Implementing a Ricoeurian lens to examine the impact of individuals' worldviews on subject content knowledge in RE in England: a theoretical proposition
Flanagan, R
Date: 9 October 2019
Article
Journal
British Journal of Religious Education
Publisher
Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Publisher DOI
Abstract
This article recognises that for increasing numbers of teachers with no faith, religion
may seem alien, and this may impact their choice of subject content knowledge.
Teachers may, subconsciously, choose to teach aspects of religion(s) and non-religious
worldviews which adhere to their own worldviews but ignore aspects with which ...
This article recognises that for increasing numbers of teachers with no faith, religion
may seem alien, and this may impact their choice of subject content knowledge.
Teachers may, subconsciously, choose to teach aspects of religion(s) and non-religious
worldviews which adhere to their own worldviews but ignore aspects with which they
disagree. This theoretical article aims to examine the relationality between teachers’
personal worldviews and their choice of subject content knowledge for inclusion into
their RE teaching. Current literature on worldviews and RE, alongside research into
teachers’ professional knowledge, is examined in the first section of this article to
commence investigation into this relationality. Implementing a Ricoeurian lens
provides theoretical insight into the relationality between teachers’ personal worldviews
and their professional knowledge, in particular their subject content knowledge. For
teachers lack of subject content knowledge may be viewed as an insurmountable
problem for effective RE teaching. Yet what constitutes teachers’ professional
knowledge itself is questionable as is the relationality between personal worldviews and
choice of subject content knowledge. This article recommends the provision of support
for teachers to become worldview conscious to illuminate these (un)conscious
omissions of religion(s) and non-religious worldviews and challenge any unexamined
bias.
School of Education
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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