s life outside the school environment. However there are others measured in the survey responses that can be linked to particular levels of faith and religious practice.

This paper is the story of the journey of analysis, both the cul de sacs and the blind corners that led eventually to significant conclusions about the relative importance of the school in determining religious belief and practice among students. Top

Wilna Meijer - Time is not a line. The spatio-temporality of education

As educational philosopher, I was not particularly happy with the change that the theme of this ISREV-session underwent in the years between this and the previous session in Ottawa, where it was first introduced. In earlier formulations (as I recall them), the concepts of time and history in their relation to RE were focal. In the final formulation, remembrance and respect are added, the risk being that the future and its essential openness will be ignored. Then the active role of the new generation in its own education is, as compared to the role of the adult generation, in danger of being underrated.

This paper reflects on the ‘time of education’. In education (and probably likewise in other human concerns) perspectives from the past and perspectives to the future are mediated and so: made present. If the balance is distorted, either because the orientation is exclusively to the past or exclusively to the future, education will suffer. If our interpretation of the past is not opened up by a plurality of possible future perspectives flowing from it, education is truncated and stifled. If the future is however simply conceived of as: aims, targets to be achieved, education is likewise distorted. Education’s spatio-temporality is better caught in the image of doors to be opened than in the image of targets to be reached. For education to flourish, students need to be given the time and room to explore and to learn, to study, reflect and digest – whatever will come of it. Top

Karlo Meyer - How Do 13-Year Old Youngsters Gain Motivation for Visiting the Christian Sunday Service? Results from a triangulation of qualitative and quantitative research in Northern Germany.

This paper presents the final result of a 4-year research on German Confirmation classes and the Christian Sunday service. I had the opportunity to observe services and lessons in 10 parishes and 42 group discussions. Besides, 974 youngsters from 30 parishes participated in a survey.

Questions were: In a secular society of Germany, how to make teaching of traditional rituals of a Sunday service to 13 year old youngsters effective in a cognitive and affective way? Why are some parishes “successful” in their teaching and others not? Is there any “recipe”?

I have choosen 30 different Lutheran parishes which use different approaches to teach the Sunday service, for a survey with questionnaires. In 10 out of these 30 parishes, I made interviews and group discussion (group of 5-7 youngsters), focusing on the semantic constructions which are used to express their attitudes to the service.

As a result of the questionnaire, I found the increasing and decreasing of knowledge and affective engagement. Besides, in the reconstruction of the didactical arrangement and in the analysis of the qualitative results, reasons for success and failure of different approaches could be shown:

On the one side, practical engagement, like reading during the service or collecting money, do not help much to develop motivation. On the other side, it is rather important that the ideas of the youngsters are being treasured. Most important is finally the feeling of community. It marks the “key” in motivating youngsters. Top

Siebren Miedema & Coby Speelman - Liberal democratic societies and the need for religious citizenship education

Although the commitment with institutionalized forms of religion/worldview is still declining in the Western Hemisphere, the interest in personal religion/worldview is still increasing today.

Based on twenty in-depth interviews under the broad umbrella of ‘normative professionality’ with elementary school teachers of different denominational as well as state schools (included were 6 teachers of Protestant schools, 6 teachers of Catholic Schools including an Islamic teacher, 2 teachers of Islamic schools, and 6 teachers of State Schools), we will exemplify this phenomenon of the personalizing or individualizing of religion/worldviews. The teachers we interviewed represent different generations in respect to age. What about standard and/or choice biography regarding their worldview development?

In trying to understand the current developments in this domain, and especially in trying to get an adequate grip on the results of our qualitative empirical research project it became our contention that the theoretical/philosophical/theological insights of Charles Taylor (the fruitful distiction of immanent and transcendental frameworks), Baruch de Spinoza (his panentheistic theology, and his combining of a rational with a ethico-religious stance), and Jacques Derrida (his favouring of deconstruction versus foundationalism) were and are very helpful, insightful as well as enlightening.

In our presentation we relate the outcomes of the research project - that is the answers of the teachers - with the trains of thought of respectively Taylor, Spinoza and Derrida. Thus, we are able to show the explanatory power of their insights regarding the personalized wordviews of elementary school teachers in the second decennium of the 21st century. Top

Joyce Miller - Terrorism, religious education and the interpretive approach

The paper offers an analysis of issues relating to religiously inspired terrorism in religious education through the three key concepts of Jackson’s interpretive approach: representation, interpretation and reflexivity/edification. It arises from earlier research into cohesion including an exploration of the conflation of community cohesion and Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE). This led to the writer’s involvement in a government-funded project on the professional development of RE teachers. The need for theoretical justifications of educational approaches to religiously inspired violent extremism was realised. This paper is one of the outcomes.

It examines the representation of Islam and of terrorism and argues that processes of homogenization and reification distort public discourse and lead to negative stereotyping. The joint dangers of ‘satanization’ and ‘sanitization’ are discussed. Issues of interpretation focus on language, text, symbol and ritual. These are key elements in religious belief and practice but they are also key elements in terrorist activity and, therefore, ways of exploring and interpreting them become essential elements of classroom practice. It is suggested that dialogical and hermeneutic pedagogies provide ways of deepening pupils’ understanding and critical engagement. Rather than asking pupils to engage with questions of ‘truth’, it is argued that interpretation of doctrine, when the possibility of belief in revelation is a respected position, is more productive. None of this is inimical to Islamic tradition. Finally, matters relating to reflexivity and edification are discussed, particularly with regard to whether, in this context, RE can remain ‘open’ with regard to pupils’ own beliefs and values. Top

Reinhold Mokrosch - Remembrance in Religious Education Research in Germany: Is Dietrich Bonhoeffer's prison confession “God is beyond in the midst of our life” a religious pedagogical foundation? And is it still relevant today in the light of young peoples concept of God?

“God is beyond in the midst of our life!” (Letter from prison 24th April 1944) Is it possible to use this prison confession of the famous German resistance fighter, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as a foundation for the pedagogy and didactics of religion today? And is it possible for children and young persons to comprehend Bonhoeffers concept of God in the light of their experiences of God? “No” is my sincere answer! Young people conceptualise God without reference to Christ and interpersonal humanity. Their concept of God is in diametric opposition to Bonhoeffer's notion of God.

If one wants to use Bonhoeffer’s prison confession as a foundation of RE then it is necessary to orientate RE, moral pedagogics, didactics of symbols and religious instructions as a christological whole. This excludes any generally religious or secular pedagogics of religion. Bonhoeffer is mostly understood as a

promotor of secular pedagogics of religion. But this is a misunderstanding! His religionless Christianity and his nonreligious interpretation of biblical concepts do not point in the direction of a general religious God of creation, but focus on the suffering and compassionate God as the “Father” of Jesus Christ.

Bonhoeffer himself imparted such christological pedagogy of religion to children and adolescents in a practical way. He successfully attracted the young away from the Nazi religion and lead them towards Christ. Therefore his “pedagogy of religion” is still relevant today for Christians! Is it relevant also for a multifaith approach? “Yes”, it is! I’ll explain it in my collegial paper. Top

Mary Elizabeth Moore - Youth Seeking to Understand the World: Yearnings for a Past and a Future

This paper is part of a larger project on the yearnings and hopes of young people. The paper focuses on one particular yearning of youth and young adults – to understand the world and their relation to it. This yearning emerged in earlier research as critical to young people, alongside others, such as yearning for the Holy and yearning for community. In this study, the more particular focus is on remembrance and history as pathways toward knowing the world. Drawing upon qualitative research with ethnographies and interviews, I will identify ways in which young people engage or refrain from engaging these historical pathways of knowing. The method combines the ethogenic method that I have developed and used over time with Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot’s method of portraiture, creating a series of portraits that reveal some of the ways young people seek to understand the world. These portraits will be brought into dialogue with recent youth research literature and an analysis of the larger corpus of ethnographies and interviews that I have conducted with young people and people who work youth. Both the ethnographic studies and the interview sample are drawn from diverse ethnicities, denominations, and regions of the U.S. The paper will have three major movements: identifying young people’s distinctive ways of engaging with remembrance and history; posing theoretical constructs to reflect on their complex ways of knowing; and posing practices to engage youth with memory and history as they seek to understand their world. Top

Marilyn Naidoo - Values education and religious identity formation in South Africa

As part of the Department of Education’s major cultural project, the Values in Education Initiative, attention to religion was framed by reflection on values. In teaching religion studies, religious content is taken as the point of departure in which universal values are identified and used to imply a mutual value system. These values include the concept of identity and identity formation and “respect for religious and social distinctions” (Morrison 2000:124–125).

While the new curriculum’s infusion with the respect for cultural and religious diversity is positive, it is clear that the conditions and context for effective implementation of both the new curriculum and values in education are not in place in most schools (Sayed 2002; Vally 2005). Educating learners requires more than steeping them in a generic set of core values. It requires nurturing learners to become responsible citizens with a coherent moral vision grounded in their worldview or religious identity which can be a powerful resource or conversely could be actively intolerant or prejudicial. At the same time religious communities offer identity to people but in many cases this identity is exclusive. While research has been conducted on values education in South Africa none have considered the impact of learners’ religious identity that influences the learning process and interacts with the country’s framework of socio-cultural cohesion. As a consequence the reconciliation potential of religions is not self-evident and can become part of the problem. This paper will discuss how values education interfaces with religious identity in supporting reconciliation in South Africa. Top

Elisabeth Naurath - German children and their knowledge about Jewism and the Holocaust

Learning about the Jewish religion is ususally a theme in primary schools in Germany. But very often it remains removed from the everyday life raising that these contents will easily be forgotten. In Osnabrück (Niedersachsen) we embarked on a project in which the university, teachers of religious education and the Christian-Jewish-Association cooperated under the title ‘Comprehending Judaism’. This practical project in the context of religious education in selected primary schools offers the chance for interreligious dialogue because of direct cooperation with Jewish people: In face to face encounter pupils can realize that faith is affected by individual stories of life, regional influences or situative conditions.

One question became evident rather soon: can you – especially in Germany – speak about the Jewish faith and life without broaching the issue of Holocaust? Is it educationally sound to prevent children from hearing about the horrors perpetrated against Jewish people during the time of national socialism? Or should we

openly deal with such subjects, as research projects of antisemitism show us, as an urgent necessity to start teaching historical content at an early age as a method of promoting prevention? What is the correct age at which background stories of history and actual reality can be understood?

This paper reports on theoretical discourse concerning the education after the Holocaust, will present empirical research about the coherence of the knowledge and the comprehension of ten years old children and the experiences of an interview with a Jewish woman Erna de Vries, a survivor of the concentration-death-camp in Auschwitz. Top

Elizabeth Newton - Remembering RE? Towards an oral history of RE teachers and teaching

This paper will present the initial findings of a research project on the history of religious education in England in the 1960s and 1970s. This period represents a time of dramatic transformation for RE in terms of subject purpose, content, and pedagogy. In light of this, the principle aim of the research is to re-examine the changes that occurred in RE during these decades and, for the first time, to explore with RE teachers what these changes meant for them. Within this historical context, the first aim of this paper is to interrogate the intersection between change in RE, personal faith, and professional motivation. Drawing on the memories of RE teachers who worked in Birmingham state secondary schools during the 1960s and 1970s, preliminary insights will be offered into teachers' experiences of the emergence of multi-faith RE. The argument will proceed from the premise that, in privileging the oral histories of RE teachers, these previously neglected voices can contribute to an enhanced historical and contemporary understanding of RE. The second aim of this paper is to raise some wider methodological questions concerning the use of testimony and memory in historical research. The spoken word is a direct and powerful way of communicating experience. There are, however, significant hermeneutic and epistemological challenges to be faced when relying on the memories of others as a source of knowledge of the past. This paper will consider some of these challenges and will argue in support of using oral history in RE research. Top

Tove Nicolaisen - Religion as practice in the context of Norwegian Religious Education (RE)

The most important form of transmission and religious nurture within the Hindu tradition is through practice. Adults from the first generation of Hindu immigrants in Norway say that when they grew up in their countries of origin (India and Sri Lanka) they learnt by doing, growing into the religious tradition. In that way religion came naturally. Traditionally the hegemonic Norwegian discourse about religion has focused on religion as faith, since most Norwegians are Lutheran Christians. Other traditions, like the Hindu tradition, have a substantial focus on religion as practice and the transmission of religious, cultural and moral practices to new generations. Hindus often characterises their tradition as “a way of life”.

This paper discusses religion as practice in the context of the Norwegian RE called “Religion, Philosophies of Life and Ethics”. The discussion will be based on data from an empirically based project about Hindu children’s experiences with RE in Norway. What is religion, and how can the teaching deal with the representation of religion? The paper also briefly discusses practice as a challenge in Norwegian RE, in regards to exemption and objectivity.

The paper discusses these issues in relation to interview excerpts from the project, and analyses the language used by the children when talking about their own tradition, when talking about other traditions and when comparing traditions. What is the relation between the children’s approaches to these issues and the approach of RE teaching? Top

Kati Niemela - Religious change in the transition to adulthood – Longitudinal study of young people aged 14-25 (2001-2011)

This research project analyzes the change in religious beliefs and behavior and the relation to church of young Finns between the ages 14 to 25. This period between childhood and adulthood is a time of great change and development. The latter part of this phase of life (18-25) is often called as the period of emerging adulthood (see Arnett 2004). The most characteristic feature of this time of life is the search for identity.

A great majority of all Finnish 15 year-olds are confirmed in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. This study is a longitudinal study of those who started their confirmation period in the parish of Tampere in Finland in 2001. Preliminary size of the group was about 1100. The young people filled in a questionnaire three times, once at the beginning of their confirmation period (at the age of 14-15), a second time five

years after it ended in 2006 at the age of 20. and again another five years later in 2011 (about at the age of 25).

This paper summarizes the events that shaped Harper’s thought, including the World’s Parliament of Religions in 1893, and examines abstracts from his papers, writings and lectures in order to understand how freedom of religion ultimately benefits the university and other educational institutions. The intent of the research is not so much to seek implications for freedom in religious education today, but to understand as fully as possible Harper’s perspectives on the topic at that time in history.

The research shows that for many young people confirmation period serves as a means of maintaining religious observance. However, in early adulthood young people are more relative and ambivalent about religious tradition and beliefs and their religious practice is very insignificant. However, 10 years after the confirmation period, the quality of this period is still an important factor that sheds light on how one relates to religion. Top

Karin Nordström - Between objectivity and subjectivity. Swedish secondary school teachers’ perspectives on identity formation in RE

The paper discusses Swedish secondary school teachers’ perspectives on identity formation in RE, based on a questionnaire carried out in the spring of 2011 in the area of Jönköping. Special attention is given to the question as to how identity with regard to religion and world views may be an integrative part of the subject of RE. The new Swedish curriculum, implemented in 2011, may be interpreted as an attempt to incorporate a long tradition of emphasis on objectivity in RE with the didactic intention of integrating pupils’ experiences of religion as a vivid part of religious expression in a pluralistic society into RE. In the questionnaire, teachers were asked questions about their understanding of their obligation to deal with religion in an objective way and their views on identity as a didactic resource and as a means for accessing and understanding religious expressions. Thus the paper highlights perspectives on identity formation in RE as characterized by the tension between an ethical obligation to objectivity and a pedagogic demand for particularity. By drawing on ethical aspects of social identity (e.g. Appiah 2005) and recent Nordic research on sociological aspects of religious identity (Otterbeck 2010, Rosen 2009), the paper focuses on the significance of a pedagogic awareness of ethical and social aspects of identity. I argue that both ethical and pedagogic aspects suggest an integrated understanding of identity which relates individual choices and preferences to relational contexts and social norms, as a vital resource in the RE classroom in a pluralistic society. Top

Baruch Offir & Niva Wengrowicz - Role of the mediating teacher in the classroom in a distance learning environment when teaching humanistic subjects

Distance learning refers to aspects in synchronous or asynchronous learning. Moore (1973; 1993; 1996) developed one of the popular theories in distance learning, which is called transactional distance (TD). Moore (1996) developed theories in distance learning, which is called transactional distance (TD). In our study we examined a mediating teacher in the classroom compared to a teacher who teaches from a distance. This model was based on the mediated learning experience (MLE) theory which actually suggests that we act in two tracts: the content tract, and in parallel a tract in which the student will acquire ways of learning and thinking through mediation.

We used the ongoing research method. A significant difference was found between the ability of the distance teacher and the mediating teacher in the religious education classroom. These data enable us to determine the possible contribution of the teacher in the religious education classroom. Our findings indicate that students who received feedback for effort and ability exhibited greater motivation than students who received feedback solely for content.

Based on our findings, it can be stated that the role of the mediating teacher in the religious education classroom in a distance learning environment is in providing support and encouragement, in imparting meaning and motivation for learning and in the development of autonomous learning and thinking skills. This also enhances the role of technology as a major means for transferring information. Top

Kevin O’Grady - Action Research and Religious Education

This paper is based on the premiss that the improvement of school classroom practice is a quality criterion for educational research, arguably the most important one. This premiss seems to necessitate some form

of action research, the methodology of which itself needs to be subject to critical scrutiny – and action research has indeed been the object of critical attack, for example, that it is or may be a contradiction in terms. The illustrative and substantive content of the paper is drawn from examples of religious education research in England and to a lesser extent Norway. These examples bring out the suitability of action research as a tool for teacher education, in two slightly different ways. It is often said that good pupil learning in religious education is hermeneutical, but in these examples, the learning experienced by student teachers is hermeneutical; reflecting the truth that in order to perform its function well, and to counter any tendency towards internal contradiction, action research must be a hermeneutical process. Classroom-based data need to be triangulated with theoretical concepts, which depend in turn on interrogation via classroom practice. The discussion of action research and religious education gives rise to some tentative proposals about the nature of professionality in religious education, that would apply equally to professionals based in school, higher education or elsewhere. There appears to be a series of contexts for professional knowledge in religious education, including policy, theory, empirical research and classroom practice. The further across this continuum of contexts a professional’s knowledge extends, the greater the degree of her or his professionality. Involvement in action research projects is recommended as a way to faciliate such extension of professional knowledge. Top

Üzeyir Ok - Individual Modernity and Religiosity in Turkey

Modernity as a social phenomenon and current phase of historical development of human civilization emerged from reactions to established and unquestioned social values. In this study modernisation will be taken at the individual or psychological level rather than as a mere sociological theme. One of the main characteristics of individual modernity is regarded as secularization, the wane of the effect of religion in individual life. Depending on the perspectives, whether it brought prosperity or disappointment for humanity, modern institutions have certainly changed societies in many ways. Turkey as an Islamic country has still been experiencing conflicts between modern and traditional religious values whilst struggling towards further development. This is noticed most acutely in individual life.

A research project, on modernity, religiosity and well-being conducted by a research team at Cumhuriyet University and sponsored by the Turkish Research Institute, TUBITAK, aims to investigate links between modern values such as individuality, individual efficacy, openness to new experiences, readiness for change, planned life, democratic attitude, rationality and so on, and religious values such as conventional religiosity, religious conflict, religious openness and other related value dimensions. At present data is being collected from a targeted sample of 3000 individuals. The research will have implications for religious education in state schools and for the praxis of Muslim clergy. It is hoped that the process of data collection and subsequent data analysis will be completed by the end of 2011. The findings of this research will be presented at the ISREV 2012 seminar in Turku, Finland. Top

Bernadette Eyewan Okure - Religious Education: An organizing principle in what graduates of St. Augustine’s College, Lagos Nigeria do?

Religious Studies, offered as Christian Religious Studies and Islamic Religious Studies, the original vision of the founding fathers and mothers, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria and the Society of the Holy Child Jesus respectively, was neglected in the Nigerian school and college curriculum. During the 2006/7 academic year, academics, including the Provost, and some final year students at St. Augustine’s College, an accredited B.Ed. Lagos campus of the University of Ibadan constituted an Association called ASORS (Association of Students of Religious Studies). Together they demanded that Religious Studies be reintroduced into the Institution’s Curriculum as a core course for every student. They argued that RE consisting of CRS and IRS in the radically changing, complex Nigerian context, was not only crucial in the education and training of teachers but indispensible. They contended that if religion is removed from the training of educators you raise up educated criminals. The result of their struggle raised critical awareness and succeeded in reinstating RE as a core course for all students. This paper will deal with the outcome of a study conducted among graduates of St. Augustine’s College who studied RE after the above change and the effect it has on these graduates. It will broach the question whether Religious Education, the core course of St. Augustine’s College, Lagos, Nigeria, is a driving principle in what the graduates do after completing their studies and, if so, how? Top

Hideko Omori - Religious Education for Women in Japanese Modernization: Jinzo Naruse and the times

The purpose of this article is to clarify the historical significance of religious education for women in Japanese modernization, through examination of Jinzo Naruse’s (1859-1919) views regarding religious education, within the context of national policy on religion and education. I will present how he tried to

improve the miserable status of women in Japanese families and got through national controls to establish the higher education for women with their own belief by comparing his publications and social actions with those of contemporary Christians in Japan.

During the stage of Japanese Westernization, missionary work and education made progress hand-in-hand. In Women’s Duty (1881), Naruse, who was involved in the Christian girls’ school, positioned women as the foundation of the country, recognizing the genuine worth of women, gifted with spirituality. However, due to reactionary forces, an upsurge of nationalism occurred in the 1890’s. Religious education, whether in public or private schools, was prohibited by Educational Decree No. 12, issued in 1899. Naruse’s Women’s Education (1896) rejected having institutions tied to the Christian church. The resolution that most Japanese Christians chose to keep the girls’ schools Christian, not legalized, was different from Naruse’s vision for women’s higher education. As times changed from a strict separation between religion and education to a more cooperative relationship, Naruse discussed his views on nurturing one’s belief with public officers, scholars, religionists, and others, where he considered the formation of the whole person, united with the universe, a priority over all other objectives in his spiritual education. Top

Christina Osbeck - To appropriate language of “Being in the World” - Teaching and learning in RE and Social Studies for 12 year old children in Sweden

The paper reports findings from an ongoing RE research project with three Swedish school classes in grade six (pupils 12 years of age) located in different schools and areas. The work of these school classes in “social studies”, a knowledge area with four subjects included of which RE is one, is followed one school year. A sort of “pre test-post test design” is used as one part of the study besides the main ethnographic field work with interviews of the teachers and pupils as well as observations of their interactions and analyses of documents.

The aim of the study is to describe what some pupils during grade six learn in the area of social studies, with special focus at RE, and how this learning is related to potential learning, collectively constructed meaning during lessons. The learnings of the children are paid attention to as language of societal aspects of existence, the “being in the world”.

The paper exposes findings from the pre test and some of the field work. Focal points of the analyses concern the three different classrooms as discursive practices and the different kinds of potential learning that these three milieus shape, their communicative activities of RE lessons and the kind of language and concepts that are offered and expected in these milieus. These kinds of socio-cultural teaching and learning descriptions are related to differences among the three school classes concerning their results on the pre tests. Top

Anthony M. Ozele - Crossroads at the Niger: Contextual Challenges of Interreligious Collaboration in Nigeria

In the past two years, the Nigeria's militant Islamist group Boko Haram has been fighting to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state. Boko Haram promotes a version of Islam which makes it "haram", or forbidden, for Muslims to take part in any political or social activity associated with western society. This threat has again raised the issue of Interreligious collaboration in Nigeria, putting the religious and political leadership at crossroads. Communities of faith are being urged to fashion initiatives that address social issues of common concern, a move that challenges the principles and methods of interreligious collaboration. The need for religious leaders, and educators to promote co-operation among diverse communities of faith has never been greater.

This study examines philosophical, and historical foundations, as well as contemporary challenges of Interreligious collaboration in Africa's largest nation. The aim is to initiate a platform for religious education which goals include: 1. Preventing the manipulation of religious principles for political purposes. 2. Preventing the manipulation of political power for religious purposes. 3. Increasing tolerance, respect, and co-operation among different religious organizations. 4. Identifying and promoting spiritual values shared by religious traditions.

The attainment of these goals requires a contextual analysis to consider the role and character of religion in the society, the constraints of government policies regarding religion, the impact of secularization on the society, and other relevant factors. Top

Heon-Wook Park - Education for Morality and Religion in Japan: Past and Present

During the Meiji Restoration Era (1867-1911) which speeded cultural enlightenment, there was one person who exercised leadership in the educational and political field - Inazo Nitobe. He was the son of a Morioka clan samurai and became a Quaker during his stay in the United States. Later, he was active as the Secretary-General of the United Nations at home and abroad.

In 1899, Nitobe wrote “Bushi-Do” (The Samurai Soul of Japan) in English, which quickly became a bestseller in the world. There was no religious instruction in Japanese schools. A distinguished Belgian jurist, Laveleye asked him in astonishment, “No religion! How do you impart moral education?” Laveleye must have wondered how people in Japan learned good moral behavior. Nitobe could offer no immediate answer. But later, he found that it was Bushido that breathed morals into his soul. In the book, he interprets Bushido morals biblically and integrates them with Christian morals.

Today, although the samurai soul of Japan and its moral notion are only a past spiritual tradition, schools and families in democratic societies still seem to push forward to “teaching morals without religion.” Why is this so? After pointing out two historical reasons for it, I try to present a direction for a religiously founded new morality which may relieve today’s corrupt loss of morals. For presenting the direction, I received a good suggestion from Tanaka Kotaro’s view of education related to religion and morality, who was an influential pedagogue as the pupil of Nitobe and who authored two significant works, “Education and Authority” (1946) and “Theory of the Fundamental Law of Education” (1961). Top

Glynis Parker - Respecting history and remembrance in Religion Education Research: What has happened to traditional African culture, rituals and religious practices in modern-day South Africa?

In 1488 when the Portuguese navigator Bartholomeu Diaz erected a limestone pillar and cross at the Cape of Good Hope, it signaled the arrival of a soon-to-be dominant Christianity. Over the next few centuries, European missionaries from countries such as Holland, Britain, France, and Germany arrived in South Africa.

With the colonization of South Africa, the colonists denigrated black culture, and government officials relying in part on the influence of the missionaries to convince the black people of the validity of European customs and values. In the 1830’s and 1840’s, for example, British officials in the Eastern Cape tried to eliminate the Xhosa practice of Lobola, which was central to the group’s social organization.

As black people have become more urbanized and westernized aspects of their traditional culture and religious practices have fallen away.

Where does this leave Tradition African culture, rituals and religion practices? In relation to history and remembrance, must they be remembered and revived? Is there a place for them in the new democratic South Africa?

Tentative answers to these and other questions will be given, based on a theoretical and empirical study that was recently done. The paper will report on the formulation of the conceptual-theoretical framework on which an empirical investigation into current opinions about traditional practices, particularly Lobola, among the black population of South Africa, was based. The paper will contain the results of an interpretive and hermeneutic processing of the findings for the purpose of drawing meaning from them for modern day (South) Africans. Top

Stephen Parker (with Rob Freathy) - The Christian Education Movement (1964-1980)

The Christian Education Movement, founded in 1964 when the Institute of Christian Education (founded 1931) and the Student Christian Movement in Schools (founded 1943) amalgamated to form the new association. The CEM was supported by the British churches and the local education authorities and its aims were to resource religious education in schools, as well as providing consultancy and professional development for teachers.

Utilizing the CEM archive, and using historical methodology, this paper will trace the history of the CEM through its formative years, highlighting the particular issues and challenges faced by the new society. Secondly, comment will be made upon the movement’s work during a period in which multi-faith RE

emerged in England, examining how the organization positioned itself in relation to developments; how it lobbied for and supported change; and what activities and resources it deployed in support of newly emerging pedagogy and practice. Thirdly, the paper will consider the part played by Learning for Living (later the British Journal of Religious Education), the organization’s journal, in shaping the ideological landscape of the new RE, by an overview of journal content during this time.

We will argue that developing an understanding of how the economic, intellectual and organizational resources of one key movement in English RE were deployed during a formative period in RE history aids not only our understanding of RE’s past, but may well provides insight into any planned-for future for the subject. Top

Manfred L Pirner - ‘Translation’ as fundamental category for a public theology of education: Historical and systematic perspectives

In a pluralistic post-secular society contributions by religions to public discourse in general and to public education in particular have new chances. This situation requires from theology increased competences in translating religious language games into secular and educational languages. However, post-colonial translation theory makes it clear that translation can never be only a one-way process. In a historical perspective, Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel have developed different types of translating a theological heritage into philosophical language that have been taken up in the recent discussion triggered by Juergen Habermas’ 2001 peace-prize speech.

This discussion sheds new light on theological perspectives of education as well as on religious education. One of the core tasks of (a public) theology and (public) religious education can be defined as disclosing the benefits of a certain religious perspective to the ‘religiously unmusical’ (Habermas) or to people from other religions without just dissolving it into secularity or into a kind of pan-religious passe-partout. On the other hand, a “fair society” (Rawls) would also expect from secular citizens to remain sensitive towards religious language games and their potential for the common good. The same goes vice versa for citizens from different religions. In the field of public education this kind of ‘translational’ exchange and sensitivity can be promoted. Schools and particularly religious education in them can be regarded as places in which the potential for dialogue, peace and humanity of the various religions and non-religious world views can be tested. Top

Annebelle Pithan - RE in Nazi-Germany - Protestant Work with girls and young women

This paper presents the results of a research project conducted on the situation of religious education in a specific period of German RE history. The starting point is that youth work during the Nazi-regime (1933-45) was controlled by Nazi structures. In spite of repression and war Protestant youth work activities could continue in a limited way. While RE in school was mostly forbidden, RE in a church context was almost the only way to reach young people. Structures and organizations normally were gendered by male and female.

The paper will focus on the situation of RE during this particular period with special emphasis on the impact for girls and young women. It will describe the general situation of Protestant youth work 1932/33 (“coordination”/Gleichschaltung) and the fact that the Protestant associations for young women (Reichsverband Evangelischer Weiblicher Jugend) avoided – in contrast with most of the Christian youth associations - their integration in the HJ (Hitler Youth). The main part of the paper will explore structures and acticities in a repressive regime and will give insights into the theological and pedagogical background. In order to give concrete examples it will concentrate on the regional association of Lower Saxonia.

The present research study is based mainly on a content analysis of documents (letters, programms etc.) gathered from different archives, on the interpretation of interviews with contemporary witnesses and on other relevant literature. Top

Ferdinand Jacobus Potgieter - Spirituality as educative (thres)holding experience: from individuality to purposeful and peaceful coexistence

The purpose of this paper is to report back about the author’s research findings with regards to the problem of spirituality in (and) education. As part of an international team of researchers (South Africans, Dutch, Hungarians and Slovakians), he not only collaborated in research about religion in (and) education, the South African Policy on Religion and Education, social justice and social capital building, but focused

specifically on the manifestations of spirituality in education and the ramifications thereof. The central thrust of the paper is to present findings with regard to the meanings of the term “spirituality” as well as with respect to how spirituality as an entity manifests itself in the lives of educators and educands (i.e. those being educated). The research has been taking place in the context of a project that has run for more than five years under the title Spirituality, religion and education (discipline: Religion and Religion Education). The main thrust of the paper will be to show that we have to approach the problem of religion in (and) education in less traditional ways, but rather in terms of the spirituality that lies at the root or core of all religions. One of the ramifications of this approach is that nation building and an understanding of a person’s civil duties and responsibilities could flow from an understanding that all people are at heart spiritual beings, whether they regard themselves as “religious” or not in the traditional sense. Top

Margaret Myrtle Power - The Roots of Memory and the Space of Religious Education in Catholic Schools in Canada

With the essential eye of memory, this paper examines the contributions of two outstanding twentieth century women pioneers in religious education from the perspective of their lasting marks on Catholic school communities in Canada, teaching and learning processes, and the development of religious education curriculum.

Tracing the contours of Francoise-Darcy Berube's and Christianne Brusselmans' pedagogical visions, this investigation will be framed along three critical fronts: 1) the forging of new frameworks in education and theology that brought fresh layers of interpretation to old and routinized understandings of curriculum structure, context, and content; 2) the envisioning and implementation of a religious education methodology that inspired a new consciousness about the relational, social, cultural, and aesthetic dimensions of educational encounter; and, 3) the shaping of a hospitable and dialogical curriculum space that connected with human existence and experience, and fostered the exploration of new openings and possibilities for being-in-the-world.

Historically, the paper illuminates the paradigmatic shift in the vision of and approach to religious education over the past fifty years, along with its perspectives of renewal. The instrumental work of Berube and Brusselmans in bringing this renewal to bear in Canada is of critical importance in the investigation, and in particular, their efforts in moving toward a more inclusive, comprehensive, and holistic understanding of curriculum and what it means to teach. The paper shows that the hermeneutical stance undergirding religious education resources in Canada today continues to be built upon the visionary horizon of those who have walked before us in freedom. Top

Alice Pyke - Christian affiliation, Christian practice, and attitudes to religious diversity: a quantitative analysis among 13- to 15- year-old female students

Within the context of Professor Robert Jackson’s Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity Project at the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit, this study examines the association between self-assigned Christian affiliation, self-reported Christian practice and attitudes toward religious diversity among a sample of 3,020 13- to 15-year-old students attending schools in England, Northern Ireland and Wales. The two hypotheses being tested are concerned with understanding the religious and social significance of nominal Christian identity (the young people who describe themselves as Christians but who never attend church) and with understanding the influence of church attendance on shaping attitudes to other faith traditions (especially if churches teach the exclusivity claims of Christianity). Specifically the two hypotheses are that nominal Christians do not differ in their attitudes toward religious diversity from unaffiliated students, and that church attendance leads to less tolerance of other religious groups. The data largely support the first hypothesis but not the second. On key issues (like attitudes of acceptance toward the Islamic burka) nominal Christians do not differ from the unaffiliated. Churchgoing Christians are more interested in and more tolerant of other religious groups. The data also draw attention to the perceived importance of religious education in schools for shaping views on religion and on religious diversity among unaffiliated students, nominal Christians and practising Christians. Both the Christian churches and religious education in school seem to have an important part to play in nurturing a tolerant and inclusive religiously diverse society in the UK. Top

Lynn Revell - Orientalism and Religious Education

A dominant narrative in English Religious Education is that in the post-war period we have moved from a form of RE that was confessional and ignorant of world religions other than Christianity towards a model

that is objective and which considers all religions equally. This paper uses the example of Islam as it is appears in text books over a forty year period and argues that this analysis is flawed because it relies on a process of ‘reading history backwards’ and because it ignores the nature of Orientalism in education.

An analysis of 80 RE text books on Islam shows that the assumptions that underpin the representation of religion in education have changed dramatically since the beginnings of modern RE. A historical analysis also suggests that rather than demonstrating a linier narrative where by Islam has been represented more liberally or objectively today than in the past it is the case that the representation of Islam is subject to factors that are located in specific historical periods. The analysis rests on the work of Samir Amin and his critique of mainstream Orientalism. He argues that the essentialist nature of Orientalism means that both the historical and contemporary significance of the presentation of Islam is often lost and that a more complete analysis demands more attention to the uniqueness and specificity of historical events and trends. Top

Yisrael Rich - Student Identity Development in Orthodox Jewish Secondary Schools

This research examined whether Orthodox Jewish high schools perceived by students as endowed with identity promoting features contribute to student identity development. Based on principles of Identity Education (Schachter & Rich, in press) and cognizant of context as critical to educational practice, we generated a theoretical model predicting that when students perceive their teachers as caring, positive role models and their school as striving to cultivate the whole student, they will engage in internal and external exploration and their confidence will grow regarding their ability to cope successfully with future challenges and to develop healthy identities. Furthermore, we predicted that these effects are mediated by student perceptions of a positive school social climate, of experiencing meaningful academic studies and a school-wide affirmation of their agency and exploration. Participants were 2787 male and female students from the Jewish public-religious sector in Israel in 152 classes of 25 schools, grades 9-12. Results indicated that: a) schools characterized by students as having robust identity promoting characteristics indeed contributed to student confidence in their future identity development and to self and environmental exploration; b) students perceived teachers as positive role models as a more powerful variable than teacher caring in predicting positive student identity development; c) students experiencing their studies as meaningful was a particularly critical variable contributing to student confidence in future identity development and to their exploration d) students' identity growth needs change over their secondary school career. The relevance of faith-based schooling in shaping student identity will be the focus of the discussion. Top

Norman Richardson - Carefully Taught? Teacher and Student Teacher Perspectives on Religious Diversity in Northern Ireland’s Primary Schools.

Evidence from various sources has suggested that children’s attitudes in relation to cultural, ethnic and religious differences are shaped during the pre-school years. In Northern Ireland the work of Connolly and others has suggested that the development of sectarianism and racism can be checked by interventions from parents and teachers which encourage positive awareness and understanding of diversity.

Religious Education in tradional societies such as Northern Ireland, however, may often focus on more basic nurture-related teaching for children of primary school age, sometimes specifically denominational or confessional (as in faith schools), but sometimes more generally ‘faith-related’ (as, for example, in the emphasis on ‘simple Bible teaching’ and/or Christian values). Much of the focus on teaching religious diversity has been on the post-primary adolescent years, but it will be argued in this paper that this is far too late.

Drawing on recent research evidence in Northern Ireland from serving teachers at the primary school level and also on studies of the attitudes and experiences of student teachers, a case will be made for a much stronger and more careful emphasis on the place of religious diversity in primary school RE. It will be suggested that the religious education of young children in publicly funded schools should reflect the rigour and inclusive standards of other areas of the curriculum and that such an approach can contribute significantly to social and community cohesion. Top

Mandy Robbins - Religious beliefs and public life: an empirical enquiry among Christian, Muslim and religiously-affiliated adolescent males in England and Wales

This paper represents part of an international study within empirical theology exploring young peoples’ attitude toward human rights and religion led by Professor Hans van der Ven (Radbond University,

Nijmegen). A questionnaire was administered to young people across eighteen different countries, including Belgium, Germany, India, Nigeria, Palestine, and Turkey. This paper focuses on the sample collected in England and Wales. A total of 547 adolescent males between 16 and 18 years of age completed the ten page questionnaire. This paper focuses on the questions related to the religious beliefs and the impact of religion on matters of public concern among the sample of 547 males in England and Wales. The analysis distinguishes between three religious groups: Christian, Muslim and non-affiliated. The attitudes of these three groups are compared with regard to religious themes and the impact of religion on public life. The analysis identified seven religious themes, concerning the Bible, the Qur’an, Jesus, Muhammad, mystical experience, experiencing God, and the theology of religions. The analysis identified nine themes connected with the impact of religion on public life, concerning Jesus and justice, Muhammad and justice, religion and personal life, religion and public life, religion and the state, social rights, the rights of women and children, sex and morality, and abortion. The data highlighted some areas of commonality and some areas of strong divergence between the three groups distinguished on the basis of self-identified religious affiliation. These findings are discussed in relation to previous research findings on male Muslim youth in England and Wales. Top

Martin Rothgangel - From “Catechetical Theology” to “Religious Educational Theology”.

In his dogmatics Johann Friedrich König (1619-1664) distinguishes between a “theologia acroamatica” and a “theologia catechetica”: The acroamatic theology is the theology of doctors and preachers; one could also say this is the systematic, respectively the dogmatic theology. In comparison to the acroamatic theology the catechetic theology is described as “raw“ theology which can be found in all Christians. Occasionally it is also characterised as “milky theology“, or “children theology“ in allusion to 1 Cor. 3:2. On this background it is no surprise that in his dogmatics König concentrates entirely on the acroamatic theology. However other authors like Johann Franz Buddeus (1667-1729) take the cause of catechetic theology more seriously. It even exists in its own literary genre.

Currently religious education more or less is the heir to catechetics. Nevertheless it is crucial for the theory formation in religious education that the rich traditions of catechetics remain in focus and that rewarding aspects are integrated into its theoretical structure. The question is, whether and in what respect the theologia catechetica is a commemorable part of catechetics. A special question will be, whether or what the so called “children theology” and the “youth theology” can learn from the senior catechetic theology.

One thesis is that the “theologia catechetica” is a strong reminder that empiric research work on religious education has to undergo theological reflection.

However in consideration that over time conditions have changed, in religious educational respect we will not speak of a catechetic theology but of a religious educational theology. Top

Cornelia Roux - Respecting History and Remembrance in Religious Education Research: Research In Religion Education: A Circle of Trust

The democratic election 18 years ago in South Africa was for many of us the dawn of a new and just civil society. There were new developments in research and the prospects of serving a society where respect for diversity will be honoured were not questionable. Eighteen years later, including 14 reports on empirical research projects, we are still deliberating on the position of religion in education. Research projects on perceptions (of learners, teachers, and parents), the social construct of religious schools/societies, and the impact of multireligious curricula and teacher training gave valuable inputs on policy development and theoretical inputs for a just society. Understanding and respecting different religions in schools does not necessarily embrace diversity wholeheartedly. In 2010 an international SANPAD project commenced on exploring the experiences of young girls on religious and cultural practices in their traditional communities. Results thus far (2010/2011) indicated that there is a dichotomy between respect for diversity (religious and cultural practices and its history) and the violations of human rights and its implications for a socially just society. The question was: How does one develop a circle of trust between researchers, the guardians of the religious practices and the receivers (young girls) of these practices?

This aim of this paper is to: • Highlight the choice for narratives as a research method in the initial phase. • Argue from a theoretical point of view and illustrated with selected examples, the importance of a position of “circle of trust” in research on social justice and religious practices. • Discuss the researchers’ choice for their position of “caring” in the research project. Top

Sturla Sagberg - Religious education as culture education

Religion in public education and care (schools and kindergartens) has increasingly found its raison d’être as cultural heritage, open to interpretation, rather than induction into sets of religious beliefs. The subject of religious education, accordingly, conforms to a number of diverse forms. Some subject variations emphasise morality, e.g. peace education (Mwesigwa, 2009; Schmidt & Barnes, 2009). Others focus on the meaning of worldview (Kozhuharov, 2010). Still others point to the purpose of giving children spiritual education (e.g. De Souza, 2003, and the whole movement of spirituality research). Across the different varieties of religious education there seems, however, to be a recognition of the need for religious literacy, intercultural education and values orientation (Edelbrock, Schweitzer, & Biesinger, 2010; Schreiner, 2007; Schulte & Wiedenroth-Gabler, 2003). Others argue for the need to help children in their quest towards existential truth (Schroeder, 2010) – a quest that by definition goes beyond cultural heritage.

This paper is a philosophical discussion of religion as culture with respect to the limits and possibilities of religious education. Is it possible to avoid secularist reductionism and religious absolutism? Studies of religion and secularism are used in a theoretical backdrop (Habermas, 2008 (2005); Taylor, 2007). It is claimed that understanding religion does not necessarily mean to distinguish between religion and culture, but to see the meaning of transcendence in culture. The immanent frame of understanding that surrounds contemporary education can be closed or open. Top

Thomas Schlag - Holocaust remembrance and human rights education: Visual trust and responsibility as a task for religious and interreligious education - in Switzerland and beyond

What do young people in Switzerland know about the Holocaust, where do they acquire their knowledge from, how is this knowledge connected with their understanding of human rights and which implications should this have for religious and interreligious education in the Swiss educational context?

Given the country’s specific history, for decades the Holocaust was not a matter of great interest in Swiss schools, or a topic that pupils often learned about as a part of their own history. Recently, however, sensitivity about historical incidents and the fact of Swiss history as part of European history has increased. Holocaust remembrance has also become more important in the context of Swiss state institutional policy and non-governmental initiatives. On the other hand, religious education as a school subject is in a very deep and dynamic process of change and the search for its future profile and contribution for coping with the society’s open questions is discussed intensely.

This paper includes on the basis of the current political situation of activities related to Holocaust remembrance, an overview of Swiss educational policies in this field, displays data of a current survey on Holocaust remembrance and the understanding of human rights and considers possible consequences and tasks for religious education as interreligious education. The presentation shall include reflections on the didactical challenge of combining “learning from religion” with an affective and emotional approach to one’s own history and the importance of individual empathy for the other within the multireligious and multicultural context. Finally some guidelines for a fruitful cooperation between human rights education and religious education in the didactical perspective of “visual trust and responsibility” will be presented and discussed. Top

Peter Schreiner - A Protestant Perspective on Religious Diversity in Education in Europe

The paper investigates Protestant positions regarding the role of the public school, the management of religious diversity, and in particular the problem of teaching religion in a European context. The mentioned issues will be discussed by providing some historical insights from the time of Reformation and the post-Reformation period. Aspects of the relationship between Protestantism and education today will be presented in relation to the question on how education and diversity is dealt with from a Protestant perspective. This includes examples from the Protestant churches in Germany and also current activities of the Conference of European Churches and the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe.

The concept of a ‘Europeanisation of education’ will be used to analyse a complex interplay of the European, national and regional level in the discourse of education and European Education Policy. As a result of content analyses and discourse analysis of selected documents of the Council of Europe and the European Union a paradigm shift in education policy of the European Union after Lisbon 2000 will be presented as well as a change in the perception of religion and the religious dimension of intercultural dialogue of the Council of Europe. The outcomes of a content analysis of documents and related

discourses can be used to identify common concerns as well as different perspectives that encourage a dialogue between religious communities and the European institutions, including the Protestant perspective, about how religious diversity in education can be dealt with in a sustainable perspective. Top

Bernd Schröder - RE and mission - historical links and present challenges

My paper will focus on an apparently marginal subject which nevertheless might be worth to be discussed by an international auditory: Beginning with the 17th century, organized Christian mission has often been including strong educational and especially religious educational efforts. The “Societas Iesu” may be seen as the most famous example of joining witness and education, but not as the only one.

Aims, contents and methodological shaping of these (religious) educational efforts were inclined to different influential factors: f.ex.to those RE approaches implemented and appreciated in the country of origin of missionary educationalists as well as on their understanding of “mission”.

Remembering this way of (ab-)using RE seems to be an important task not only for educationalists dealing with theories of RE who should be historically enlightened but as well for pupils. At least at high school level, reflecting former ways of RE ( in this case: in the so-called third world) might be a suitable occasion to think about appropriate principals and intentions of RE.

But priority has the reconstuction of this forgotten aspect of RE history: My paper will outline the subject regarding German “missionary” engagement in Palestine from 19th century until nowadays. It will discern different patterns of “RE” in past and presence: from a philantropic-paternal one to a contextual one.

Thus, reconstructing the history (of) and remembering missionary RE confronts with forgotten aspects of the inculturation of RE and its – sometimes unexpectable – historical outcomes. This must be understood as the necessary basis for symmetric, critical communication between Religious educationalists within a globalized world. Top

Ulrich Schwab - Having or losing rememberance – is history the source of a new Protestant identity?

Beginning with the last supper rememberance had been a prominent part of the history of christian identity. The remembering culture of Emperor Konstantin in Byzanz or Charles the Great in Middle Europe give us an insight of the political dimension of rememberance even in religious affairs. For protestants Martin Luther had become immediately after he died the middle of rememberance. Becoming such a strong tradition in later years some protestants had believed that the starting point of christian history was in 1517! As the german Kaiser William II had been protestant, for a lot of people the glory of the gospel had been similar to the glory of the “Reich”. And the heritage of the period of Hitler destroyed official political rememberance in Germany in many ways.

The paper deals with rememberance as a protestant problem in Germany. What do german young people remember of protestant history today? Maybe not too much. What are religious educator try to teach in the field of protestant rememberance. How is Martin Luther seen today in RE and how should he be in mind according to teachers and ministers? Is there still a hidden political dimension remembering the protestant history? And if not, is it possible to have a protestant identity without political elements? What’s about the protestant visions of a good life in future? And which of them would be acceptable today and helpful for ecumenical and interreligious dialogue?

A critical paper to a critical problem of at once having and loosing rememberance in RE. Top

Friedrich Schweitzer - Children and Religious Difference: Construction – Deconstruction - Co-Construction

Children’s understandings of religious differences have not received much attention in earlier research. While developmental psychologist David Elkind offered insights into this field in a series of articles published in the 1960s and while Robert Jackson & Eleanor Nesbitt suggested an ethnographic approach to related questions in respect to Hindu children in Britain in the 1990s, very few researchers have actually tried to find out more about this topic that can be considered to be of crucial importance for religious education.

This paper is based on a recent qualitative interview study with 140 children in Germany. Most of the children either had a Christian or Muslim background but children with different backgrounds were also represented in the sample. The main interest of the study was to find out more about if and how young children perceive religious differences, what sense they make of them and how they deal with them in dialogue with other children and adults. The paper presents some of the main results of this study. The focus will be on three different perspectives for interpreting the children’s views: construction, deconstruction, and co-construction.These perspectives can function as interpretive tools and can be applied to the the interview material. At the same time, they can be seen as starting points for different approaches in the field of inter-religious education. Consequently, the paper draws on empirical insights as well as on theoretical analysis and perspectives. Top

Makoto Shibanuma - Historical Survey of the Religious Education in Japanese Public School

Japanese Fundamental Law of Education was revised in 2006. The article of religious education was changed as below: The original article 9-1of 1947 saying that The attitude of religious tolerance and the position of religion in social life shall be valued in education has changed to in the article 15-1, The attitude of religious tolerance, general knowledge regarding religion, and the position of religion in social life shall be valued in education.

The Central Council for Education Report in 2003 accelerated this change as follows : 1. In the midst of globalization, Japan has become an important issue that will be built on harmony with people of different cultures and history. In learning the culture of other countries and regions, it is necessary to have the religious knowledge behind it. 2. In lowering of consciousness in the society norms, moral education is essential. Religious sentiment is very important for the formation of character. Various school activities related to religious sentiments are promoted in moral education.

We need technical studies concerning curriculum and method to enhance religious education.

The revision of the former law to the present law appears to be minor change, but it has provoked controversy in educational society at large. This controversial situation can be traced back to long before 2006.

The presentation aims to survey the historical controversy on the treatment of religious education in public school by tracing back to the historical backgrounds of Japanese religious policy and tradition which nurtured religious sentiment of Japanese people. Top

Shan Robyn Simmonds - The now generation of girls: (Re)respecting gender equity in religion and culture?

This paper focuses on gender equity from two departure points. Firstly, girls’ perspectives of what gender equity could have denoted when their mothers and grandmothers were their age. Secondly, how girls interpret gender equity in their own generation. A small scale, in-depth qualitative study was done with three thirteen to fifteen year old girls as the pilot study for a larger PhD research project. The pilot study took place in the urban town of Potchefstroom in the North-West Province, South Africa. From the findings it became evident that the girls of the now generation regard gender equity as significant and displayed this with passion. However their perceptions of gender equity are contradictory as they mostly advocate for sameness and equality while also recognising the need to embrace gender difference. A theoretical exploration of this phenomenon is presented, and the implications for religion education research are explored. These implications are three fold. Firstly, considering what gender equity advocates in South African religion education curricula at present and if it is applicable to the concerns expressed by the now generation. Secondly, how the perception of gender equity has changed from one generation to another is relevant to contemplate how gender equity is evolving within religion and culture. Such a stance is primary to religion education research as it engages with forces which cause change within religions and cultures. Thirdly, reflecting on how religion education is facilitating the contradictory views of gender sameness and difference has become significant for multireligious and multicultural classrooms. Top

Geir Skeie - Memory and heritage in history education and in religious education: a cross-disciplinary investigation into social sciences and humanities education

Narrative perspectives related to memory and identity plays a role in both history education and religious education and this is displayed in recent research in these fields. Discussions about national and cultural heritage, identity and democracy are present in both fields but with interesting differences in emphasis. In religious education the relationship between collective memory and individual identity can be controversal and result in a strict separation between knowledge and formation as educational aims. In history education, on the other hand, a link betweeen the collective and the individual narrative seems to be more readily exploited as an educational resource. In spite of these overlapping and crosscutting concerns, there has been little crossdisciplinary discussion. This may be explained both by developents in school education and at the university level. However, the establishment of a Nordic crossdisciplinary journal for education in social sciences and the humanities may be a sign that there is a potential for more crossdisciplinary reflection. The paper addresses both similarities and differences in the way history education and religous education has addressed some of the the issues mentioned above, taking examples mainly from Sweden and Norway. A particular interest is related to how these different disciplines deal with aims of education articulated as a triangular relationship between subject area knowledge, personal development and democratic citizenship. This raises questions about the education in social sciences and humanities in general and whether religious education may benefit from a closer cooperation with other disciplines. Top

Karin Sporre - Human dignity in global citizenship education (GCE). A critical exploration and analysis of GCE texts.

What notions of human dignity exist, and how is power in relationships treated in texts arguing for Global citizenship education (GCE)? GCE forms an expanding educational area and the question can be raised: What values are fostered there?

The study focuses on what kind of concept of human dignity that operates in contemporary GCE texts. A particular focus will be given to power in relationships. This is motivated by observations from earlier studies (Sporre, 1999; Young, 1990) showing that people under oppression and domination are bereaved of their human dignity, and hindered in self-actualization and self-determination. The importance of this for a concept of human dignity is supported from within gender theory and contemporary South African discussions on human dignity. Those discussions and gender theory on intersectionality (cf. Crenshaw 1994; Lykke 2008) form part of the background.

Texts for analysis are: Arnot, Madeleine: Educating the gendered citizen: sociological engagements with national and global political agendas (2009); Banks, James A. ed. Diversity and citizenship education: global perspectives (2007); Noddings, Nel ed. Educating citizens for global awareness (2004); Peters, Michael A., Britton, Alan & Blee, Harry eds. Global citizenship education : philosophy, theory and pedagogy (2008). Additional/other texts might be chosen.

The tentative understanding of human dignity above implies a critique of a traditional concept of human dignity (cf. Kant). Here dependency in relationships is a presupposition, opening up for critical perspectives from e.g. gender and postcolonial theory. The method chosen is content analysis of texts. The field is educational philosophy. Top

Julian Stern - The Influence of Research-Oriented Professional Development on RE Teachers: A Case Study of the Westhill Seminars

Since 2004, there has been a series of seminars, sponsored by the Westhill Endowment Trust, bringing together researchers, advisors and teachers working on religious education in UK schools and internationally. These seminars, now moving in to their fourth series, have been intended to develop the relationship between researchers and religious education professionals. A number of publications have described these meetings (Johnson and Stern 2005, Stern 2006). To date, there have been eleven seminars, each lasting two or three days, and involving a total of roughly 160 participants, more than half of whom were classroom teachers. Each event has been evaluated in the usual way. However, the longer-term influence on the profession is not yet understood, and there has been no evaluation of the influence of this work on school pupils.

The research questions will focus on what the seminars influenced (the professionals, the curriculum, the school, the pupils, etc.), which aspects of the seminars were influential (particular presentations or activities, developing a ‘learning community’ beyond the presentations, etc.), and what evidence there is of influence.

Research on the influence of research and/or professional development on religious education has been relatively limited (as noted in Grimmitt 2000, one of the stimuli for the Westhill seminars), making this research distinctive and original. The research involves an online survey, and selected telephone interviews. Analysis follows relatively conventional qualitative research approaches. Top

Heinz Streib & Constantin Klein - Violence, Xenophobia, Religion and the Readiness for Mediation in German Schools

Religious educators are very often among the first professionals in the schools that are called in situations of escalating violence and xenophobia. Especially if such conflicts have an inter-religious connotation or background, the religious educators should be good-enough experts about the other religion, but also about the role that (different versions of) religion play in promoting resp. preventing prejudice and deviance. Could we base such expertise on empirical evidence?

Drawing together quantitative data – including most recent data – from research projects that we have conducted in our Bielefeld Research Center for Biographical Studies in Contemporary Religion on youth violence. xenophobia, adolescent religion, and mediation in schools, the paper sheds light on the dimension that is not well investigated in previous studies on adolescents (at least in the research on adolescents in Germany): the differential role of religiosity and religious cognition. Thereby our data allow for the special attention to the differences in religious self-understanding, religious cognition and religious styles. Our results thus are not only a contribution to the research on German adolescents, and thereby attending to a lost dimension, but they also address questions of the research design in this domain. This means that our results need to be discussed also with reference to previous research on the relation of religion and prejudice / religion and deviance in other cultures, especially the USA (where most of research in this domain has been conducted). Top

Howard Summers - Respecting History and Remembrance in Religious Education Research: A glimpse into present-day South Africa

Apartheid has ended and a black majority government has been in power in South Africa since 1994. Some years prior to that, the battle for the soul of the church raged. On the one hand was the Dutch Reformed Church which, on biblical grounds, supported the racist ideology of the Nationalist government. On the other hand were the liberation theologians bravely denouncing injustice and proclaiming God’s option for the poor.

The Dutch Reformed Church subsequently apologised for its stance on Apartheid and continues to be a powerful force amongst the minority Afrikaner community. The prophetic voice of the liberation theologians appears to have fallen silent, their role seemingly taken over by the secular media.

School-level Religious Education has been reduced to a minor sub-section of a larger subject called Life Orientation which is not surprising because of its tainted past - thanks to its link with the despised Christian National Education.

In the light of the title of this Seminar, many questions arise with regard to the present religious/theological situation in the country which this paper will attempt to answer.   For example: What does respecting history mean in a country which is still divided racially and economically? Does it only mean not repeating the past? What does remembrance mean? Does it imply forgiving and/or forgetting? What was the real agenda of the liberation theologians, option for the poor, or political power? Is the church still relevant? Is she ever anything else, but the hand maiden of the ruling party?

A comparison will be made between the two groups and a conclusion drawn as to whether students who have been exposed to similar, but not necessarily identical Religious Education, differ in their attitudes towards other religions or not. The reasons for any differences will be analysed. Top

Ulrika Svalfors - How to Become an Environmental Moral Subject

What are the prerequisites for environmental moral learning within education for sustainable development? This is the main question for the 2-year interdisciplinary project ”Prerequisites for Environmental Moral

Learning within Education for Sustainable Development: an Interdisciplinary Investigation of Young Swedes Attitudes, Engagement and Actions” at Uppsala University which I am part of.

My task in the project is to examine environmental ethics among young people (18 years old), a task placed within the discipline Systematic Theology and Studies in World Views at Faculty of Theology. This will mainly be realized through studying young peoples views and engagement on the topic as they are expressed in questionnaires and interviews. The plan is to do a value survey which is informed by systematic method, sensitive to world view questions and faith convictions.

What ideals forms young peoples ideas about themselves when it comes to sustainable development? Is there any genealogical identifiable process in history, cultural and/or religious, that the main ideas emerges out of and that makes them intelligible? Which role does different meaning-making categories such as gender and ethnicity play in the normality processes?

These kind of questions will be the starting point of the analysis where theorists like Michel Foucault (discourse theory) and Kimberlé Crenshaw (intersectional perspective) will be used for the methodical approach. The aim of the study is to reveal power structures in ideas of sustainable development among young people in Sweden, to be able to discuss different opinion-makers (including school), normality processes and subject positions. Top

Geoff Teece - John Hick’s Religious Interpretation of Religion: An Unexplored Resource for Religious Educators.

This paper recognises that although the work of John Hick has been widely discussed and critically engaged with in the fields of philosophy of religion and theology, such discussion and engagement has been largely absent in the field of religious education.

Those who have sought to engage with Hick have done so in terms of criticising his pluralist hypothesis in a way that makes erroneous purported links between Hick’s work and the philosophy of religious education. In so doing religious educators have failed to appreciate the possibilities in his work for informing curriculum development in RE.

This paper argues that an understanding of Hick’s religious interpretation of religion, when understood as a second order explanatory framework, provides a significant resource for religious educators who are seeking to argue a case for their subject having a distinctive identity. Such an identity would recognise that religion is best studied by young people in school in terms of its religiousness rather than being a form of citizenship education. Top

Ina ter Avest and Cees Kom - Principals’ Dilemmas, the school’s Christian identity in a pillarized educational system in a post-pillarized society

In the these days, in the Dutch society the pillarized educational system is under attack. Whereas in earlier days practicing the school’s Christian ethos was without saying, in these days principals as well as teachers feelembarrassed from time to time. On the one hand they have the will to respect the history of the Christian identity of their school, on the other hand they feel the need to adapt to present day’s situation in the Netherlands, being a secularized, individualized and multicultural society. An embarrassment resulting from the loss of clear cut answers as they were formulated in ‘the age of pillarization’.

In a two years’ research project we investigate principals’ and parents’ expectations of the Christian school ethos in a post-pillarized society. Interviews and questionnaires we gain insight in the way principals these days create a Christian school ethos, whilst different religious (Christian and Islamic) and non-religious (secularized and Humanistic) family backgrounds are represented in the classrooms.

In our contribution we focus on semi-structured interviews with principals. By close reading these interviews themes pop up. The task of the school and the aims of RE with regard to pupils’ own (religious and secular) world view development appears to be a main theme. From the perspective of psychology and pedagogy of religion this topic is discussed, taking into account the school’s mission statement and the situatedness of the school’s ethos. Top

Phra Nicholas Thanissaro - What makes you not a Buddhist?: A preliminary quantitative survey

This study sets out to establish which Buddhist values contrasted with or were shared by adolescents from an undifferentiated adolescent population. A survey of attitude toward a variety of Buddhist values was fielded in a sample of 369 school pupils aged between 13 and 15 in London. Buddhist values for which attitudes in the sample population were less positive concerned paying homage to the Buddha, the worth of meditation, ordination, Buddhist stories and Nirvana, complete abstinence from drinking alcohol or fishing, the ultimate emptiness and impermanence of the mundane world and looking after one’s parents unasked. Buddhist values shared with those of a religiously undifferentiated population were welfare work, the Law of Karma, care of parents in old age, the subjective nature of happiness, understanding as a basis to belief, friendship and generosity. Further significant differences of attitude toward Buddhism were found in partial correlations with the independent variables of gender, age, religious involvement and religious affiliation. Correlation patterns differed from those previously described in theistic religions. Findings are applied to spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and for the teaching of religious to pupils of no faith adherence. The study recommends that quantitative psychometrics employed to conceptualize Buddhist values by discriminant validity in this study could be extended usefully to establish content validity in the conceptualization of Buddhist identity by further research with specifically Buddhist populations. Top

Valerie Torres - Recuerdos, Multiple Belongings & Traditioning: Respecting History and Remembrance in Religious Education from U.S. Hispanic Perspectives

"Que no se olviden sus raíces [that they not forget their roots]" are the words shared by many Hispanic parents who want to introduce their children to their ethnic heritage. These families making their home in the United States are often engaged in transnational living and negotiating multiple belongings between the U.S. and their countries of origin.

Striving to understand Hispanic families and their lived faith experiences and religious education journey is a complex and challenging process. The U.S. Hispanic presence is rapidly growing and diversifying. Hispanics are the largest and youngest minority group in the nation and account for 50 percent of the population increase (U.S. Census Bureau). Two thirds of the Hispanic population consider themselves to be Roman Catholic and constitute 40 percent of the Catholic population.

Respecting history and remembrance in religious education in a Hispanic context require sensitivity to over twenty ethnicities and particularities. This research builds on the wisdom of U.S. Hispanic theologians and religious educators as well as those with whom I have lived and worked as partners.

Some questions considered include: • How are Hispanic communities engaging in the traditioning process of handing on the faith from generation-to-generation? • How can religious educators invite and challenge families (faith communities) to share their lived faith experiences and traditions as well as critically reflect on those that are not life giving? • How can religious educators affirm and empower family agency and voice in religious education in the home, faith communities and world? Top

John Valk & Mualla Selçuk - An Islamic Worldview: Religion in a Modern, Secular, Democratic State

Modern, secular, and democratic states have the tendency to marginalize religion. That is state policy in Turkey, where secularism dominates the public square. But Turkey is also overwhelmingly Islamic. Today there is an increasing fear both inside and outside the country that a growing, traditional, politicized Islam may undermine the secular republican policies firmly put in place in 1923. Little wonder that Europe is concerned.

But could a more modern Islamic worldview be quite compatible with a modern, secular, and democratic Turkey? What might that modern Islamic worldview look like, and what methodology might be implemented to map it out?

This paper will report on an ongoing and collaborative project at the University of Ankara that is mapping out a modern Islamic worldview that will be vibrant and meaningful for those who seek to be grounded in some Islamic view of the world yet live in a modern state. It will highlight a transdisciplinary worldview approach that incorporates the following five frameworks to describe what such an Islamic worldview might look like: 1) personal/group identity; 2) ultimate/existential questions; 3) religious/cultural dimensions; 4) ontological/epistemological questions; 5) primary/secondary beliefs, values and principles.

The outcome of the project is to create a publication (English and Turkish versions) that will accomplish three goals. One, present a valuable resource for Religious Education teachers. Two, provide a refreshing approach to explore new areas of Islam for modern Muslims. Three, dispel a view in the non-Islamic world that Islam is narrow, fundamentalist, oppressive and at odds with modernity. Top

Johannes L van der Walt - The anatomy of religion: implications for religion in / and education

This paper reports back about the results of the author’s share in a research project entitled Religion, Spirituality and Education (discipline: Religion and Religion Education) that has been running for more than five years and in which researchers from South Africa, the Netherlands, Hungary and Slovakia have been involved. While a number of sub-problems in the research field were researched (e.g. the South African Policy on Religion and Education, the spirituality of young children, the ‘new spirituality’, social capital, social justice and human rights issues), the author devoted most of his attention to an understanding of the anatomy of religion to enable him and his co-researchers to not vaguely refer to “religion” but to be very precise when referring to the different facets of religion as well as to the various ways in which religion manifests in daily life. This paper takes the shape of a meta-analysis of recent publications from his pen, and will have a two-fold thrust / purpose: (a) to show why it would be prudent for parents and other educators of very young children to immerse the children in the precepts of their own religion, i.e. the religion preferred by their parents / custodians, and (b) why the author has been campaigning for the inclusion of “sectarian” / “confessional” religious (religion) education in schools as a conditio sine qua non for effective nation building / civic education. Top

Jon Magne Vestol - Textbooks and Students’ Interpretation of Religious Text.

Based on a qualitative study of Norwegian secondary school textbooks this paper presents and discusses how textbooks handle the development of interpretive skills among students. The main focus is on the assignments for student work in textbooks and how these assignments emphasize different aspects of such skills.

The findings are analysed and discussed within a framework focusing on educational design, developed by a Norwegian group of researchers drawing on key concepts from Cultural Historical Activity Theory. Textbook assignments are accordingly analysed to discern underlying aspects of educational design. Such aspects include elements that may possibly define the educational activity indicated by the assignments: educational objects like texts and the understanding of texts, educational artefacts like key questions and concepts, and also possible rules and divisions of labour.

A main finding is that the distribution of textual objects differs, as well as the suggestion of analytic tools. Texts from the Judaic-Christian tradition far outnumber texts from other religious traditions, leaving an overall impression of Christianity as a more text based tradition than others. The analytical tools presented may be roughly divided into two types. The general approach among textbook authors is to present questions that deal specifically with certain issues of each text. Another approach is to present general guidelines for interpretation intended to be used by students on a series of texts from different religions. This indicates the possible existence of different and competing educational designs, one promoting textbook authority and another seeking to develop student autonomy. Top

Doerthe Vieregge - Socially disadvantaged young people and religious diversity in daily life

Even in developed Western welfare states, economic disparity is on the increase and a growing segment of children and young people is affected by poverty and social exclusion.

The relation between social status and individual expressions of youth religiosity has hitherto not been much researched, and socio-economic aspects have been overlooked in conceptual discussions on Religious Education in Germany for a long time. The proposed paper presents the findings of a doctoral thesis in the field of pedagogy. It has been completed in March 2011 and studied the role of religiosity in the lives of socially disadvantaged adolescents in Hamburg on an empirical, qualitative basis ( 36 oral interviews with pupils, 20 written questionnaires from pupils, 13 expert interviews, participant observation for two years). It looked at young people from Christian, Muslim and non-religious backgrounds aged between 14 and 16 years. The paper focuses on the question, how marginalized young people deal with religious diversity in daily life. It will give impulses for Religious and Interreligious Education in contexts of social marginalisation. One of the most challenging results of the research which will be explained in the full paper is: Religious education can offer the opportunity for socially disadvantaged youths to acquire a

competence to deal with differences that, while specific to their social environment, opens more options amid the tensions that characterise their lives. Top

Kerstin von Brömssen - Religion as a resource?

Congruent with the views of pupils in many other Western countries Swedish secondary schools pupils view religious education as the most uninteresting subject in social science according to national surveys in education (Oscarsson & Svingby, 2005).. This has been a trend since the 1960s’ and has been dealt with by writing new curricula where a focus on pupils’ life questions has been an important strategy in trying to reconstruct the subject. Religious education is also considered to be one of the hardest and most complex subjects to work with in school according to teachers. Taken together this research might point to what the Swedish Board of Education has stated: “Religious education is a subject in crisis” (Swedish National Board of Education, 2004).

This paper is part of a recently finished study with the title “Religion as a resource?” The study deals with pupils in upper secondary school and their talk and reflections about meeting religion in school; in formal education, but also outside of the classroom. The study is based on focus-groups interviews with young pupils from three different upper secondary schools. The study shows quite a complex and paradoxical view on meetings with religion in school as well as in religious education which will lead to my argument about schools as "different worlds" and the importance of place and peers. Top

Marie von der Lippe - Competing discourses: An analysis of young people’s talks about religion and diversity

This paper builds on data material conducted as part of the European project Religion in Education. A Contribution to Dialogue or a Factor of Conflict in transforming societies in European countries (REDCo) (2006-2009), and is based on interviews with twenty students aged 13-15. The main focus is on how young people talk about religion and diversity. Using a discourse analytic approach, the individual stories are analysed in their social context, understood as the structural, societal and discursive frameworks wherein individuals have their experiences, and make their reflections and interpretations. The analysis reveals that there is a dialectical relationship between the interpretations the students make in their everyday practice, and discourses at the macro level. In other words, young peoples everyday discourses are characterised both by dominant discourses in the public debate, and their own personal experience with religious and cultural diversity. These discourses are often in opposition to each other, and appear as competing discourses in the interviews. The study shows that young people are affected by negative discourses in the media, at the same time as their own positive experiences with religious diversity seems to have less potential to be dominant. On the other hand, the analysis also shows that the various discourses are in constant motion because young people have the opportunity to bring something new into the discourses, based on personal experiences, and thus change them. The findings reveal how important language is for the constructions and interpretations young people make about religion and diversity. Top

Karen Walshe - Understanding ‘understanding’ in Religious Education

The subject of this paper is located in the context of long standing and ongoing debates concerning the distinctive nature of religious education. It draws upon the work of people such as Hirst, Holley, Marples, and Cox from the 1970s-1980s and more recently from Astley, Attfield and Hand and shows how debates surrounding what is ‘religious’ about ‘religious education’ can inform current notions about what it means to develop an understanding of religious beliefs and practices.

Currently there are concerns in England regarding students’ achievement and progress in RE and the lack of consensus in the profession as to what RE is or should be about and what it might mean to develop an understanding of religious beliefs and practices (Ofsted 2007, 2010). Recent research suggests that for young people, understanding in RE may often be equated with belief (Freathy and Aylward, 2010; Walshe-Aylward, 2009). This understanding of ‘understanding’ has serious implications for the way in which the RE curriculum promotes understanding as a principal aim of RE, particularly as ‘belief’ is not numbered amongst the explicit aims of religious education in state maintained schools in England and Wales.

The paper takes as its starting point the explicit aim of RE in English state maintained schools to develop students’ religious understanding. It examines why this aim has been seen to be contentious and proposes that religious understanding might be better conceived as a spectrum of understanding concerned with the religious understanding of religion and religions as opposed to any other form of understanding such as

historical, sociological or philosophical. It concludes by asking, ‘what might a religious understanding of religion(s) look like?’ Top

Kevin Patrick Win Wanden - Going Digital: Student and Teachers Voices

In 2010 the print based Religious Education programme used in Catholic primary schools in New Zealand was supplemented by a digital RE Resource. This resource provided teacher notes, lesson overviews and interactive lesson resources for each of the eight year levels of the curriculum. The interactive lessons were designed to be useable across a number of electronic platforms. Research suggests that the provision of e-learning resources may lead to effective learning and create a positive learning environment (OECD, 2005). E-learning and pedagogy may be influenced by a number of contextual factors (Bennett & Lockyer, 2008). Research also indicates that e-learning may increase student motivation (Moos & Azevedo, 2009) and collaborative learning (Bishop & Berryman, 2006).

This paper presents the results of research into teacher and student reactions to the introduction of the RE Resource. This research is located within the academic disciplines of curriculum studies and religious education. The teacher data was obtained from a survey sent to all Catholic schools and from a national focus group of Principals and teachers. The data identified a number of barriers related to infrastructure, professional development and other contextual factors. Teachers found that the RE Resource engaged students in their learning and enhanced their planning and teaching. The on-going student data collection phase of the research will gather data through interviews with students. Top

Wolfram Weisse - Interreligious Dialogue at University and at school. The example of Hamburg.

Interreligious dialogue in the classroom takes on greater importance as time goes on. This is dialogue in which pupils can participate with their different and differential religious and ideological backgrounds and in which they develop their own views and positions. This is the approach of the “Dialogical Religious Education for all in Hamburg.

In order to make this approach viable, the various religions represented in German society need to be given greater attention in teacher training and provision must be made in law and administrative structures to allow religious education to be provided by teachers not just of Christian faith, but also of Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and other faiths. These aspects are being considered and expert opinion is being sought and the aspects at all levels. Introducing separate Islamic religious education would represent a regression for Hamburg in terms of integration. Rather, we need additional academic resources to train teachers towards the establishment of an integrative teaching model of RE. In pursuit of this goal, we have worked for many years towards the establishment of an 'Academy of World Religions' at Hamburg University which was formally opened in June 2010.

The paper will provide a sketch of the situation of dialogical RE in Hamburg public schools and will focus on new developments of pluralisation of academic resources in the field of Islamic and Jewish theology, as well as additional resources in this field for Buddhism, Hinduism and Alevism. Top

Charl C Wolhuter - Policy on Education and Religion in South Africa : Toward Social Justice?

The ideal of social justice has been foregrounded as one of the centrepieces for the reconstruction of South African education. One of the building blocks of the ideal of social justice is an appreciation of diversity. In education reform much attention has been given to various forms of diversity, but one dimension of diversity that has not received its fair amount of attention is that of religious diversity. The aim of this paper is to present the results of research in the shape of taking stock of policy regarding the relationship between education and religion in South Africa, more specifically, of evaluating that policy with the yardstick of the ideal of social justice. An assessment will be done as to the extent to which current policy on religion in education in South Africa serves the ideal of social justice, particularly with reference to religious diversity (plurality). As part of an international team of researchers (South Africans, Dutch, Hungarians and Slovakians), the author not only collaborated in research about religion in (and) education, the South African Policy on Religion and Education, social justice and social capital building, but focused specifically on the implications of policy on religion in education for education systems world wide. The proposed paper will be a reflection of the work that he has done in this area over more than five years within a project entitled Religion, Spirituality and Education (discipline: Religion and Religion Education). Top

Andrew Wright - The Rehabilitation of the Pursuit of Truth and Truthfulness in Religious Education

The legacy of the Enlightenment, in both its modern and post-modern guises, effectively occluded the various truth claims proffered by the world’s religious traditions. Contemporary religious education has tended to mirror this process, focusing attention on the social role of religious communities within a plural global society, and on the spiritual experiences of individual pupils. As such, it tends to collude in the post-Enlightenment reduction of religious belief and practice to the private sphere, and the privileging of the meta-discourse of secular liberalism in the public sphere. As an exercise in the philosophy of education, the paper draws on the work of Charles Taylor and John Milbank to map this process and critique its underlying ontological and epistemic assumptions. It goes on to draw on the philosophy of critical realism, as presented by Roy Bhaskar and Thomas Torrance, in an attempt to restore the truth claims of various religious traditions, and their accounts of truthful living in the light of these truth claims, to a proper place within the curriculum of religious education. It argues that critical realism’s commitment to ontological realism, epistemic relativism and judgemental rationality provides a framework within which issues of truth and truthfulness can be explored in the classroom without a retrogressive return to closed confessional education. Ontological realism identifies the critical importance of realistic belief about God and/or transcendence; epistemic relativism recognizes that religious and secular worldviews are fundamentally disputed; judgemental rationality opens up the possibility of responding wisely to ontologically incommensurable ultimate truth claims. Top

Elina Wright - Teaching and Learning with All Faiths and None: Supporting Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development of Young People

This paper presents the results of an empirical research project on the ‘All Faiths and None’ (AFAN) programme. This programme is designed to facilitate dialogue and mutual understanding between young people from diverse backgrounds of faith and belief in Further Education in the UK. It aims to promote their spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development according to the government guidance published by the Learning and Skills Improvement Service. The research project investigated teaching and learning in the AFAN framework in order to understand, inform, support and improve SMSC education. The research aimed to develop a deeper understanding of what makes learning possible by focusing on variation in the ways in which the object of learning was engaged by students and teachers to improve learning. The research explored 1) what was intended: students’ pre-understandings and teachers’ aims and approaches to the AFAN practice, 2) what was realized in the teaching-learning process during the AFAN sessions and 3) what was learnt by teachers’ and students’ after the AFAN sessions. The data were gathered from students and teachers in Sixth Form and Further Education colleges via students’ written responses, a udio-recorded interviews with teachers, session plans and researcher’s video-recorded observation of the AFAN sessions. Stimulated recall (SR) interview method was used for exploring teachers’ reflections on the educational process. All data were collected and analysed according to phenomenographic methods, informed by the Variation Theory of Learning. The educational implications of the results are discussed. Top

Yaacov Yablon - The Role of Self-Motivation in Understanding the Contribution of Intergroup Encounters between Jewish and Muslim students in Israel

Peace education programs are widely used to enhance positive interfaith dialogue. Many of these programs are contact interventions which have been proven effective. However, when conducted in regions of intractable conflict, such as Israel, they often do not fulfill their promise and do not yield a positive change.

The present study focuses on peace encounters between Jewish and Muslim students in Israel and specifically on the role of self-motivation to participate in peace encounters in the success or failure of the encounters. It responds to a popular claim that those involved in successful programs were a priori in favor of such programs, and that we are, in fact, preaching to the converted.

The Self-Determination Theory (SDT) served as the theoretical framework for the study. A sample of 330 students (180 Jewish and 150 Muslim) was recruited for the study. In each sector students were randomly assigned into research and control groups and into three subgroups based on their motivation to participate in the encounters: amotivated, extrinsically motivated, and intrinsically motivated.

Initial analysis of the data revealed that those who benefited most by participation in the program were, in fact, participants who were extrinsically motivated. Those who were amotivated gained nothing but did not

deteriorate, whereas their counterparts in the control group deteriorated. Those who were intrinsically motivated did not gain much from their participation but did not deteriorate, even without the encounters (in the control group). Implications for interfaith dialogue will be discussed. Top

Yoshimasa Yoshioka - The Significance of Comenius Pedagogy in the post-modern age.

It is well-known that J. A. Comenius (1592-1670) is a major source in modern educational thought. Many modern educational thinkers like a Rousseau, Pestalozzi,and Froebel were been influenced by him. His book “Orbis sensualium pictus 1658” was a start of the modern intuitive method of teaching. He suggests that a person should recognize the matter by using sensory organs. This was the forerunner of modern audio visual education. Therefore he has been callled the father of modern pedagogy.

This presentation will show that his educational thought is eternal, reaching to post-modern affairs esspesially at the field of life long education and the school curriculum. In his view of life long education he argues that human beings are life long students and never graduate from school. Human beings start to learn at the school of GENITURAE and end at the school of MORTIS. Thus he was also a pioneer of the post modern life long education.

I will also discuss his unique spiral curriculum including Knowlege, Virtue and Piety. He has criticized modern schools which disregard the fields of Virtue and Piety. He maintained that human being formation should be harmonize with Knowledge, Virtue and Piety. This is the task of post modern school.

I will discuss the two above mentioned points of view by studying Comenius' Panpaidea which was updated in a 1966 series of De rerum humanarum emendatione consultatio Catholicain. Top