This article examines the place of ijtihad in the British Religious Education curriculum. It argues that the concept should be taught to high school students earlier than A-Level. Knowledge of ijtihad enables students to understand diversity of thought and legal interpretation in Islam, and why different conclusions can be reached from the same or…

This article will focus on the perennial impact of the Salesian education vision in in Salesian schools in the UK. Following an introduction outlining the history of the Salesian presence in the UK, the Salesian education vision will be explored, focused on its classical characteristics, reason, religion and loving kindness. The decline in the…

This article discusses the place of 'theology' in multi-faith Religious Education (RE) in English schools without a religious affiliation, highlighting reasons for its sometimes taboo-status, particularly since the emergence of Ninian Smart's phenomenological approach to Religious Studies in the late 1960s. The article explores a diversity of…

This study explored caregivers' experiences of virtual Godly Play in the United States, South Korea, and the UK during COVID-19 lockdowns. Thematic analysis of thirty-three caregiver surveys and six semi-structured interviews revealed four themes: support/community, intergenerational Godly Play, spiritual maintenance and growth for the family, and…

Existing GCSE and A-level syllabuses include modules on religion and the media, but these have not been widely or well studied for a variety of reasons. The modules may be considered difficult to teach well, and teachers have few good resources to use in comparison with more popular topics such as medical or environmental ethics. The newly…

As part of its stated mission to Christianise Britain, from its earliest years the BBC broadcast religious programmes intended for a child audience. Directed at sites domestic and educational, these broadcasts constituted a means of the mediatisation of religion for children. This paper explores the work of the pioneer children's religious…

Colonizers' educational system produced new seeds for cultivation of new culture. This reproduction effected the British colonies culturally and religiously especially to Arica and South Asia. The natives of two continents transformed slowly and gradually through the western education system. The Britain opened new schools in colonies to teach the…

This study draws on one of the four components of psychological type theory (the distinction between judging and perceiving attitudes toward the outside world) to examine the implications of these two contrasting psychological perspectives for shaping approaches to Christian ministry within an educational setting. Qualitative data were generated…

In a recent book chapter, Matthew Thompson makes some criticisms of my work, including the interpretive approach to religious education and the research and activity of Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit. Against the background of a discussion of religious education in the public sphere, my response challenges Thompson's account,…

Religious educators today are called upon to enable young people to develop as fully-rounded human beings in a multicultural and multi-faith world. It is no longer sufficient to teach about the history of religions: religion is not relegated to the past. It is no longer sufficient to teach about the observable outward phenomena of religions:…

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…

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…

The aim of this paper is to provide a positive case for increasing the role and importance of religious morality within the subject of religious education in British schools. The argument is structured in the following way. First, attention is given to the diminished role accorded to moral education within religious education that followed the…

This article was first presented as a short paper at the annual conference of the Association of University Lecturers in Religious Education in Exeter, July 2009, and seeks to clarify different possible interpretations of what is meant by current uses of the terms "learning about religion" and "learning from religion". Drawing…

From its inception in 1922 the BBC pioneered a new medium in the education of children. This article traces the origins and development of a particular broadcast, "Children's Hour Prayers," a short worship time for children (appended to "Children's Hour") which began in wartime, and ended, along with the host programme itself,…