Religious identity choices in English secondary schools

Abstract

This paper explores religious adolescents' reported experiences of secondary schools. Fifty‐four qualitative interviews were conducted in places of worship in three cities in England with Christians (n=46), Jews (n=38) and Muslims (n=15). Secondary schools of a religious and non‐religious character were reported as not providing a suitable environment for religious observances, nor as a place to act and behave according to participants' religious principles. Religious adolescents reported prejudice and criticism of their beliefs or religious affiliations from their peers and sometimes from teachers. They also perceived their religious traditions to be distorted, inaccurately or unfairly represented in some lessons. The focus of this paper is the identity choices religious adolescents reported in response to these challenges. Three groups of identity choices are theorised and explored: religious identity seeking, religious identity declaration and religious identity masking. The findings are discussed in view of religious identity construction theory, good practice for teachers and also the potential concerns of faith communities.

20201218

“…These finding seem contrary to conclusions Berry's (1997) theory of acculturation, and encourages mental health providers to acknowledge socio-political and cultural context in models of development. Similarly, the influence of educational context on identity development of Muslim youth populations has highlighted potential institutional roles in racializing Muslim students, experiences of social exclusion, and the impact these experiences have on religious identity (e.g., Keaton, 2005;Mac an Ghaill & Haywood, 2014;Moulin, 2015;Basford, 2008). Basford (2008) described how Africanorigin Muslims in the U.S. reported perceived academic, religious, and cultural hostility, often feeling hidden and unwelcome in their schools.…”

Does religious education promote good community relations?

“…Moulin is critical of REsilience, arguing that it has skewed the study of Islam and its representation in the RE classroom (2012,169). His own (currently small scale) emzpirical research reports Muslim students feeling further stigmatised, rather than better understood, as a result of their experiences at school (2012, 170-171;Moulin 2014). …”

Doubts about Religious Education in public schooling

“…However, there are important theological and sociological factors as well as epistemological ones to be considered here. Religions typically rely on notions of authority that ensure the continuation and legitimacy of their traditions, and processes of religious identity formation have been shown to be related to processes of identification and fidelity to groups, traditions, practices and authority, rather than assent to abstract propositions (Chaudhury and Miller, 2008;Moulin, 2014;Østberg, 2000). In the case of Christianity, concepts of authority are located within a tradition with greater or lesser emphasis upon, for example, conscience, Scripture, episcopal hierarchy, or apostolic successiondepending upon the various ecclesiological positions across and within denominations.…”

“…Only recently has research begun to be conducted in order to understand the potential impact of Religious Education upon religious identity construction (Moulin, 2014;Streib, 2001;Thanissaro, 2012;Visser-Vogel et al, 2012). Studies with secondary school students who identified with Christianity, Islam or Judaism have found that their perspectives of Religious Education could resonate with the criticisms in the literature given above and were sometimes reported to challenge their beliefs, identifications and affiliations (Moulin, 2015, forthcoming 1 ).…”

“…My aim is to reconsider Garforth's observations with a particular consideration of the potential impact Religious Education may have on those students who may identify with, practice, or believe in, a religion. I draw upon recent empirical research, including interview studies I conducted while a postgraduate student at the University of Oxford exploring the reported schooling experiences of adolescent Christians, Jews and Muslims (Moulin, 2011(Moulin, , 2014(Moulin, , 2015 forthcoming 1 ).…”