knots of inclusion? aulre conference 1st september 2015 trevor cooling

Knots of Inclusion?

AULRE Conference

1st September 2015

Trevor Cooling

The Good Ship RE

The Good Ship RE:International Acclaim

Personally I have always been a bit envious of Britain’s ability to have religious education as a subjectDebby Espinor, George Fox University, Oregon, USA

An Australian ExampleTeaching children

how to respectfully disagree (p. 26)

No particular religious perspective is privileged or pariah-ed (p.19). Agnostic neutrality (p. 259)

Two Questions?

What do we mean by the “secular principle”? (Maximally inclusive or adopting a particular framework?)

Is there an enemy? (Conservative religion and confessional education?)

The Good Ship RE A Guild Mentality?

Integrative Religious Education in Europe (2007)

by Wanda AlbertsFramed as the impartial,

unbiased, academic study of religion acceptable to all parents and pupil

Taught as a secular subject in non-separative schools

Distinguish educational and religious interests – no privileging of the religious and no middle way between them (see p.374).

Integrative REThe responsibility for RE ultimately has to

be with study-of-religions trained RE professionals who are not dependent on the benevolence of any religious interest group (p. 293 – see also p. 366)

(Of Norway) One may hope that politicians will follow academic insight rather than religious lobbying and take the necessary steps to transform this kind of integrative RE into a truly impartial approach (p. 328)

Issues for the Guild in RE?

Diversity/Inclusivity

Pedagogical Framework


There is probably no issue of any greater concern around the world than the rise of religious fundamentalism. Nothing is more dangerous than the radicalised mind …..I am not advocating any measure of proselytising within our schools, but I am saying that knowledge of the substance and practice of religion must be part of any rounded education.

Rt. Rev John Chalmers

What is “beyond the pail” in the RE classroom?

Jesus is the only way to God

No one should be allowed to blaspheme the Prophet

There are thousands of gods. They are, self-evidently, products of the human imagination…..Faith is dehumanising.

Gay marriage is ethically wrong

God created the world literally as it says in the Bible


Critical RE

Experiential RE

Phenomenological RE

Concept Cracking


Pedagogy is the act of teaching together with its attendant discourse of educational theories, values, evidence and justifications. It is what one needs to know and the skills one needs to command, in order to make and justify the many kinds of decision of which teaching is constituted.

Robin Alexander

RE and Virtue

What sort of person do we aspire will emerge from the experience of learning in RE and does religion itself have a role in contributing to that?

Importance of Imagination

Why are we doing this?

Their experiences of what they are doing and their sense of self in doing it are rather different. This difference is a function of imagination. As a result, they may be learning very different things from the same activity. (Etienne Wenger, 1998, p.176)

Making a Difference

The exercise required of pupils is of theological enquiry discovering through activity and question how experience of and reflection on the life of Christ shapes lives and transforms societies

Pedagogy as Framing:An Example from GCSE

Diversity and Inclusivity:Reframing the debate

Respectful Christian witness which accommodates differences and unresolved debate.

Pedagogy in REA key question

Focus on academic objectivity, treating religious commitment as a personal and private matter. (Faith-blind)

Religion as a problem to be challenged by education?

Focus on the shaping nature of religious commitment in public life with an emphasis on dialogue and shared action. (Faith-nurturing).

Religion as a resource to be nurtured in education?

The Bottom Line?

Courageous Restraint

The Fundamental Virtue?

Professor Mohamed El-Gomati

Drinking tea with the EDL

Some Of My Questions About Our Guild?

1. Would “habitus” be more helpful to us than neutrality in constructing our pedagogical framework?

2. Is our fundamental aim fostering virtue formation – learning to drink tea whilst negotiating diversity?

3. Should our pupils become critical realists rather than relativists or positivists?

4. Does hermeneutics offer a better academic framework than studies of religion?

5. Do we need to respond differently to conservative religion?

A Final ThoughtIs personal faith a resource for

inclusive RE?