In this article we offer reflections on the final report of the Commission on Religious Education (CoRE) that was published in England in 2018. We expose and problematise the prominent place of understanding in the report, not only as an educational method, but also the underlying world view of the report itself, a world view which we characterise…

Based on a major evaluation project, this article presents an emerging theme from research on the activities supported by "Prayer Spaces in Schools," an organisation supporting 'pop-up' prayer spaces in schools across the UK and internationally. Evaluating the activities primarily in terms of their possible contribution to spiritual…

A dialogic approach to religious education is advanced in which subject matter emerges or transforms in the educational event. An example of religious dialogue is considered, through which it is demonstrated that religious education, in order to be considered educational, must take seriously the possibility of the transformation of its subject…

This article investigates Greek-Cypriot primary school teachers' challenges to enact critical hermeneutics in religious education (RE) within a confessional context. Critical hermeneutics combines elements from critical and hermeneutical theories, emphasising the importance of grounding the conceptualisation of religious and secular truth-claims…

There has been limited engagement with Gadamer in the pedagogy of English religious education (RE) to date. Currently there remains confusion about the subject matter of RE and the application of the National Framework attainment targets, learning about and learning from. Instrumental justifications of RE are in tension with the desire to defend…

In looking to the future, some writers on religious education (RE) have attempted to evaluate current approaches to the subject. Some have characterised any significant change in approach as a "paradigm shift", a term derived from Thomas Kuhn's work in the philosophy of science. This article examines the uses of the terms…

The problems that this article seeks to address are those that are raised in the context of the bilateralism that is established when we think in terms of secularism as primarily orientated towards reason and post secularism, towards faith. The objective of the article is to show that the distinction between the two can be collapsed. Post…

This article draws upon the findings of a study at Liverpool Hope University (LHU) into the transformative nature of International Service-Learning (ISL) experiences for student participants. This research is concerned with the implications of these findings for professional practice, in particular how ISL is constructed in Higher Education policy…

This article traces the development of Pentecostal hermeneutics by focusing on the touchstones in this emerging discipline. Whilst the literature devoted to this topic is enlarging at an astounding rate, and not all worthy pieces can be cited, this article focuses especially on approaches that appear to be most constructive. This study acquaints…

In a not very distant past one method of interpretation has dominated New Testament (NT) studies almost totally. The historical-critical method and its application in so-called appropriate exegesis has often uncritically been perceived as the means via which "the original and thus right" understanding of a text could be found. More recently this…

While there has been an increase in empirical research which explores the spirituality of children, few studies have explicitly named and described factors which may inhibit children's expression of their spirituality. This paper, emanating from the author's own research into children's spirituality in Australian Catholic primary schools, presents…

Ever since the irruption of Pentecostal spirituality within Protestant and Roman Catholic denominations, there has been a gradual emergence of what might be called "charismatic theology". To be sure a lot of this theology is and has been written at a popular level, but within the last twenty years there has evolved a distinct theology with…