Citizenship Through Secondary Religious Education

Liam Gearon

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134428717
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Didattica
• Categoria: Didattica generale

Religion has achieved ever greater prominence in debates about citizenship at every level of cultural, economic, social and political life. Citizenship through Secondary Religious Education highlights some of the key issues surrounding citizenship for the R.E. teacher.

Topics selected include those of historical and immediate relevance to teaching citizenship through religious education. There are chapters covering general critical planning issues and those concentrating on specific themes such as:

• The open society and its enemies
• planning for citizenship through religious education
• genocide
• asylum
• freedom of religion and belief
• sustainable development
• the rights of indigenous peoples.

Practical in its style, the guidance presented in this book will be invaluable to teachers and student teachers of religious education and specialists in citizenship. Those who have been allocated responsibility for teaching Citizenship or Religious Education, or are looking to teach them as second subjects, will also find this book a useful resource.

Part I
Citizenship and religious education: critical contexts and planning issues

Chapter 1
The Open Society and Its Enemies

Citizenship and religious education

Introduction

Events like 11 September 2001 in the United States and the Bali bombing in November 2002 tell us that the world is not always unified by a common vision of how to order society. Since the beginning of the new millennium terror in the name of religion – with claims and counter-claims that such terror is not part of the tradition – has shown that far from disappearing from the public domain into a post-Enlightenment, privatised domain, religion is still ‘out there’. In our discussions of religious education and citizenship there is something fundamental at stake about how modern societies should operate.

This chapter is an attempt to present in simple form the basic parameters of potential conflict and co-operation vis-à-vis religious education and citizenship, taking as fundamental the premise that these parameters will reflect current and historical political realities. It is in real political histories – in the UK, Europe and globally – that religion impacts upon notions of citizenship. We might usefully begin our study with a review of generic issues in citizenship education and research. From this basis we can then proceed to an examination of citizenship in relation to religious education. The premise for this chapter – and indeed this book – is that citizenship’s respect for democratic freedoms is a form of protection for the ideals of tolerance and understanding so fundamental to religious education – a notion freely borrowed from Karl Popper, elaborated in The Open Society and Its Enemies.

Crick and National Curriculum citizenship

Citizenship has strong roots in personal, social and health education (PSE/PSHE), with which it is still formally associated (Best et al. 1995; Best 1999, 2002). Citizenship remains a part of the framework for PSHE in primary and secondary schools, with non-statutory guidance for key stages 1–2 and statutory effect in key stages 3–4 (DfEE 1999; QCA 2000a; Best 2002). Guidance on its implementation in secondary schools is well supported by QCA (2000b, 2001c, 2001d, 2001e, 2001f, 2001g, 2001h).

What we can call implicit citizenship also has antecedents from the 1970s onwards in relatively marginal initiatives in peace education, global studies, human rights education, and political education. With the advent of National Curriculum citizenship many of the areas previously classified under such titles shifted towards formal and explicit identification with citizenship. The most prominent review of related research at this transitional phase linked citizenship to values education (Taylor 1999; Halstead and Taylor 2001) The review of values-based research by Halstead and Taylor (2000) focused on five areas, with related research questions upon which their summary of available evidence was then based:

• Social background research The development of values through the life of the school How significant is the development of early moral emotions?

• What does ‘caring’ mean and how does it contribute to children’s moral development?
• How far do school councils help young people to understand their rights and responsibilities as citizens?
• Does the involvement of pupils in the formation of classroom rules and social policies on discipline help them develop the motivation to behave responsibly? What kinds of influence can extra-curricular activities have on the behaviour and attitudes of children and young people?
• How far does the example set by teachers intentionally or otherwise influence the developing values and attitudes of their pupils?
• What does spiritual development mean?
• How can schools foster the values of non-discrimination and equal opportunities?

• Theoretical framework and strategies

• How can schools contribute to the character development of students?
• What specific strategies and programmes for the development of moral reasoning have been effective in school?
• How do personal narratives help teachers to understand and influence the moral development of young people?
• What contribution can the subjects of the National Curriculum make to the development of pupils’ values and attitudes?
• What can religious education and personal and social education contribute to pupils’ developing attitudes and values?
• How do the cross-curricular themes contribute to the development of pupils’ values, attitudes and personal qualities?
• How effective is circle time in helping pupils to develop self-esteem and to clarify their own attitudes and values?
• What other teaching and learning methods have been found effective in influencing pupils’ attitudes and behaviour?

• Curriculum and teaching methods

• What methods have proved effective in identifying developments in pupils’ values and attitudes?
• How can school effectiveness be evaluated in terms of the development of pupils’ values and attitudes?

• Assessing and evaluating the development of pupils’ values.

• The sets of conclusions, in the form of research implications for teachers, for school policy, for inspection and for future research, are reproduced in Box 1.1.

Box 1.1

Citizenship-related research

Research implications for teachers

The research suggests that teachers should:

• build, where appropriate, on the foundations of moral development laid in the home and continue to seek partnerships with parents and other carers;
• pay due attention to the development of moral reasoning while not neglecting children’s emotional and spiritual development;
• encourage children’s active involvement in the running of the school community;
• aim for consistency in reinforcing the school’s fundamental values;
• reflect on their own values and on the appropriateness of the example they set through their personal and professional conduct;
• encourage children to take part in a variety of activities which develop character and personal qualities, and provide opportunities for them to reflect on the moral issues which arise in these activities;
• ensure that the learning that occurs through their relationships with their pupils through peer interactions and through the life of the school is as positive as possible; reflect on the potential within school subjects and cross-curricular themes to raise questions of value;
• explore different methods for developing pupils’ values, attitudes, and personal qualities;
• help pupils to develop a sense of their own moral identity and to become gradually more aware of the complex and controversial nature of many moral values;
• focus on specific aims in values education, directed at specific learning outcomes;
• develop methods of measuring and recording pupils’ growth and development in these areas.

Research implications for school policy and practice

The research demonstrates the importance of:

• responding sensitively to the diverse and possibly irreconcilable expectations of national education policy, local communities, parents and pupils themselves, in the light of teachers’ personal views and professional expertise;
• working towards shared values, which are given a high profile and made explicit in a range of school policies, structures and procedures understood and owned by all members of the school community;
• developing a whole-school approach to values education, drawing on clear and coherent theoretical frameworks and strategies;
• engaging in ongoing reflection on and review of school life, the curriculum, teaching methods and partnerships with parents and communities to raise awareness of values issues.

Research implications for school inspection

In examining school provision and practices in the development of values, attitudes and personal qualities within the national framework for inspection, inspectors need to consider evaluation criteria and what counts as evidence for their judgements in the light of . . . research evidence.

Directions for future research

Although we have amassed a very large amount of both conceptual and empirical research evidence in this review, it has become clear that the researchers’ agenda is not always the same as the practitioners’ agenda. Some areas of school practice are notably under-researched, and these include areas inspectors are currently required to pay special attention in evaluating pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. In particular, there is little research evidence about how collective worship and teacher example influence pupils’ development. There is much more research on moral and social development than on the relatively new domains of spiritual and cultural development, which are still undergoing conceptual clarification. There is also a shortage of experimental research and evaluations of programmes in the UK. The quality of available research is mixed, and generally it pays inadequate attention to issues like cultural diversity and emotional diversity.

(Halstead and Taylor 2000: 60–1)

The educational trend towards making citizenship explicit is, however, a response to dramatic changes in the world in which we live, over recent decades. Increased complexity in many aspects of social and cultural, political and educational life has led to educational initiatives like citizenship. Recent international research, for example, on wider factors influencing citizenship education suggests that:

The last two decades have witnessed a fundamental review of the concept of citizenship and what it involves in communities across the world. This review has been brought about by the impact of the rapid pace of change in modern societies in the realms of political, economic and social life and the need to respond to this impact. The pace of change is having significant influence on the nature of relationships in modern society at a number of levels, including within, between and across individuals, community groups, states, nations, regions and economic and political blocs. This period of unprecedented and seemingly relentless change has succeeded in shifting and straining the traditional, stable boundaries of citizenship in many societies. There has been particular pressure...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Boxes
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction The City of God
• Part I: Citizenship and religious education: critical contexts and planning issues
• Part II: Citizenship through religious education: rights, wrongs and responsibilities