So, what role should ‘religious education’ play in addressing areas of social concern?
A recently published research article about how the social unrest of 2020/21 affects the teaching of religious education provides a stimulus for professional dialogue on the bigger question of what role/s religious education should play in addressing areas of social concern.
The Covid-19 pandemic brought various issues such as social cohesion, social inequalities, climate change and racism to the forefront. Religious education teachers across Europe were confronted with questions as to how and if they respond to such issues in their teaching. On this basis, the research article, published in the Journal of Beliefs & Values, investigates the question ‘How do sixteen religious education specialists see the effects of social issues on religious education in a challenging time?’, making use of the data from a 2022 European qualitative study, which explored what Covid-19 reveals to religious education specialists about their subject.
Research findings show the religious education specialists, from sixteen European countries including Wales, reflecting on the relationships between social issues and religious education in terms of both relevance and caution.
As well as detailing the kinds of social concerns being raised in religious education during the Covid-19 pandemic, the religious education specialists’ responses illustrated three emerging themes related to:
- a concern for aspects of learners’ wellbeing and pastoral care arising in the context of religious education and the social issues experienced;
- an interest in the development of specific competencies, skills and values in religious education in response to the social issues being raised;
- a focus on what social unrest issues mean for religious education curricula / teaching programmes and classroom learning approaches.
Although many of the religious education specialists could see the real value of social unrest issues in religious education, there were also some explicit cautions and hesitancy about potential adverse effects on the subject (for example, a potential imbalance in religious education curricula with an over-focus on such issues and the need to ensure that a religious education subject lens is being used to avoid generic teaching and learning).
Article reference:
ap Siôn, T., Cullen, S., Danner, S., Kappelhoff, B., & Kodácsy-Simon, E. (2024). How does the social unrest of 2020/21 affect the teaching of Religious Education? Findings of a European study on the effects of the COVID-19 period. Journal of Beliefs & Values, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/13617672.2024.2409545
For more information:
Cysylltwch â ni at the St Giles’ Centre if you want more information about this research project and the findings.
This research is part of the What Covid Reveals to RE Specialists project.