Recent observations on religion education in South Africa¹

A comparative analysis between the religious and comprehensive sexuality education policies in South African schools

“…Chidester, 2003;Miedema, 2014;Roux, 2009) and CSE (Bhana et al, 2019;Francis & Msibi, 2011;Shefer & Macleod, 2015) maintain that for the implementation of both policies to be effective, a social justice, human rights-based and antioppressive approach needs to be adapted in curriculum knowledge and pedagogy to ensure the representation of all learners, including learners from religious and sexual minorities groups. In the case of the RE policy, the policy aims to incorporate teaching about diverse worldviews from multiple religious and faith based groups, including those religions which stand marginal as opposed to the dominant branches of Christian religions (Chidester, 2003;MacDonald, 2015;Nogueira-Godsey, 2016). Within the CSE policy, the policy strives to engender an inclusive praxis in teaching about gender and sexuality diversity by incorporating knowledge about non-conforming sexualities, such as those of LGBT youth in sexuality curriculum such as LO (Francis, 2017a;Potgieter & Reygan, 2012;Wilmot & Naidoo, 2014).…”

“…For example, a perusal of the two policies' overriding goals shows that both policies have been introduced in schools to cater for and safeguard the human rights and wellbeing of all learners, including learners from religious (Chidester, 2003;Nogueira-Godsey, 2016;Roux, 2009) and sexual minority groups (Bhana, 2012;Reygan, 2016;Ubisi, 2020a). In the case of the RE policy, the policy aims to integrate teaching about marginalized worldviews from marginal religious groups, such as traditionalists and alternative religions alongside the dominant branches of Christian religions (Chidester, 2003).…”

“…Besides racial segregation in schools, the apartheid government's Christian National Education for example, restricted multi-religious education (Roux, 2009), while the Immorality Act of 1957 prohibited learners from learning about and engaging in 'unnatural/immoral sexual acts' usually associated with homosexuality (De Beer, 2018). Although most studies have explored the relationship between South Africa's racialized past and its consequence for religious (Nogueira-Godsey, 2016), gender (Bhana et al, 2019) and sexuality diversity (Francis, 2019a) within schooling environments, few studies have explored the intersections of policies which safeguard the rights of religious, gender and sexual minorities in school settings. Furthermore, there is limited research which investigates how schools prioritize the implementation of such policies within most schooling environments.…”

Exploring the Potential for Religious Scholarship in ‘Post’ Post-Confessional Religion Education in State-Funded South African Schools

“…Hence, despite the introduction of a series of reform measures geared at making South African schools more inclusive and open to diversity, a number of schools persist in propagating Christianityeither on the basis of historical identities and contexts or on claims that most of its learners are Christian (see Driesen & Tayob 2014;Nogueira-Godsey 2016). And in numerous reported incidents, learners have been subjected to discriminatory practices when they attempt to assert their respective religious identities.…”

“…However, current initial teacher education programmes suggest that not enough emphasis or attention is granted to teacher identity and the inevitable intersectional tension between personal beliefs and professional requirements (Davids 2019; Orchard and Davids 2019). Again, South Africa is not alone in this regard (Orchard, Heilbronn and Winstanley 2020;2016), although we do not wish to downplay the particular challenges this country faces, given its geographical and political positioning and post-conflict, post-apartheid legacies.…”