Karen Walshe

What do young people today really think about Jesus

This article presents the key findings of a recent study investigating young peoples knowledge and understanding of Jesus and demonstrates how young people today appear to be experiencing the same difficulties when engaging with the figure of Jesus in the religious education classroom as they did almost 40 years ago. It concludes by suggesting that religious education needs to take careful account of the kinds of difficulties experienced by pupils in order to present the person of Jesus more effectively to young people today.This article presents the key findings of a recent study investigating young peoples knowledge and understanding of Jesus and demonstrates how young people today appear to be experiencing the same difficulties when engaging with the figure of Jesus in the religious education classroom as they did almost 40 years ago. It concludes by suggesting that religious education needs to take careful account of the kinds of difficulties experienced by pupils in order to present the person of Jesus more effectively to young people today.

Pedagogical Bricoleurs and Bricolage Researchers: The case of Religious Education

ABSTRACT This article reconceptualises school teachers and pupils respectively as ‘pedagogical bricoleurs’ and ‘bricolage researchers’ who utilise a multiplicity of theories, concepts, methodologies and pedagogies in teaching and/or researching. This reconceptualisation is based on a coalescence of generic curricular and pedagogical principles promoting dialogic, critical and enquiry-based learning. Innovative proposals for reconceptualising the aims, contents and methods of multi-faith Religious Education in English state-maintained schools without a religious affiliation are described, so as to provide an instance of and occasion for the implications of these theories and concepts of learning. With the aim of initiating pupils into the communities of academic enquiry concerned with theology and religious studies, the ‘RE-searchers approach’ to multi-faith Religious Education in primary schools (5–11 year olds) is cited as a highly innovative means of converting these curricular and pedagogical principles and proposals into practical classroom procedures. These procedures are characterised by multi-, inter- and supra-disciplinarity; notions of eclecticism, emergence, flexibility and plurality; and theoretical and conceptual complexity, contestation and context-dependence.

The Jesus of Agreed Syllabuses in Key Stage 1 and the Jesus of Theology and Religious Studies

According to Brown, ‘agreed syllabuses for RE have in recent years looked at the practices of Christianity... with a marked lack of any theological exploration of the beliefs that underlie these practices’ (Brown 1992, 15). This, he argues, has resulted in a certain, ‘theological naivety’, particularly evident in the teaching of Jesus in primary schools today (Brown 1992, 14). This article investigates the teaching of Jesus in schools today, with particular reference to Key Stage 1, and explores the extent to which such teaching accurately reflects Jesus’ significance for world religions and what is being said about him in contemporary scholarship. It argues that the presentation of Jesus in classrooms today must become more than just a vehicle for the transmission of western values. A broader understanding of Jesus is needed, one which takes more careful account of his significance for Christians and for members of other world faiths.

Understanding ‘religious understanding’ in religious education

This paper takes as its starting point, one of the explicit aims of religious education in England, namely, the development of students’ religious understanding. It shows how curriculum documentation, whilst stating that religious understanding is an aim of religious education fails to clearly outline what is meant by it. This paper draws upon long-standing and ongoing debates in the field and suggests that religious understanding may be best conceived as a spectrum of understanding. Approached in this way, religious understanding becomes not an all or nothing affair, but a lens through which the student of religion may regard the beliefs and practices before them. Finally, the paper proposes an interpretation of religious understanding, which focuses on the soteriological dimension of religion, thus providing the student with a particularly religious lens to understand religious traditions in religious education and concludes by outlining what such an approach might look like in practice.

Creating metacognitive environments in primary school RE classrooms

Recent reports on Religious Education (RE) in England and Wales highlight the need for guidance on pedagogy and learning. The RE-flect project addressed this by promoting the creation of metacognitively oriented learning environments in primary school RE classrooms. Six primary school teachers and 160 pupils (eight to 10 years of age) took part in the second year of this two year project. Meta-thinking, worldview and resources zones were created in each classroom. Attainment in RE and pupil perceptions of the learning environment were measured. Data from classroom observations, Worldview Profiles (WVP), and pupil and teacher interviews were analysed qualitatively. Results show an overall increase in attainment; a positive change in pupil perceptions of the learning environment; and the ability of pupils to reflect on and articulate their worldviews. Implications for RE curricular and pedagogy are discussed.