Religious Education and Spiritual Development: Pedagogical Insufficiency and Possibility

Abstract

This chapter focuses upon the debate concerning pedagogy in RE that has increasingly become a matter of concern for religious educators in England and Wales. It begins by summarising the present situation in relation to approaches to religious and spiritual education. It identifies ways in which there is a present pedagogical insufficiency in religious education, with particular reference to teaching and learning in Hampshire, UK, schools. It then gives critical consideration to prominent theoretical approaches to religious education and spiritual development from a pedagogical perspective, taking account of epistemological and hermeneutical tensions between them. The last section presents a methodology for teaching and learning drawn from the new Hampshire Agreed Syllabus, as an instrument for teachers accessing different theoretical approaches to religious education and providing pupils with an effective pedagogy for teaching and learning that addresses spiritual development in relation to the agency of pupils.