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Author(s): Joyce Miller and Ursula McKenna
Article Title: Religion and religious education: comparing and
contrasting pupils’ and teachers’ views in an English school
Year of publication: Forthcoming
Link to published article:
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/01416200.asp
Publisher statement: ‘This is an electronic version of an article
published in Miller, J. and McKenna, U. (2011). Religion and religious
education: comparing and contrasting pupils’ and teachers’ views in an
English school. British Journal of Religious Education. The British
Journal of Religious Education is available online at:
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/01416200.asp
1
Article received 29/4/10
Article revised 2/9/10
Article accepted 7/9/10
Religion and religious education: comparing and contrasting pupils’ and
teachers’ views in an English school
Joyce Miller and Ursula McKenna
Dr Joyce Miller, Associate Fellow, WRERU, Institute of Education, University of Warwick,
Joycecrownest@aol.com
and
Dr Ursula McKenna, Research Fellow, WRERU, Institute of Education, University of
Warwick, u.mckenna@warwick.ac.uk
Notes on contributors
Dr Joyce Miller is an Associate Fellow in WRERU and the deputy chair of the RE Council of
England and Wales. She was part of the Warwick REDCo community of practice. Her
research focus was an evaluation of the transferability of the interpretive approach to
teachers' continuing professional development. Her recent publications include: ‘Raising
humanities teachers’ understanding of their pupils’ religious and cultural backgrounds’ in J.
Ipgrave, R. Jackson and K. O’Grady (eds) Religious Education Research through a
Community of Practice (Munster, Waxmann) 119-138 and, with Julia Ipgrave and Paul
Hopkins (2010) ‘Responses of Three Muslim Majority Primary Schools in England to the
Islamic Faith of Their Pupils’ Journal of International Migration and Integration 11 (1) 73-
89.
Dr Ursula McKenna is a research fellow in WRERU and a part-time primary school teacher.
She contributed to data collection and analysis of the qualitative and quantitative aspects of
the European REDCo project. Her recent publications include: with J. Ipgrave and R. Jackson
(2008) Inter Faith Dialogue by Email in Primary Schools: An Evaluation of the Building E-
Bridges Project, Religious Diversity and Education in Europe Series (Münster, Waxmann)
and, with S Neill and R. Jackson, R. (2009); ‘Personal worldviews, dialogue and tolerance:
students’ views on religious education in England’, in: Pille Valk, Gerdien Bertram-Troost,
Markus Friederici and Céline Beraud (Eds.) Teenagers’ Perspectives on the Role of Religion
in their Lives, Schools and Societies. A European Quantitative Study, Religious Diversity and
Education in Europe Series (Münster, Waxmann) pp 49-70.
2
Religion and religious education: comparing and contrasting pupils’ and
teachers’ views
Abstract
This publication builds on and develops the English findings of the qualitative study of
European teenagers’ perspectives on religion and religious education (Knauth et al. 2008),
part of ‘Religion in Education: A contribution to dialogue or a factor of conflict in
transforming societies of European countries?’ (REDCo) project. It uses data gathered from
27 pupils, aged 15-16, from a school in a multicultural Northern town in England and
compares those findings with data gathered from ten teachers in the humanities faculty of the
same school, collected during research for the Warwick REDCo Community of Practice.
Comparisons are drawn between the teachers’ and their pupils’ attitudes and values using the
same structure as the European study: personal views and experiences of religion, the social
dimension of religion, and religious education in school. The discussion offers an analysis of
the similarities and differences in worldviews and beliefs which emerged. These include
religious commitment/observance differences between the mainly Muslim-heritage pupils
and their mainly non-practising Christian-heritage teachers. The research should inform the
ways in which the statutory duties to promote community cohesion and equalities can be
implemented in schools. It should also facilitate intercultural and interreligious understanding
between teachers and the pupils from different ethnic and religious backgrounds.
Keywords: Religion, religious education, pupil and teacher views, community cohesion,
REDCo
Introduction
This study arose from two separate but linked research projects which were part of the
REDCo Project. The first was a European-wide qualitative study of teenage perspectives on
religion (Knauth et al. 2008) in which the English study was conducted by Ipgrave and
McKenna (2008). This was carried out in four schools, one of which, ‘School C’, was also
where the second research project was based (Miller 2009) which investigated the
transferability of the interpretive approach (Jackson 1997, 2000, 2005, 2008, 2011) to
teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD). Thus, an opportunity was created to
combine data from both projects in order to undertake a comparison between teachers’ and
pupils’ views on religion, including its social dimensions, and religious education.
There were two main reasons for making the comparison. The first is that it could provide a
detailed case study which could add further insights into the findings of the REDCo
qualitative study and thus add to the evidence base on religion, dialogue and conflict in
3
schools. The second was to investigate further a statement from the school, contained in its
self-evaluation form (SEF),
1
that ‘the community of the students is distant from the school in
terms of distance and culture’. This ‘distance’ includes ethnicity, religion, language, social
class and economic status. It is worth noting that the use of the singular ‘community’ could
imply a homogenisation of the several minority communities in which the students’ families
are based. There was a strong desire expressed by the teachers that the distance between the
pupils’ families and the school should be overcome, including the lack of direct parental
involvement. They wanted to ‘bridge’ the distance between them and their communities
(Putnam 2000) not least because there is a statutory duty on schools to promote community
cohesion. This is conducted by Ofsted
2
within a four-fold understanding of ‘community’,
including the school as a community.
School C is set in one of the northern towns (it will be anonymised as ‘Northtown’) where
riots took place in 2001 and where the minority ethnic population, mainly of Pakistani
heritage, was just over 21% at the 2001 census. In 2007 the school had 1063 pupils: 76.5%
were from a South Asian background with 71.4% of Pakistani heritage;
3
738 students did not
have English as a first language and 37.5% of pupils were entitled to free school meals (13.1
nationally).
4
Completed questionnaires were received from 27 pupils in the school and 10 teachers in the
humanities faculty. The pupils were in Year 11 (mainly 15 year olds), 22 from a Pakistani-
heritage, Muslim background and the majority (18) were boys. Of the ten teachers: one was
from a Pakistani-heritage background and the rest were white. They were split equally in
terms of gender; 70% were aged between 45 and 60; five self-identified as Christian, four
said ‘no religion’ and one was a Muslim. All the teachers - who were spread across the
school’s hierarchy - had taught RE.
5
On average, the teachers lived 15 miles away from the
school compared with the pupils’ three miles. The wards – local political districts - from
which the pupils primarily come are among the 20% most deprived areas in England.
Given these considerable differences between pupils and teachers it might have been
expected that the mainly Muslim-heritage, working-class pupils would hold different views
from those of their mainly non-practising, Christian-heritage, middle-class teachers. Whilst
4
within educational literature there is research on pupil sub-cultures (Sewell 1996; Mirza
1992; Gillborn and Mirza 2000) and research which looks at their views on various topics
(Francis et al. 2008: McKenna et al. 2008), most analyse the separately held views of
teachers and pupils rather than comparing and contrasting them. This publication attempts to
address this gap.
Methodology
Data collection
Using broadly the same instrument - the REDCo qualitative questionnaire (see Knauth et al.
2008) - two separate sets of data were collected within the school. Additionally, data were
gathered during the continuing professional development (CPD) research study, using
qualitative methods: participant observation, semi-structured interviews, written submissions
(in a variety of forms) and relevant published documentation (Burgess, 1984; Cohen et al.,
2007; Cheetham, 2001; Nesbitt, 2001). These are used to supplement and illustrate the
comparative analysis of the data gathered from the questionnaire.
Analysis of data
The first data analysed were the pupils’ qualitative questionnaires. There was a reading of the
responses to gain familiarity, looking for patterns, consistencies and exceptions. The
categories, terms and ideas extracted from the data were those specifically referred to by the
pupils. The data from the teachers’ questionnaires were analysed independently in the first
instance, using broadly the same processes, and again, using their responses as the basis for
analysis and the creation of categories. In this way the respondents’ authentic voices are
heard; the analysis was ‘inductive’ (Hitchcock and Hughes 1995, 296). Perhaps unusually for
a qualitative study, numerical analysis was also used to ascertain the proportions of
respondents expressing particular views and hence how far they were representative of the
total sample (Silverman 1993).
Because this publication provides comparison and contrast between pupils and teachers in
one faculty in one community school in a northern English city, there is no suggestion that
the conclusions will be immediately generalisable. It is recognised that this is a very small
sample, from an untypical school. However, nonetheless, the evidence presented here can