Critical RE research updates

Christina Davis – London School of Economics

Angela Goodman – UCL Institute of Education

Angela Wright – King’s College London

StarterThink-Pair-Share

What do you already understand about Critical RE?

Critical Realism / CRE

1. Ontological Realism2. Epistemic Relativity3. Judgemental Rationality

CRE (Critical Religious Education) = Three principles plus truthful living

Aim of CRE = To create religiously literate individuals

Controversy surrounding CRE

• Ontological realism– How can we critically question views whilst also

being respectful?– Confessional?

• Too difficult!– For the students?– For the teacher?!

Angela Goodman: Teacher perceptions of the pilot material

Background to the research• FORASE• Introductory SOW• Pilot (2010-2011, 2011-2012)

Research Design

2 initial research questions:• What were teacher perceptions of the material?• What effect was it having on wider practice?3rd question for paper – to what extent does it answer criticisms?• Focus on ontology – Hannem, Teece, (Jackson)• Academic – Jackson• In practice? – Grimmit, Jackson, Hannem, Teece

Method

• Focus groups• 4 schools – variety of contexts • N.B. Writing group members

Support for the approach

• Strong support for approach• Teachers attest to students really engaging with

it/enjoying it

• C3: They got so inspired by it all, they really did……7C and 7P just went for it…..They enjoyed every single lesson. They really did….

• C2: I had a mother write to me, a mother who is very anti RE, saying that her daughter has been really … pleasantly surprised at how much she’s liked R.S..

Support for the approach

• Lots of support around focus on ontology/wrangling with truth claims

• B1: I’ve always taught, I’ve always hoped that I’ve taught…you should disagree and I’ve always hated and been very frustrated with conclusions that you used to get, even in GCSE, where the conclusions are “at the end of the day you are entitled to your opinions and whatever you believe is fine”. And it was something right from the beginning of my teaching R.S .I tried to stamp out. But I didn’t put a label on it and I never really taught it in a … strategic way… And I think the good thing about the syllabus as a whole, and that lesson in particular, is it emphasises……I think it just reminds you well no, we do think people are wrong on certain things … and people do have different beliefs and there is a good chance that one of those is right … and if that is the case as a consequence one must be wrong.

Support for the approach

• C3: And I think what we are trying to do is to get away from the idea that any answer goes in R.S., that … you can it is alright, you can say what you like, because it is only R.S., without backing it up, or looking at some decent evidence. So that is one of the things that I thought that was very good about it, the idea that there … could be answers out there … and some of them are more realistic than others.

Support for the approach

• Especially strong from non group members – akin to own approach

• C4: I think on a personal level, my personal approach to the subject, it’s always been along those lines, although I might not have been able to articulate it in that way, I recognise that that’s how I normally do it anyway. I am not saying I do it to any great level but that’s generally the approach I’m coming from, it’s to constantly “Well, let’s look at the big picture here, how realistic is this?” and to have a critical eye. And sometimes I’m probably very aware of that, so I try to be more cautious than anything. So, it was actually quite nice to have the platform to be able to discuss it very openly with them.

Support for the approach

• Not covered in training:

• D3: …my teacher training didn’t cover anything like this. Because when I met it I thought hmm, I didn’t know this idea had a name. I really like it and I realise that critical realism is something that in some ways I do already but my goodness me, it opened up a whole new…way of … approaching the subject, which I really, really liked.

Support for the approach

• Feeds into later material• Develops skill set – higher level skills• Works in a variety of contexts

Challenge

• Approach is challenging – for both students and teacher but this is a GOOD thing

• A1: I like the fact that we are doing things that are hard and I … really get bored with learning that isn’t hard, and things shouldn’t be easy because otherwise then they are just a complete waste of time. So I like the fact that it is hard, I like the fact that it challenges them….

• D1: ...Quite often the danger is with our subject is that you get things which are

reduced down, not dumbed down, but reduced down, to just “what do you think about this?”, and “what’s an emotional response to this?” and actually…because it’s more philosophically based, instantly the concepts are more challenging therefore you are stretching them, naturally, just by saying “ok well this is what a postmodernist is”...…it’s challenging and that’s always a good thing.

Challenge

• B2:...so that academic rigour I think … is a real positive about it from that point of view.

• B1: Yes, … I think you are right. It challenges right from the start every single student in the class and I have always liked the idea…

• B2: And the teacher as well, which I find a real positive about developing my teaching practice and just my own … ideas as well. I think it is really healthy for you to have a degree of challenge as you are planning it as you’re thinking about it all from whatever comes up in the lesson.

Challenge

• Need for further differentiation of materials

• D2: I think it is about breaking some of this stuff down a little bit more to cater for maybe some of the lower ability students. I think some of it’s… pitched quite highly, which is great, but it is about how to unpack some of that in a … way that helps the students to get their head around some of those abstract concepts that for some is just completely alien to what … they have done before.

Challenge

• BUT this is the teacher’s job

• B1: I think the difficulty with it and it goes back to that challenge is it is high level and in terms of differentiation it’s still quite difficult to differentiate down … eternal principles, human ideas and … you can but it can takes time. … There is a lot of hard stuff in it. So I think we can do it but, as I said, it would be lovely either to have more time, or, I think sometimes it does need some adjustment. I don’t think that’s a problem with the scheme of work, I think it’s a factor of life.

Challenge

Number of ways to break it down – depends on teaching style• Visual aids• Worked examples• Kinaesthetic activities

Challenge

• Truthful living – Challenge not entirely overcome

• C1: That is something I think that could be brought out more in the scheme of work, the truthfulness bit.

• Timescales – not overcome - contextual

Teacher ‘buy in’

• Teachers need to ‘buy in’ to the approach

• B1: I do think … if you were to market this, you need to … it needs people to get on board with it. It is not just … here have this, you will be fine. It something that actually needs, I would argue, personal investment.

• B2: It needs buy-in.

Teacher ‘buy in’

Related to challenge for teacher – issues of confidence

• B1: I think CRE is about going the extra mile, with something. It is not just saying… we were talking earlier, it is not just learning about religion, it is not even learning from religion, it is about saying and therefore … where does this take us…….

• B2: I think that is where I struggle … I did get it but actually it’s harder in practice to put in to new contexts or new faiths, particularly if you are less confident in the faith … Doing it with Christianity with the resurrection stuff, easy, doing it with Islam a bit harder, doing it with Sikhism … It also depends on your…academic speciality within more theological areas lie.

• C2: The Year 7s weren’t scared by “postmodern” but I was because I thought, cor, this reminds me of university lectures. This is so huge. … Basically, it came back to you constantly going; “Am I sure this is what I should be saying?”……

Teacher ‘buy in’

Further guidance needed – esp if not exposed in training

• D2: I personally think I would like more support and more material and more … ways to use it and to make it work definitely, I just think that I would definitely prefer that and would like that opportunity to just to explore it a little bit more and think about how and where to apply it.

• D3: I would appreciate that, too, particularly as, as I say, my teacher training didn’t cover anything like this.

• B2: I sometimes struggle to think … if you are going for this wholesale, how could you turn every scheme of work, or may be that isn’t the point or maybe that isn’t the ultimate aim, but if you are going to take every lesson to that level, I… don’t think I do have the confidence, probably as much as anything else, to do that……

Teacher ‘buy in’

In all 4 schools:TIME is a massive issue

Adding in the approach is time consuming, especially if you have to read up on subject knowledge. Needs investment.THUS implementing across curriculum is gradual.

Outcomes

• Research questions• Teacher perceptions very positive• Is affecting wider approach but more gradually than

hoped• Response to criticisms (noting small sample)• Rejects criticism around focus on ontology• Rejects idea that it’s too academic (though further

differentiation is needed)• It IS happening in practice – but gradually

Suggestions

• Writing group need more work on differentiation in materials - perhaps a section in the book and further attention to breaking down/VKA etc in planning of other schemes of work

• Further consideration on ‘truthful living’ needed• Pedagogy needs more exposure – identify

further support• ITT courses should be encouraged to cover it –

NB easier once have practical tools

Christina Davis Looking for answers?

An investigation into student responses to religious and moral issues.

Background / motivations

• “It doesn’t matter what you believe as there’s no right answer.”

• CRE criticised for over-concern with truth.

• Pedagogical emphasis should be affected by where students are at…so study investigated how students respond to religious and moral truth-claims.

The research methodology

• Small-scale qualitative research study.• Several hour-long focus groups with students

completing individual task and then group discussion surrounding written interview schedule.

• The data resulting from the recordings was analysed and key themes identified.

Example of a discussion questionSide A Side BChocolate is the best flavour of ice cream. 2 + 2 = 4Cats are the nicest animals. Copper conducts electricity.

Blue is the best colour for decorating bedrooms. Vitamin C is good for you.

Would you put these statements on side A or side B?• Hitler is an evil man.• God loves everyone.• Cheetahs can run faster than lions.• White and black people are of equal value.• The world was created by God.

Summary of findings

• Most notable finding – students all viewed religious claims as subjective opinion.

• Moral claims were also viewed as a matter of personal preference, although students were not entirely consistent here. The tendency to be relativist about religious and ethical issues did not usually extend to a general scepticism about truth.

• Identified tendency to commit the epistemic fallacy as a possible cause of their relativism. Their difficulties in establishing an answer due to the lack of agreement led to the designation of religious and moral claims as mere ‘opinion’, to be distinguished from empirically verifiable ‘facts.

Relativism about religious claims

• All students put the two religious statements on Side A and labelled them as ‘opinions’.

• “God is what you make of him or her. Some people have different perspectives on it and it can easily be there that way.”

• “I don’t think there’s an answer but you can probably like... you can create what you think in your mind”

• In the afterlife “everyone would have a different God”

Relativism about moral truth-claims

• 94% designated ‘Hitler is an evil man’ as Side A and opinion.• More uncertainty about racial equality.• “there isn’t a right or a wrong opinion”• The disagreement over Hitler’s evil status meant it cannot be

fact. ZC1 explains that she put “A, because...an opinion, it’s...not a fact. If you were in Germany, you could be like, oh he’s really nice.”

• The lack of consensus leads YA5 to come to the same conclusion about the statement of racial equality.

• “We can’t say that that’s a truth. Because racism still exists in the world. There are still a lot of people who would disagree with this.”

Epistemic Fallacy

Epistemic Fallacy

• “I said no because the amount of chillies are endless and you can’t see anything apart from chillies so...there isn’t really, in my opinion, an answer.”

• Motivated by a concern with verification:• “You can’t use your senses so that’s why... I

think maybe that’s what differentiates things that are facts and things that are opinion.”

Empirical verification

• Whether there is a God “can’t be proven in any way”.

• Believing in a flat earth was not viewed as a legitimate opinion (unlike all sorts of religious beliefs):– “that’s not an opinion” – “she’s just going to have to accept it whether she

likes it or not”.

All hail science!

• T: So it’s basically ended up being like Bible verses science. They could say that they don’t trust science.

• YC1: Yeah I know but science is like... [long pause] science.

• T: But what makes science so special though?• ZC2: Because it’s right!

Fact vs. opinions

• Facts – objective, empirically verified, have consensus

• Opinions – subjective, can’t be empirically verified, disagreed upon

The need for consensus

• “once it can be split into two views then it must be an opinion.”

• “even though I genuinely believe that he [Hitler] was an evil person, some people might think he wasn’t.”

• “there is no right or wrong because everyone has a different opinion on right or wrong”

• Epistemic relativity doesn’t meant there is no ontological reality!

Apathy about resolving disagreement • “Whilst we’re on earth all we can do is say that we don’t know.”• “we just literally have to face the fact that we don’t know”• “everyone is entitled to believe what they want and then just not

talk about it anymore so that they don’t have anything to argue about”

• “just agree that they believe different things and not try and persuade the other person to think what they think”

• avoid talking about religion” • “I just don’t think they should bother with it. Cos everyone has

their own opinion.”• “The amount of possibility is pretty much equal.”

• Need to encourage judgemental rationality!

Relevance for CRE

• A pedagogical emphasis on truth is justified in RE in order to counter the tendencies of students to bypass questions of truth when discussing religion and ethics.

• Why is this so important?1) Relativism shuts down critical debate, as it doesn’t matter what you believe. Students left without the tools to tackle harmful points of view.2) Relativism philosophically untenable and logical positivism unpopular, and yet this is the viewpoint being voiced by (at least some) students.

Relevance for CRE

• Provided evidence against the claims made by Erricker and Hull who push against an exclusivist approach, as the inclination amongst students is already to see religion as making non-realist claims.

• Further support for the need to adopt critical pedagogy was found in students’ inclination to apply tolerance to all viewpoints, viewing them as equally valid. Need to exercise judgemental rationality.