England and Wales are now amongst the least religious countries in the world. According to Census data between 2011 and 2021, the number of people identifying as having 'No Religion' jumped by over 8 million, from 25% to 37%. Further, although there was a small upward shift in those identifying with minority religions, during the same period, the…

In this article, I discuss the potential of developing a kind of worldview education that has the purpose of enabling teachers and students to understand how worldviews are formed. I explore how suggestions of Ann Taves can be helpful towards such an aim and pay special attention to research into self-defined 'non-religious people. It seems their…

Pedagogue's fallacy occurs when epistemological principles are applied by educators that in fact do not tell of, or explain, or help understand, the subject at hand. It is identified and introduced in this article to raise an important issue in the construction of pedagogical models of religious education: knowledge is reduced and/or distorted to…

This paper takes up ideas from previous research projects which advocate student teachers undertaking research activity as part of their teacher education course. The aim is to strengthen the call for maintaining university input into teacher education preparation, which is currently being marginalised by new policies increasingly promoting…

The article provides an overview of the book "Integrative religious education in Europe: A study-of-religions approach" (2007). It introduces the notion of "integrative religious education (RE)", relating to education about different religions in religiously mixed classrooms, as opposed to separative confessional approaches.…

This paper presents the philosophies and practices of "Laura", a young English community liaison worker and former religious studies teacher who has recently converted to Islam. Drawing on data generated from a qualitative and predominantly interview-based research project that investigated issues of pedagogy and social justice in…

This paper explores the interaction between religious faith and academic study. It presents findings from a small-scale qualitative study of how first year theology undergraduates at Oxford experienced the relationship between academic study and their faith stance. The findings suggest varied developments in the extent to which students adapted to…

This article seeks to encourage beginner teachers to think beyond the horizons of formalized and theoretical teacher training and to inspire a sense of awe and wonder with the daily miracle of teaching; while at the same time outlining a few of the issues and challenges that they may meet during their journey along the way. Having taught in both…

Dr. Deirdre Burke is a Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Wolverhampton's School of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences, specializing in religious and genocide studies. She was a 2005 National Teaching Fellow of the Higher Education Academy that recognized and rewarded her individual excellence in teaching in higher…

The article sets out to discern the aims and objectives of the proposed National Framework for RE and finds them biased towards the study of other people's religious traditions. It observes the differences between religious studies and religious education and the consequences of confining the latter to the former, notably that moral and…