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ERIC Number: EJ1463895
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0141-6200
EISSN: EISSN-1740-7931
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Knowledge in a Religion and Worldviews Approach in English Schools
Trevor Cooling1
British Journal of Religious Education, v47 n2 p130-139 2025
The Final Report of the Commission on Religious Education (CoRE) in England published in 2018 advocated what it called a religion and worldviews approach. One of the significant questions it provoked was the approach to knowledge that it took. This article explores this question. It first explains the background to the Commission Report and then the subsequent interpretative work undertaken by the Religious Education Council of England and Wales to develop its recommendations. It then focuses on the vision lying behind the religion and worldviews approach that draws on CoRE's claim that 'everyone has a worldview', and reviews the debate that resulted around that claim. A detailed consideration of the approach to worldview taken in the subsequent REC work and its exemplification in a revised Statement of Entitlement follows. Finally, it is argued that the understanding of knowledge taken in this literature resonates with that of Michael Polanyi in his development of the idea of personal knowledge and that of Andrew and Elina Wright's exposition of critical realism. The article advocates that this results in an approach to RE that puts learning to make scholarly and reflexive judgements at the heart of knowledge-rich RE.
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom (England); United Kingdom (Wales)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Emeritus Professor of Christian Education, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, UK