Abstract
This article reports on research undertaken between July 2014 and November 2015 in secondary schools (for young people aged 11–16) across England to ask what young people need to know about religion and belief in schools in order to increase ‘religious literacy’ when they go in to the workplace and wider society. The research arises in the context of an urgent debate which has been underway in England about the future of Religious Education (RE), a subject which remains compulsory in England under the Education Act 1944, but which gives rise to widespread confusion about its purposes, content and structure, as reflected in growing criticisms of the policy muddle that frames it. The key findings are: that there is an appetite for review and reform of teaching and learning about religion and belief in schools, inside and outside the RE space, in order to clarify confusion about its purposes, content and structure; that the key perceived purposes which are emerging are the ability to engage with diversity, and personal spiritual (but not religious) development; and that stakeholders want to learn about more religions and beliefs, and ways of thinking about them, which reflect a much broader and more fluid real contemporary religion and belief landscape of England and the world than education has reflected.
Highlights
This article reports on research undertaken between July 2014 and November 2015 in secondary schools across England to ask what young people need to know about religion and belief in schools in order to increase ‘religious literacy’ when they go in to the workplace and wider society
This research explores the contribution Religious Education (RE) may make to religious literacy, by understanding it as only one part of a process which needs to encompass what happens in higher education (see, e.g., (Dinham and Jones 2012) on this subject), as well as professional and vocational training (see, e.g., (Davie and Dinham 2016))
As religion and belief come under renewed scrutiny under pressure from extremism, migration and globalisation, we find that the ability to talk well about religion and belief has largely been lost
Summary
These are questions both for RE and beyond, in the wider lives of schools, and in society. The requirement for RE of a ‘Christian character’, the notion of ‘six main religions’, the continuing mandate for a daily act of collective worship, the right to withdraw, and massive change in the real religious landscape suggest that, in relation to religion and belief, we have a mid-20th-century settlement for an early-21st-century reality. This is likely to both reflect and reproduce religious illiteracy among school leavers, who are confused by the religion and belief messages communicated in schools, and by extension, in wider society. Is the current RE landscape up to the challenge? How might it be re-imagined, and what might the alternatives look like?
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
