Schooling Indifference: Reimagining RE in multi-cultural and gendered spaces

Citation

I'Anson J & Jasper A (2017) Schooling Indifference: Reimagining RE in multi-cultural and gendered spaces. Gender, Theology and Spirituality. London: Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Schooling-Indifference-Reimagining-RE-in-multi-cultural-and-gendered-spaces/IAnson-Jasper/p/book/9781138184695

Abstract
This book is concerned with re-imagining Religious Education (RE) as this is practiced in schools, colleges and universities throughout the UK and in a wide variety of international educational contexts.  On the basis of a critical analysis of current theory and practice in RE the authors argue that this educational framing is no longer plausible in the light of new theoretical developments within the academy. A new educational approach to RE is outlined that challenges students to think and practice differently. This includes a ‘becoming ethnographer’ approach that can acknowledge socio-material relations and engage the broader literacies necessary for such study.  Part One examines how RE has been constructed as a discipline in historical and spatial terms that abstract its study from material concerns. Part Two offers some new starting points: Spinoza, Foucault and feminist theory that differently foreground context and relationality, and 'Islam' read as a discursive, located tradition rather than as 'world view'. Finally, Part Three proposes a new trajectory for research and practice in RE, with the aim of re-engaging schools, colleges and universities in a dialogue that promotes thinking and practice that – as educational - is continually in touch with the need to be critical, open-ended and ethically justifiable.