In this article I hope to cast some light on the relationship between religious faith and education by a preliminary mapping of the field. There are three parts to the article. First, I lay out the assumptions from which the rest of the article builds. Second, I seek to identify possible links between religion and education. As a sub-set of this,…

In the context of international debates about teachers' knowledge, this essay reports a study of how and why a cohort of English trainee teachers of Religious Education used their personal life knowledge in their teaching. Four possible reasons for their commitment to this practice are examined. A belief in the value of openness, a desire to…

This is a response to Julia Ipgrave's contribution on the contextuality of young people's views on religion and religious diversity in this collection of essays on "Religion in Education". First I will highlight and reflect on methodological issues raised by Ipgrave's observations in the light of my own research. The first problem highlighted is…

This essay explores the purposes of Christian youth work. It responds to Collins-Mayo et al.'s contention that youth work is an ineffective medium for faith transmission and building faith communities and to their affirmation of the church's role in this. The analysis is based on research with young people aged between early teens and early 20s,…

The educational aims of religious education (RE) in the UK as evinced, for example, by Ofsted have been couched in the language of meaning making. Based on an ESRC funded three-year ethnographic study of 24 schools across the UK, this essay represents one attempt to interrogate how such meanings are shaped, or indeed fail to be shaped, in the…

In their essay "Failures of meaning in religious education", James Conroy, David Lundie, and Vivienne Baumfield report findings from their recent project "Does Religious Education Work?", during which ethnographic studies in 24 British schools were conducted. In this response I first highlight the importance of the character of RE for considering…

Although young Sikhs are regularly accused of not attending "gurdwara" and not being interested in Sikhism, many young Sikhs are now learning about Sikhism outside traditional religious institutions. Using data gathered as part of a research project studying the transmission of Sikhism among 18- to 30-year-old British Sikhs, this essay explores…

Major religious traditions agree in advocating and promoting love of neighbour as well as love of God. Love of neighbour is reflected in altruistic behaviour and empathy stands as a key motivational factor underpinning altruism. This study employs the empathy scale from the Junior Eysenck Impulsiveness Questionnaire to assess the association…

Schooling can be a pivotal time in young people's formative experience when identities are negotiated and forged. However, contradictory dominant cultures can operate within the school context, making it very challenging for individuals to negotiate their religious and sexual identities within a sexualised and heteronormative space. This essay…

In the course of reviewing a recent quantitative survey of approximately 1300 Swedish youths on subjects like religion and leisure activities, I came across a finding which seemed intriguing to me: some 50% of those identifying themselves as Muslims reported that they confided in their teachers (compared to only 5% of non-Muslims) for help with…

Ethnographic findings from a large qualitative research project on Religious Education in UK secondary schools uncovered contested meanings for the subject as a social practice. In order to bring to the fore some of the ways these contested meanings manifest themselves as confusions in the classroom, a performance ethnography was conducted, making…

This essay discusses the design of the quantitative component of the "Young People's Attitudes to Religious Diversity" project, conceived by Professor Robert Jackson within the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit, and presents some preliminary findings from the data. The quantitative component followed and built on the qualitative…

This contribution reports research into young people's attitudes to religion and religious diversity in secondary schools across the UK. The data indicate that students' respect for the religiosity of their peers, or their lack of it, is due less to the influence of classroom RE (multi-faith or otherwise) than to the experience of religion in the…

Might there be education-in-wisdom? Firstly we need to identify and characterise what this "wisdom" would be. Towards this end comparisons and contrasts are attempted here between this wisdom, on the one hand, and intelligence, cleverness, knowledge, common sense, and trivial wisdom on the other. An Aristotelian account of wisdom emerges; and we…

The intention of this paper is to make a contribution to religious education (RE)'s constant search for a rigorous curriculum identity. The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)/Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) project "Does RE work?" has recently reported its findings, in which it concludes that RE suffers from too many competing…