Special Issue: Religion in Education

Journal of Beliefs and Values

Volume 33, Number 3, December 2012

Journal Available Now

Book Available in Late 2013

Guest Editors:Elisabeth Arweck & Robert Jackson

The special issue of Journal of Beliefs and Values, on “Religion in Education: Findings from the Religion and Society Programme”, is a collection of essays which present findings from research focusing on young people and the way they relate to religion in their education and upbringing. Some of the research was conducted within projects funded under the aegis of the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme, but responses to some of the articles and a contribution on young Muslims in Sweden open the research and findings to an international perspective.

The essays cover a wide span—in terms of

the religions they discuss (including Christianity, Islam, Sikhism),

the settings where young people reflect on religion (including the classroom, youth club, peer group, families, respective religious communities, wider society),

the different perspectives which relate to religious education and socialisation (including the teaching of RE, the role of teachers in pupils’ lives, the way teachers’ personal lives shape their approach to teaching, the schools’ ethos, the schools’ social contexts, the place and rationale of RE),

the contexts within which the authors work (different national settings, various academic disciplines),

the methodology used (including qualitative, quantitative and mixed-method approaches).

The authors address issues regarding religious education in schools and religious nurture and socialisation within families, communities or peer groups as well the role of teachers of religious education, both in the classroom and in the lives of young people. They make important contributions to the debate about the role of Religious Education in the curriculum and demonstrate the crucially important formative influence of religious education in young people’s lives, which reaches well into their adulthood, shaping individuals’ religious and other identities and individuals’ attitudes towards the ‘other’—whatever that ‘other’ may be.

This collection also represents the proceedings of the conference which was held at the University of Warwick in July 2011 as part of the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme.

This special issue will be published (by Routledge) in book form in late 2013.

Further details about this special issue and the Journal of Beliefs and Values.

Contents

Preface

Linda Woodhead (Lancaster University, UK)

Editorial: Religion, Education and Society

Elisabeth Arweck (University of Warwick, UK) & Robert Jackson (University of Warwick, UK)

Articles

Relationships between local patterns of religious practice and young people’s attitudes to the religiosity of their peers

Julia Ipgrave (University of Warwick, UK)

Contextuality of young people’s attitudes and its implications for research on religion: A response to Julia Ipgrave

Olga Schihalejev (University of Tartu, Estonia)

Young people’s attitudes to religious diversity: Quantitative approaches from social and empirical theology

Leslie J. Francis (University of Warwick, UK), Jennifer Croft (University of Warwick, UK), Alice Pyke (University of Warwick, UK), and Mandy Robbins (Glyndwr University, Wrexham, UK)

Religious diversity, empathy, and God images: Perspectives from the psychology of religion shaping a study among adolescents in the UK

Leslie J. Francis (University of Warwick, UK), Jennifer S. Croft (University of Warwick, UK) & Alice Pyke (University of Warwick, UK)

Failures of meaning in religious education

James C. Conroy (University of Glasgow, UK), David Lundie (University of Glasgow, UK) & Vivienne Baumfield (University of Glasgow, UK)

More Ppurpose than Mmeaning – Recognised Patterns of in RE today:

A response to James Conroy, David Lundie, and Vivienne Baumfield

Christina Osbeck (University of Karlsbad, Sweden)

Seeing and seeing through: Forum theatre approaches to ethnographic evidence

David Lundie(University of Glasgow, UK) & James C. Conroy(University of Glasgow, UK)

‘We’re all in this together, the kids and me’: Beginning teachers’ use of their personal life knowledge in the Religious Education classroom

Judith Everington (University of Warwick, UK)

Teachers only stand behind parents and God in the eyes of Muslim pupils

Jenny Berglund (Södertorn University, Stockholm, Sweden)

Keeping the faith: Reflections on religious nurture among young British Sikhs

Jasjit Singh (University of Leeds, UK)

Christian youthwork: Teaching faith, filling churches or response to social need?

Naomi Stanton (Open University, UK)

Religious young adults recounting the past: Narrating sexual and religious cultures in school

Sarah-Jane Page& Andrew Kam-Tuck Yip (Nottingham University, UK)