This study builds on the research tradition modelled by the Francis Scale of Attitude towards Christianity, the Katz-Francis Scale of Attitude towards Judaism, the Sahin-Francis Scale of Attitude towards Islam and the Santosh-Francis Scale of Attitude towards Hinduism to propose a generic instrument concerned with attitudes towards theistic faith.…

The "purpose" of this article is to illustrate how potential learning is related to hegemonic speech genres. This we do through examples from two religious education (RE) classrooms, one Norwegian and one Swedish. By presenting important dimensions of speech genres used in RE classrooms, the article also contributes to developing theory. The…

This paper addresses the question: is self-assessment in religious education unique? It first presents an overview of some challenges for assessment from subject differences, and then reviews the generic literature on self-assessment. It builds on earlier empirical research on self-assessment in religious education, carried out in an English state…

This article researches work by four pupils in a diachronic collection of Norwegian primary school workbooks. Given signs of a variety of voices and perspectives in chosen representations of central tenets and/or practices in religions and philosophical traditions, how can an analysis and discussion of a few chosen texts shed light on their…

Recent studies have increasingly favoured contextualisation of religious education (RE) to pupils' home faith background in spite of current assessment methods that might hinder this. For a multi-religious, multi-ethnic sample of 369 London school pupils aged from 13 to 15 years, this study found that the participatory, transformative and…

This research aims to look at how a group of primary head teachers' in the North West of England perceive the Catholic nature of their schools and how they give their account of Catholic education for twenty-first century Britain. They go on to describe their feelings about the mission of their school. The head teachers' views of how they…

While the present individualistic and religio-culturally pluralistic scene requires RE teachers to re-evaluate their educational orientation, research shows that they find it difficult. How do RE teachers carry out their task when dealing with an individualistic, pluralistic population? It is argued that communication in the RE classroom is not…

This study is part of a research project concerning perceptions of competence among RE student teachers at different stages of their pedagogical studies. This article focuses on the perceptions of RE teachers' competence at the beginning of their training. According to the qualitative data the RE student teachers discerned various areas of…

The "Does Religious Education work?" project is part of the Religion and Society programme funded by two major research councils in the UK. It sets out to track the trajectory of Religious Education (RE) in secondary schools in the UK from the aims and intentions represented in policy through its enactment in classroom practice to the estimations…

Muslim schools are a growing phenomenon across the world. Muslim diaspora resulting from multiple factors including political, religious and economic enhanced the need among Muslims to maintain and develop their faith identity. Marginalisation of Muslims, in whatever forms and for whatever reasons, particularly in Muslim minority and/or secular…

This study, conducted during the summer of 2008 in Kumasi, Ghana analysed the role of religious and moral education (RME) in ameliorating the witchcraft discourse in three Ghanaian junior secondary schools. Although the syllabus acknowledges the pernicious effects of witchcraft allegations, it adopts a "Thou shalt not" approach that fails to…

In this article texts by scholars from South Africa, Sweden and Great Britain are analysed. They contributed as invited speakers to a conference in Sweden in 2009 on changing societies, values, religions and education. Here a South-North dialogue on diversity and the future of education is constructed through the way their conference contributions…

Religious categorisation occurs at enrolment in Australian state-run (public) primary schools, with children segregated into religious instruction classes during their first week. Lesson content has no government oversight and, in some schools, options are limited to Christianity. The effect of this categorisation on children's attitudes to…

Religious Education (RE) has the potential to identify as gifted many students who might otherwise be missed. The findings discussed here are based on a study of Heads of Department in three very different secondary schools in Cambridgeshire, which investigated how their training and praxis affected the way they identified and challenged students…

This contribution is focusing on the question: "In what way is the issue of religious education in general and Islamic religious education in particular articulated in Europe and in Turkey, and what can be learned from the respective articulations for the interreligious dialogue?" In the first section, the historical context is presented that…