Action Research and the Praxis Model of Religious Education: A critique

Abstract

The ‘experience‐centred’ era in religious education, as a direct reaction to an older, prescriptive and doctrinal mode, was short‐lived. The critical perspectives of Habermas and their curricular application by Van Manen showed up the inadequacy of any educational proposal which does not draw on both technical and hermeneutical aspects of learning in order to produce self‐reflection. One modern set of curriculum parameters which attempts to do this is Action Research. Through the American, Thomas Groome, religious educators now possess a religious education curriculum model which is designed to follow the same types of critical guidelines ... that is, to offer a religious education proposal which aims ultimately at Praxis, action with a view to change. The present paper examines Groome's thesis and model in terms of their educational and theological soundness and, in particular, queries their consistency as an instance of genuine critical education.