Full Description
The Empirical Science of Religious Education draws together a collection of innovative articles in the field of religious education which passed the editorial scrutiny of Professor Robert Jackson over the course of his impactful fourteen year career as editor of the British Journal of Religious Education. These articles have made an enormous contribution to the international literature establishing of the empirical science of religious education as a research field.
The volume draws together, organises and illustrates the contours of this emerging field and is an essential compendium which covers work in:
teacher education and teacher experience;
student understanding, attitudes and values;
varieties of religious schooling, and;
worldview and life interpretation
Organised into ten thematic sections the contributors cover the field comprehensively and bring with them an international and reflexive approach to their research.
It is an essential resource for those practitioners and researchers who wish to access original and innovative research undertaken by way of ethnographic fieldwork, practitioner research, life-history approaches to research, psychological scales and measures, and large surveys. Particularly interested readers will be studying PGCE and masters level programmes in religious education, as well as qualified religious educators undertaking continuing professional development.
Contents
Contents
Preface
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introducing the empirical science of religious education
Part 1. Ethnographic fieldwork
1.1 Bridging the gap between young people's experience of their religious traditions at home and school: The contribution of ethnographic research
Eleanor Nesbitt
1.2 Issues in the delivery of religious education to Muslim pupils: Perspectives from the classroom
Julia Ipgrave
Part 2. Practitioner research and community of practice
2.1 Researching religious education pedagogy through an action research community of practice
Kevin O'Grady
2.2 'I'm less intolerant': Reflexive self-assessment in religious education
Nigel Fancourt
Part 3. Educating religious educators
3.1 Becoming an RE teacher: A life history approach
Pat Sikes and Judith Everington
3.2 The experience of Black African religious education trainee teachers training in England
Nick Mead
Part 4. Students imaging beginnings and endings
4.1 Children's concepts of an afterlife
Sandra Frangoulis, Netta Jordan and Richard Lansdown
4.2 Insights from children's perspectives in interpreting the wisdom of the biblical creation narrative
Howard Worsley
Part 5. In search of meaning and purpose
5.1 Weaving the threads of meaning: A characteristic of children's spirituality and its implications for religious education
Brendan Hyde
5.2 Exploring the role of religion and spirituality in the development of purpose: Case studies of purposeful youth
Kirsi Tirri and Brandy Quinn
Part 6. Life world and life interpretation
6.1 Islamic nature and identity management: The lifeworld of Pakistani children in Norway
Sissel Östberg
6.2 Life interpretation and religion among Icelandic teenagers
Gunnar J. Gunnarsson
Part 7. Religious schooling
7.1 Islamic schools in The Netherlands: Compromising between identity and quality? Geert Driessen and Pim Valkenberg
7.2 The case of the Jewish high school in Berlin: A denominational school dealing with diversity
Christine Mueller
Part 8. Developing scales and measures
8.1 The Loman Index of Biblical interpretation: Distinguishing between literal, symbolic and rejecting modes among 11 to 14 year olds
Susan E. Loman and Leslie J. Francis
8.2 Internal consistency reliability and construct validity of the Attitude toward Muslim Proximity Index (AMPI): A measure of social distance
Adrian Brockett, Andrew Village and Leslie J. Francis
Part 9. Shaping and testing theories
9.1 Promoting positive attitudes towards science and religion among sixth-form pupils: Dealing with scientism and creationism
Jeff Astley and Leslie J. Francis
9.2 Personality, conventional Christian belief and unconventional paranormal belief: A study among teenagers
Leslie J. Francis, Emyr Williams and Mandy Robbins
Part 10. Large scale surveys
10.1 A nine-country survey of youth in Europe: Selected findings and issues
William K. Kay and Hans-Georg Ziebertz
10.2 The teenage-religion and values survey in England and Wales: An overview
Mandy Robbins and Leslie J. Francis
Contributors
