About this Event
22 April: DIVERSITY & RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: CONSIDERATIONS WHEN LEGISLATING
Parliament Buildings - Long Gallery 1.30pm:
Welcome 1.35pm
1.45pm: Diversity, anti-racism and school curricula in Religious Education
Dr James Nelson, Queen’s University Belfast, & Dr Rebecca Loader, University of Cambridge
This presentation shares evidence-based findings from two academic research projects that examined schools and Religious Education (RE) curricula - entitled “Experiences of Education among Minority Ethnic Groups in Northern Ireland”, which was funded by the Nuffield Foundation, and “Religion and Worldviews Education for All” (RWE4All), funded by Culham St Gabriel’s Trust. It aims to inform Assembly deliberations about reform in both school curricular and race equality legislation and help tackle racism in Northern Ireland. The first project focused on minority ethnic groups and found that by establishing Christianity as normative in Northern Ireland, the current core RE syllabus may lead to inequalities in children’s ability to access and communicate religious knowledge. It showed how limiting opportunities for pupils to learn key concepts from other religious traditions, the present curriculum can impede children from non-Christian faith backgrounds from communicating their social experiences in a way that is meaningful to them and their peers. Further indicating how the current curriculum may reduce children’s capacity to make sense of their encounters with faiths or belief systems of which they are not members, the research noted an absence of objective and critical information can cause children to rely on information sources characterised by bias or prejudice, particularly in relation to minority religious traditions. Moreover, interview responses suggested that current arrangements for withdrawal may fail to provide high quality knowledge to pupils of other (non Christian) faith and belief traditions, and they may not adequately respect parents’ decisions to opt out of RE. The second project - RWE4All – provides qualitative evidence from parents and grandparents who belong to minority faith traditions and participated in the study. Some of these participants reported “othering” and marginalisation as a result of narrow and confessional RE curricula and collective worship in schools. The participants also identified issues with the withdrawal option from both RE and collective worship. Teachers too identified professional supports they need in providing a more diverse education. The project also included a survey of a Northern Ireland wide representative sample of adults (1,051 responses) to study RE teaching in primary schools. The results showed support for broadening the current curricula to not only include a diversity of religions and worldviews, but also a pedagogical approach to teaching both, which is both objective and critical.
2.05pm: Creative Learning in Education to Affirm Religious, Ethnic & Cultural Diversity
Dr John Maiden, Prof Stefanie Sinclair, Dr Katelin Teller & Prof John Wolffe, The Open University
This presentation is relevant to Assembly discussion addressing the following matters: (1) the forthcoming Race Equality Bill and the related consultation findings reporting young people’s suggestion to widen curriculum on racism and diversity, including the scope of Religious Education (RE); (2) the forthcoming Education and Training Bill concerning 16-18s, which is to implement some of the 2023 Independent Review of Education recommendations, such as a new RE syllabus to help young people understand the society in which they are growing up, for example, both society’s increasing diversity and its Christian traditions; (3) the November 2025 Supreme Court finding that the current RE and collective worship provided in a school in Northern Ireland is contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights and the United Kingdom Human Rights Act 1998; (4) the ongoing development of England’s first national RE curriculum, which offers a comparative perspective in this area; and, (5) the draft Framework for Race Relations which emphasises the importance of education and training to reflect diversity. Reporting on academic research conducted for the RETOPEA (Religious Toleration and Peace) Project, funded by EU Horizon 2020 (Grant Agreement no. 770309), the Culham St. Gabriels Trust in the United Kingdom and The Open University’s Open Societal Challenges Programme, the presentation provides an innovative educational method for enhancing young people’s appreciation of religious, ethnic and cultural diversity. It outlines the method: how it involves young people working in teams to make short films - ‘docutubes’ - relating their own experience and observation through texts and images which reflect on religious toleration and peace in the past and present; and also affords young people the opportunity to develop skills in team working, management of disagreement, communication and media literacy, which are valuable to young people in formal education, training or the workplace. The presentation explains how the method has been trialled successfully through pilot workshops held in Northern Ireland, other parts of the United Kingdom, continental Europe and Jordan. It involved more than 200 young people ranging in age from 12 to the early 20s (including in a shared education context in North Belfast), to evidence the positive impacts on participants, as documented in their feedback and in observations made by teachers, leaders and the academics conducting the workshops. It also shows how the method was particularly effective with the 16 18 age group. For a short video introducing the Project, view here; for an animation briefly explaining the docutube-making process, see here.
2.25pm: Discussion
2.55pm: Closing
Closing 3.00pm: Networking & Refreshments
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Parliament Buildings, Parliament Buildings, Belfast, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00
