Re Defining Learning About Religion and Learning From Religion A Study of Policy Change

British Journal of Religious Education
ISSN: 0141-6200 (Print) 1740-7931 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbre20
Re-defining learning about religion and learning

from religion: a study of policy change
Nigel Peter Michell Fancourt
To cite this article: Nigel Peter Michell Fancourt (2015) Re-defining learning about religion and
learning from religion: a study of policy change, British Journal of Religious Education, 37:2,
122-137, DOI: 10.1080/01416200.2014.923377
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2014.923377
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Download by: [The University of Northampton]
Date: 28 March 2016, At: 15:00
British Journal of Religious Education, 2015

Vol. 37, No. 2, 122137, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2014.923377
Re-dening learning about religion and learning from religion:

a study of policy change
Nigel Peter Michell Fancourt*
Downloaded by [The University of Northampton] at 15:00 28 March 2016
Department of Education, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

The study of how policy processes shape religious education as a curriculum subject, rather than within faith schooling, is relatively unexplored.
This paper applies a policy analysis perspective to an important distinction in non-confessional English religious education, which has also
been adopted internationally: learning about religion and learning
from religion. The changing nature of the distinction in English policy
documents from 1994 is examined in the light of three main voices of
inuence on educational policy: neo-conservatives, neo-liberals and progressives. These changes are also analysed through three policy contexts: inuence, text production and practice. Revisions to policy
wording are interpreted in the light of this theory, showing the growing
signicance of neo-liberalism, and the nature of compromise, amendment and ambiguity. The implications for an understanding of the interrelationship between policy, pedagogy and practice are then considered.
Keywords: policy; pedagogy; assessment
Introduction
In many countries, government policies explicitly address religious education
(Davis and Miroshnikova 2013). This is not new: for example, in England,
the 1870 legislation barred overtly denominational proselytising in state
schools, under the Cowper-Temple clause (Section 29, UK Government
1870), while in France the contested status of religious education was central
to the development of the constitutional principle of lacit in 1905
(Baubrot 2004). In both countries, its status was linked to the related but
not identical issue of religious organisations involvement in education.
More recently, these policy debates often centre on whether religious education should be a form of religious nurture or an impartial study of a range of
religions (Loobuyk and Franken 2011), but are still entwined with policy on
religious organisations in education (Kay 2002; Walford 2008).
This intersection of politics and religious education is not only
long-standing but highly charged; teachers, academics, religious leaders,
*Email: nigel.fancourt@education.ox.ac.uk
2014 Christian Education
123
politicians, secular groups and the general public often have strong views.
Some place this debate within wider perspectives on religion and society,
notably secularisation (Weisse 2007; Gearon 2012). However, there are also
an increasing number of studies focusing on the mechanisms of policy processes in religious education, as a eld of enquiry rather than a eld of
debate (Skeie 2001, 238), showing how educational policies are created,
interpreted and played out. For instance, Parker and Freathy (2011, 2012)
conducted an historical analysis of Birminghams 1974 Agreed Syllabus,
which initiated multi-religious approaches in England. Other examples
include Schreiners (2012) study of how European institutions developed
policies on religious education. Mayrl (2011) explored how teachers willingly adopted secular state policies in church schools in New South Wales.
It has also been applied to religious education across Europe (Fancourt
2013).
This paper analyses the changes in religious education policy in England
from 1994 onwards for state-maintained schools without any religious afliation. Schools with a religious afliation (faith schools) set their own religious education (Walford 2000; Jackson 2004). England is an important
case study because it shifted from a Christian nurture model towards the
impartial study of religions before many other countries (Copley 2005;
Gearon 2013), so is illustrative of potential issues. Further, English policy
formalised a distinction between learning about religion and learning from
religion, which has been borrowed (Philips and Ochs 2004) by, for example, Finland (Hella and Wright 2009) and Canada (Ouellett 2007), and
supra-national organisations (Keast 2007; Organisation for Security and
Co-operation in Europe [OSCE] 2007). It is sometimes contrasted with
teaching into religion (Loobuyk and Franken 2011, 173). The borrowers
however may be unaware of the policys development.
Current policy denitions
The current distinction in policy is set out in a non-statutory framework [the
Framework] (Qualications and Curriculum Authority [QCA] 2004).
Learning about religion is dened as:
Enquiry into, and investigation of, the nature of religion, its beliefs, teachings
and ways of life, sources, practices and forms of expression. It includes the
skills of interpretation, analysis and explanation. Pupils learn to communicate
their knowledge and understanding using specialist vocabulary. It also
includes identifying and developing an understanding of ultimate questions
and ethical issues. [It] covers pupils knowledge and understanding of
individual religions and how they relate to each other as well as the study of
the nature and characteristics of religion. (11)
Learning from religion is dened as:
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Concerned with developing pupils reection on and response to their own

and others experiences in the light of their learning about religion. It develops pupils skills of application, interpretation and evaluation of what they
learn about religion. Pupils learn to develop and communicate their own
ideas, particularly in relation to questions of identity and belonging, meaning,
purpose and truth, and values and commitments. (11)
The denitions therefore set up a distinction between pupils knowledge

and understanding, and their ability to reect on their beliefs and those they
have studied. However, a number of commentators have pointed to continuing difculties with this distinction (Teece 2011; Chater and Erricker
2013), so how did this current policy emerge?
Analysing policy contexts
This distinction can be analysed through a policy sociology approach. From
the late 1980s, several researchers started focusing on policy change, e.g.
Ozga (1987) and notably Ball (1990, 2006), and (Bowe, Ball, and Gold
1992; Ball, Maguire, and, Braun 2012). Balls approach has been widely
applied to many educational policies, such as teacher education (Furlong
et al. 2000), though it is not without criticism (e.g. Hatcher and Troyna
1994; Gale 2001) or modication (e.g. Grimaldi 2012); this article applies
his theoretical lens, rather than radically modifying it. It is striking that religious education is barely mentioned in Balls work, so this article extends
his analysis, using an approach that has been applied more widely across
Europe (Fancourt 2013).
Ball envisages policy as a discourse of power (Ball 1990; Grimaldi
2012), which is both prescriptive and contested. In a study of the implementation of the English national curriculum, he and colleagues identied three
policy contexts: inuence, text production and practice (Bowe, Ball, and
Gold 1992). The context of inuence is where interested parties struggle to
inuence the denition and purposes of education (19). For religious education, this could be political parties and their policy advisory groups, but
also the faith communities, but these inuences may conict. The second
context is text production. Policy texts codify the ideas; they inevitably
reect dominant inuences, but they are also formal, ofcial documents that
must bear the weight of political or legal scrutiny, and harmonise with other
policy. However, as the outcome of struggle and compromise, there may
be contradictions and ambiguities rather than coherence and clarity (21; see
also Carter 2012). The texts coherence has important consequences in the
third context practice: policy is not simply received and implemented
it is subject to interpretation and then recreated, because practitioners do
not confront policy texts as nave readers; they come with histories, with
experience, with values and purposes of their own (22; see also Mayrl
2011). They draw on Barthes post-structuralist semiotics to distinguish
125
between readerly and writerly texts (Barthes 1970). A readerly text

gives the reader little freedom other than to accept its meaning. A writerly
text by contrast invites the reader to join in, to co-write the meaning.
Some policy texts explicitly allow for a writerly approach, so that teachers
are entitled to interpret them freely; others are readerly, their meanings
unequivocal; Hargreaves similarly contrasts mandates and menus
(Hargreaves 1997, 345). However, in a circular way, teachers implementation of the policies is scrutinised by those in the context of inuence, generating new policy. The relationships between these contexts are uid and
operate in a variety of directions; teachers can be one voice in the context
of inuence, as well as key agents in the context of practice.
An initial problem in applying this threefold distinction is the intermediate tier of local authorities, between national policy-makers and teachers,
which have the legal responsibility to draft their local syllabus, through its
Agreed Syllabus Conference (Schedule 31, UK Government 1996; see also
QCA 2003). Central government policy documents therefore only impact
indirectly on teachers, though currently very few local authorities do not
follow national policy. Local committees are themselves a microcosm of the
process, with their own inuences, text production and practice (Rose 2006;
Parker and Freathy 2011), and react differently to central policy in creating
local policy documents. Locally agreed syllabuses themselves may be readerly or writerly, but teachers can also use the national policies to interpret
them. The essential elements remain in place, but there is more uidity.
Three voices in policy discourse
In analysing the context of inuence, Ball adopts Williams (1961) categorisation of three voices to conceptualise the conicting political opinions (Ball
1990, 4). Progressives argued for the development of inclusive education
as a public good, especially during the 1940s to 1970s. Education was a
right for all, embodied in child-centred learning, the phasing out of selective
education, and the expansion of further and higher education; these would
help overcome class divisions in society. Progressives were condemned by
the New Right, which contained two differing voices. One was Neo-liberalism, the industrial trainers (Ball 1990, 12), focused on preparing students
for the workplace through developing a skills curriculum, but also through
the marketisation of education itself, with schools in competition now
seen as the dominant voice in education internationally (Hill and Kumar
2009). Third were the neo-conservative cultural restorationists, who
favoured traditional schooling, both in terms of organisation and curriculum,
notably in literature and history. These last two voices appear as twin
responses to globalisation: states prepare for international economic competition through the development of a more skilled workforce, but the threat
of globalisation concomitantly leads to a reassertion of traditional identities
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N.P.M. Fancourt
(Hargreaves 1997). Religious education is bound up in these forces, and is

caught up in the unnished debate about national identity (Robson
1996, 16). Furthermore, debates in religious education are also marked by
theological distinctions which sometimes use similar terms, such as liberal,
progressive or conservative. Here, Balls terminology is used throughout. At
the risk of over-simplication, theological conservatives are often neoconservative, while the theologically liberal or progressive are both often
educationally progressive. Neo-liberals are less easily classiable theologically, as will be seen.
The compromises of the 1988 Education Reform Act
How did these three voices impinge on the changing formulations of the
learning about and learning from distinction? It rst entered policy in the
governments guidance document, the Model Syllabuses (School Curriculum
and Assessment Authority [SCAA] 1994a, 1994b), under the legislative
frame of the Education Reform Act (UK Government 1988). This Act was
the most important achievement of the third Thatcher government (Coulby
1991a, 1). It initiated the rst mandatory national curriculum (excepting religious education), which was essentially neo-conservative in tone, based on
the old-fashioned grammar school curriculum (Coulby 1991b, 25). However, this government also established the neo-liberal principle of marketisation, through competition between schools on the basis of national testing.
This was supplemented by a xed pedagogical structure across all subjects
in the National Curriculum, with set Attainment Targets and Programmes
of Study (National Curriculum Council 1990). Conservative policy was
therefore in tension between these two voices.
The treatment of religious education under this Act was complex.
Neo-conservatives argued for a stronger place for RE in schools (Jackson
2004, 22), with an explicitly Christian focus, condemning both world religions and moral issues approaches. Baroness Cox lamented that teaching
about Christianity has either been diluted to a multi-faith relativism or has
become little more than a secularised discussion of social and political
issues (Cox 1988, 4). Debates between progressives and neo-conservatives
were long-standing and sharp, as Bates (1996) showed, but they jointly
countered neo-liberal objections to religious education as irrelevant and
non-vocational (Alves 1991). The essence of the compromise (Jackson
2004, 24, emphasis added) was formulated in Section 8(3) that local syllabuses must: reect the fact that religious traditions in Great Britain are in
the main Christian whilst taking in account other principal religions represented in Great Britain (UK Government 1996). While this could be seen
as accommodating the cross-curricular dimension of preparation for life in
a multi-cultural society (National Curriculum Council 1990, 2), it was also
seen as asserting neo-conservative principles in prioritising Christianity,
127
especially when linked to the requirement for collective worship to be of a

broadly Christian character (Section 5, 1988 Act). The Act generated much
immediate comment from academics in religious education (e.g. Cox and
Cairns 1989; Hull 1989). The compromise was then re-interpreted in a governmental circular to mean that content on Christianity should predominate
(Department for Education 1994, 16), which was questioned legally
(Jackson 2004).
Religious educations position outside the National Curriculum was signicant. The legislation simply set statutory parameters for local authorities.
There were a number of reasons for this omission, such as the existence of
local structures since 1944 and the legal complexity of providing different
arrangements for faith schools (Gilliard 1992; Copley 2005). This meant
that while other subjects were homogenised and constrained, religious education was both more varied and less directed; local authorities took different positions, the results of local compromises, but could never produce the
same amount of specication as central government. In particular, there
were neither national Attainment Targets nor an assessment framework
(National Curriculum Council 1993a), but this meant that religious education was isolated in the curriculum (OFSTED 1994).
The model syllabuses: appropriating progressive terminology
This marginal position concerned some (National Curriculum Council
1991), so SCAA (1994a, 1994b) developed non-statutory Model Syllabuses,
in two versions: one organised systematically and the other thematically.
They both used the distinction between learning about religion and
learning from religion. This was originally formulated pedagogically by
Grimmitt (1981, 1987, 2000, 2010). Grimmitts pedagogy was both
contested (e.g. Atteld 1996; Wright 1997; Jackson 2004) and supported
(e.g. Teece 2010). Its appearance in policy was surprising, since Grimmitts
approach was almost archetypically progressive. He railed against the neoconservative predominance of Christianity and the performative demands of
neo-liberals (Grimmitt 2000, 2010). His original learning from religion
was very progressive, including what pupils learn about the nature and
demands of ultimate questions about the normative views of the human
condition, about the discernment and interpretation of Core Values
(Grimmitt 1987, 225, authors emphasis); these core values are universal
and implicit within the givens of the human situation and act as kinds of
value-imperatives (Grimmitt 1987, 121). Such concepts were far from
Thatcherite neo-conservatism and neo-liberalism.
Why then were Grimmitts terms adopted? The mixed voices of inuences required an assessment-linked pedagogy which was based in knowledge and understanding of the different religions, but also described the
development of related skills. There were two contemporary models of
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assessment in religious education: the FARE project (Copley et al. 1991)

and Westhill Colleges (1989, 1991) approach. The FARE projects model
was simpler, with two attainment targets: reection on meaning and
knowledge and understanding of religion, but it started from the pupils
inner perspective rather than subject content a somewhat progressive
approach. Westhill Colleges framework was more complex, originally identifying ten attainment targets (1989), but later reduced to three: understanding religious belief and practice, reecting, responding and expressing
and awareness of life experiences and questions they raise (1991).
Although rooted in content, it was unwieldy. Grimmitts terminology could
achieve this simplication, especially as GCSE examination boards had
already adopted them (Atteld 1996).
Nevertheless, the detail needed re-interpreting. One signicant change
was the neo-liberal re-labelling of the rst term as an Attainment Target,
and its neo-conservative pluralisation, to learning about religions. It was
described as the study of individual religions, including the ability to:
Identify, name, describe and give accounts in order to build a coherent
picture of each religion;
Explain the meaning of religious language, stories and symbols;
Explain similarities and differences within, and between, religions
(SCAA 1994a, 5, emphasis added).
This was a compromise between a progressive pedagogy and a neoconservative agenda. There was no longer Grimmitts global sense of
Religion or Core Values, but a series of religions, which would encourage
their discrete teaching.
However, the second attainment target, learning from religion,
remained singular. This created ambiguity, as the two targets were potentially misaligned. The second target includes the ability to:
Give an informed and considered response to religious and moral
issues;
Reect on what might be learnt from religions in the light of ones
own beliefs and experience;
Identify and respond to questions of meaning within religions (SCAA
1994a, 5, emphasis added).
Strikingly, two sub-clauses use the plural religions, so that it is unclear
why this target did remain singular. It also merely includes elements, and
is not comprised of them. For instance, Grimmitt (1987) included discerning signals of transcendence, recognising the shaping inuences of their
beliefs, and being able to discern a spiritual dimension (225). Further,
these wider elements were not ignored, since the detailed descriptors for
129
each key stage, later in the text, set out two new features, more akin to
Grimmitts formulations: pupils should have opportunities for enhancing
their own spiritual and moral development and developing positive
attitudes towards other people and their right to hold different beliefs
(SCAA 1994a, 13). Behind them is an assumption about the role of religious education in moral and spiritual development, which had become a
legal obligation. They were included here within attainment targets, but paradoxically in other policy documents were considered unassessable
(National Curriculum Council 1993b, 16). This ambiguity can be accounted
for in the context of text production, as different elements were welded
together to try to satisfy the divergent voices of inuence; however, different draftspersons resolved this differently, with unintended incoherence.
What happened in the context of practice is hard to judge precisely, particularly given the role of local authorities. The case for centralisation continued (OFSTED 1997), supported by the production of exemplication
material (QCA 1998). Nevertheless, some preferred older models, thus
South Gloucestershire based its syllabus on the FARE project (South
Gloucestershire County Council 2000). Two surveys of teachers aims provide insights (Astley et al. 1997; Francis et al. 1999). These highlighted a
generational difference with younger teachers who were more focused on its
place alongside the national curriculum, and older teachers who maintained
the confessional or neo-confessional aim of promoting a religious way of
life (183), suggesting that teachers did not automatically accept the thrust
of the new approach. Inconsistencies within the document also meant that it
was writerly. The ambiguity between religion and religions meant that religion might simply be the sum of the six religions identied, or something
more holistic (Hull 1995) Progressives could interpret it in Grimmitts sense,
neo-conservatives could point to the focus on differences between religions,
and neo-liberals could look to the use of National Curriculum terminology.
New labour neo-liberalism
In 2000, the QCA, SCAAs replacement, published guidance on assessment
in religious education (QCA 2000) (the Guidance). This followed the arrival of Blairs New Labour government in 1997, whose educational policies
were not a return to progressivism. They maintained many neo-liberal policies, notably combining a National Curriculum and assessment system with
quasi-markets, and detailed specication in literacy and numeracy (Whitty
2002, 128; see Kay 2002). The Guidance was avowedly neo-liberal: to
help improve consistency and effectiveness of assessment (QCA 2000, 4).
The 1994 denitions were unchanged, but an eight-level assessment scale
was set out, matching the revised National Curriculum. The criteria were
tightly specied for the eight levels, plus exceptional performance; indeed
it sub-divided them into three sub-sections for each attainment target, giving
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N.P.M. Fancourt
54 descriptors in total. This over-specication of assessment criteria can be

seen as readerly, as teachers interpretations needed to be constrained.
Inevitably, neo-conservative features diminished. The rst sub-elements
of learning about religion in the two documents show this:
SCAA (1994a): Identify, name, describe and give accounts in order to build a
coherent picture of each religion. (5, emphasis added)
QCA (2000): Knowledge and understanding of religious beliefs and teachings.

(4)
By downplaying the distinctiveness of particular religions, the text could be

interpreted progressively. The Guidance was thus both more neo-liberal and
progressive, but less neo-conservative in tone, though traces remained.
There were however problems with the new assessment criteria. They
suffered from the over-specication that had bedevilled the 1988 National
Curriculum (Blaylock 2000), and national assessment criteria but a local
curriculum meant curriculum and assessment were unaligned, as it was difcult to make a general statement of what could be expected (Kay 2005,
44). Local authorities tried to resolve this by drafting their own assessment
criteria, thereby creating new levels of interpretation. Finally, in the context
of text production, certain command words, e.g. evaluate, could not be
applied below a certain level across any National Curriculum subject (Keast
2003). This served to skew the subjects pedagogical aims: if evaluation
was seen as a higher-order skill, was learning from religion automatically
more challenging than learning about religion? In which case, was a level 3
in one equivalent to the other? Overall, the text was over-specic and
aligned to assessment in other subjects, but unaligned to the religious education curriculum.
The Guidance also provided specic advice on learning from religion.
Some suggestions appeared to resemble learning about religion, e.g. understand how believers in different religious traditions may interact with each
other, and others drew on Grimmitt or Westhill College, e.g. pupils should
be able to make clear links between common human experience and what
religious people believe and do (QCA 2000, 16). Good practice was said
to include being inextricably linked to learning from religions and
about concepts in religions, and moreover about developing skills, e.g.
the skill of living in a plural society, whereas bad practice included being
free of religious contentabout promoting a religious lifestyle (QCA 2000,
18). It was also essential for the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils, echoing parts of the Model Syllabuses, and wider views
of spiritual and moral development (QCA 2000, 18). This attainment target
was becoming the dumping site for a variety of conicting educational
goals (Teece 2011).
131
Re-dening the new labour compromise

Blairs second government strengthened its combination of progressive and
neo-liberal approaches. The main neo-liberal trend was more centralised curriculum advice and assessment criteria. The main progressive trend was the
introduction of the wider educational policy to promote community cohesion, particularly post 9/11 (QCA 2004; Gearon 2012; Moulin 2012).
Neo-conservative voices were further reduced, as seen in the current version, set out above. As Felderhof (2004) argues, religion tends to replace
religions, but not completely, as it requires the study of the nature of religion and of individual religions without specifying their inter-relationship.
It remained unclear if the second attainment target was based on the rst, or
independent of it. This was particularly problematic as the Framework
allowed, in a progressive move, for secular worldviews to be studied (QCA
2004, 25). Religious education now went beyond religions, but the pedagogical implications of this were unclear (Watson 2010): do pupils learn
from non-religious beliefs in the same way as they learn from religion(s)?
These modications created further ambiguity. This was re-addressed in
subsequent Programmes of Study, which kept the singular title, but labelled
as a Key processes, for example, investigat[ing] the impact of religious
beliefs and teachings without recourse to the notion of religion as a
whole (QCDA 2007, 266). However, even more complicatedly, the current
Coalition government removed these Programmes of Study, though some
local authorities had already adopted them (e.g. City of Bradford 2013).
Research suggests that teachers interpreted the targets variably.
Haywards (2007) review of the teaching of Christianity asked teachers to
identify what they wanted the pupils to learn about and from Christianity.
While the rst was fairly clear, the second included the critical skills
implied in the denition, or particular values, notably tolerance or respect,
or personal development. Further, Jackson et al.s survey (2010) asked
teachers to prioritise various aims, and this showed a difference in priorities
between primary and secondary schools; primary teachers saw it as personal
or moral education while secondary teachers favoured either philosophical
processes, or the development of values. The teaching community had a
variety of different pedagogical intentions, and could interpret the blurred
distinction accordingly.
Conclusion: compromise, amendment and ambiguity
What are the implications of this policy analysis of religious education?
First, recognising the different voices reveals how wider educational debates
signicantly affect religious education policy. Neo-liberalism has inexorably
impinged on the classic tension between traditionalist and progressive
views. From the perspective of policy studies, this is almost banal, yet it is
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N.P.M. Fancourt
striking that this has been largely unrecognised in religious education

research, which often treats policy no differently from pedagogical writings.
By recognising different voices, the accretion of policy compromises
emerges, supporting Parker and Freathys (2011) argument that national
religious education cannot be said purely to represent one perspective (see
Barnes and Wright 2006). Further, policy operates across different contexts,
with a mix of voices, embedded in texts, played across classrooms (see
Mayrl 2011). Even if one voice is in ascendancy, others have inuence and
lead to compromise. This illuminates the complexity of what several commentators have described, in slightly different ways, as paradigm shifts in
religious education (Loobuyk and Franken 2011; Gearon 2013; Barnes
2014), though it also suggests that realising a new paradigm in classrooms
(Barnes 2014) might be a challenge because of the ways that pedagogy,
policy and practice intermesh.
Secondly, the identication of three contexts is valuable in showing how
inuences become formalised in texts, which are then interpreted: educational change is socially, culturally and politically situated. Recognising this
uncovers the policy process from inuence to classroom, and by focusing
on the context of text production the amount of amendment is particularly
striking. The distinction has been adopted, adapted, modied and re-modied, but it is unclear if these are re-wordings of the original distinction, or
if they are a new distinction each time. Like a palimpsest, the underlying
policy traces remain despite the new surface wording (Carter 2012). The
overall effect means that individuals can choose the particular interpretation
that suits them. So should clarity be sought? Some argue that the subject
community should agree on the subjects aims (Teece 2011, 169). But,
perhaps this is nave: this subject community needs to recognise wider
inuences at work.
There are also wider theoretical perspectives to consider. It would be
wrong to conclude that England is unique in having a policy on religious
education, even if its particular patterns are. Clearly, comparable studies in
other countries would be insightful, since the policy processes are likely to
be similar even if the mix of voices will be different. Moreover, it would be
fruitful to follow this distinctions international borrowings. The issues
could be contextualised further within other policy debates, particularly on
the place of religious organisations in education, and within wider analysis
of both educational policy and the sociology of religion. For instance, how
do these voices affect processes of secularisation and de-secularisation
across the three contexts? This discussion also affects policies on faith
schooling: for instance, neo-liberalism could be seen as de-secularising since
it often encourages faith schools, or as secularising, since it often underpins
a standards-driven approach to religious education in schools. There is
clearly room for more nuanced theoretical perspectives in order to make
133
sense of this politically, theologically, sociologically and educationally

complex eld.
Notes on contributor
Nigel Peter Michell Fancourt is a lecturer at the Department of Education, University
of Oxford, and an honorary fellow at St Stephens House. His research interests
include policy, pedagogy and practice in religious education, and in wider debates
about religions in education. He also researches teacher education.
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