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The British Council of Churches’ Influence on the ‘Radical Rethinking of Religious Education’ in the 1960s and 1970s
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2019
Abstract
It is widely accepted that during the later 1960s, Religious Education (RE) in English state-maintained schools underwent a significant transition, moving from a Christian ‘confessional’ approach to an academic study of world religions. A detailed examination of the activities of the British Council of Churches’ Education Department during the period reveals examples of an active promotion of this study of world religions, something that hitherto has been absent from the historiography of RE. For example, the department organized key conferences, meetings and consultations, at which future directions for RE were considered and discussed. A research project undertaken for the department in the later 1960s, which led to the 1968 report Religion and the Secondary School, was prompted by the identification that ‘[t]oday the needs of children and young people demand a radical rethinking and reshaping of the purpose and method of religious education’. This report included a statement specifically encouraging the study of non-Christian religions, which was repeated in later key documents. This article shows how the British Council of Churches’ Education Department played a role in the development of the ‘non-confessional’ study of world religions in English state-maintained schools from as early as the late 1940s.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2019
Footnotes
I am grateful to Annmarie Valdes, Rob Freathy and the anonymous peer reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.
References
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2 For example, Barnes, L. P. and Wright, A., ‘Romanticism, Representations of Religion and Critical Religious Education’, BJRE 28 (2006), 65–77Google Scholar; Jackson, R. and O'Grady, K., ‘Religions and Education in England: Social Plurality, Civil Religion and Religious Education Pedagogy’, in Jackson, R. et al. , eds, Religion and Education in Europe: Developments, Contexts and Debates (Münster and New York, 2007), 181–201Google Scholar.
3 For example, Barnes, L. P., ‘Ninian Smart and the Phenomenological Approach to Religious Education’, Religion 30 (2000), 315–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Developing a new Post-liberal Paradigm for British Religious Education’, JBV 28 (2007), 17–32; Barnes and Wright, ‘Romanticism’; Barnes, L. P., ‘An Alternative Reading of Modern Religious Education in England and Wales’, British Journal of Sociology of Education 30 (2009), 607–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Developing a new Post-liberal Paradigm’; O'Grady, Kevin, ‘Professor Ninian Smart, Phenomenology and Religious Education’, BJRE 27 (2005), 227–37Google Scholar; Teece, G., ‘Too many competing Imperatives? Does RE need to rediscover its Identity?’, JBV 32 (2011), 161–72Google Scholar; Parker, Stephen and Freathy, Rob, ‘Context, Complexity and Contestation: Birmingham's Agreed Syllabuses for Religious Education since the 1970s’, JBV 32 (2011), 247–63Google Scholar; eidem, ‘Ethnic Diversity, Christian Hegemony and the Emergence of Multi-Faith Religious Education in the 1970s’, HE 41 (2012), 381–404.
4 Schools Council Working Paper 36: Religious Education in Secondary Schools (London, 1971). For an example of the situating of this paper as transformational, see L. Phillip Barnes, ‘Working Paper 36, Christian Confessionalism and Phenomenological Religious Education’, Journal of Education and Christian Belief 6 (2002), 61–77.
5 Rob Freathy and Stephen Parker, ‘The Necessity of Historical Enquiry in Educational Research: The Case of Religious Education’, BJRE 32 (2010), 229–43; see also Dennis Bates, ‘Christianity, Culture and Other Religions (Part 2): F. H. Hilliard, Ninian Smart and the 1988 Education Reform Act’, BJRE 18 (1995–6), 85–102; Penny Thompson, Whatever happened to Religious Education? (Cambridge, 2004); Barnes and Wright, ‘Romanticism’; Terence Copley, Teaching Religion (Exeter, 2008).
6 See, for example, Parker and Freathy, ‘Context, Complexity and Contestation’; Jonathan Doney, ‘“That would be an Ecumenical Matter”. Contextualizing the Adoption of the Study of World Religions in English Religious Education using “Statement Archaeology”: A Systematic Operationalization of Foucault's Historical Method’ (PhD thesis, University of Exeter, 2015), 84–7.
7 For a more detailed discussion, see Doney, ‘“Ecumenical Matter”’.
8 For more detail on this contrast, see ibid. 66–9.
9 Ibid. 111–12.
10 R. Karapin, ‘The Politics of Immigration Control in Britain and Germany: Subnational Politicians and Social Movements’, Comparative Politics 31 (1999), 423–44, at 429. Similarly motivated riots took place in Middleborough (1961) and St Helens (1963): Dominic Sandbrook, White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties (London, 2007), 665.
11 Economic factors were already moderating immigration, which was rising and falling in line with the British economy, with a three-month time lag: Paul Rich, ‘Black People in Britain: Response and Reaction, 1945–62’, History Today 36 (1986), 14–20. See Karapin, Politics of Immigration Control, for a detailed discussion; note, however, that Karapin erroneously claims that the 1958 riots ‘put the issue of immigration control on the political agenda for the first time since World War II’: ibid. 429. This overlooks a House of Commons debate of 5 November 1954: HC Deb, vol. 532, cols 821–32; see also Grosvenor, Assimilating Identities, 19.
12 Karapin asserted that ‘Black immigration dropped from 85,000 per year in 1960–2 to 40,000 per year in 1963–66’: R. Karapin, ‘The Politics of Immigration Control in Britain and Germany: Subnational Politicians and Social Movements’, Comparative Politics 31 (1999), 423–44, at 441; Zig Layton-Henry, The Politics of Immigration (Cambridge, MA, 1992), 13.
13 On the election of Griffiths, the formation of the National Front and Powell's speech, see Sandbrook, White Heat, 661–83.
14 See, for example, Grosvenor, Assimilating Identities.
15 Peter Webster, ‘Race, Religion and National Identity in Sixties Britain: Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Canterbury and his Encounter with Other Faiths’, in Charlotte Methuen, Andrew Spicer and John Wolffe, eds, Christianity and Religious Plurality, SCH 51 (Woodbridge, 2015), 385–98, at 385.
16 Schools Council Working Paper 44: Religious Education in Primary Schools (London, 1972), 78, Table 9.
17 See, for example, Terence Thomas, The British: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London, 1988), 103–55.
18 Freathy and Parker, Secularists, 225–7, where the authors make a robust argument for using the term ‘de-Christianization’ rather than ‘secularization’.
19 Terence Copley, ‘Is UK Religious Education failing to address its own Cultural Context?’, in Rune Larsson and C. Gustavsson, eds, Towards a European Perspective on Religious Education (Skellefteå, 2004), 80–9; Freathy and Parker, ‘Necessity’.
20 On unsuccessful earlier attempts, see, for example, Stephen Charles Neill, ‘Plans of Union and Reunion’, in Ruth Rouse and Stephen Charles Neill, eds, A History of the Ecumenical Movement 1517–1948 (London, 1954), 484–95.
21 London, CERC, BCC/ED/2/3/3, Correspondence and papers concerning the formation of the Committee on Christian Education and its subsequent development, 1939–55, Meeting of the committee, 4 November 1944. On the formation of the Education Department, see BCC/ED/2/1/10, Representation on the Education Department, 1951–8 (correspondence concerning membership of the committee).
22 The conference was held at the University of London Institute of Education under the chairmanship of Professor W. R. Niblet, then the dean: BCC/ED/7/1/7, School-church relationships: papers and correspondence, 1953–65, ‘Programme of, and letters relating to, Conference on Teaching about World Religions in Schools, Saturday 9th December, 1961’.
23 These sessions were to be delivered by E. G. Parrinder, F. H. Hilliard and B. Cousin respectively: ibid., ‘Programme of Conference on World Religions in Schools, 1961’.
24 Ibid., B. Cousin to Revd E. D. G. Stanford, 22 November 1961.
25 In the absence of Stanford, the outgoing secretary, Nina Borelli (acting secretary) replied: ibid., Nina Borelli to B. Cousin, 28 November 1961.
26 BCC/ED/2/1/2, Education Department Minutes November 1963–January 1972, 13 February 1969. A press release circulated after the event claimed this meeting to be ‘the first of its kind to be held in this country’: BCC/ED/7/1/58, ‘Immigrants / Interfaith – West Yorkshire Consultation 1969: Various Papers and Correspondence’, BCC press release, 4 March 1969.
27 BCC/ED/7/1/58, Executive minutes, 21 May 1969; item 69/13 records the debate about the positioning of the BCC in relation to the event and ensuing publication, concluding: ‘It would not be a BCC publication but reference would be made to the fact that BCCED had been responsible for convening the consultation’.
28 Ibid., Report on the consultation, 5.
29 BCC/ED/2/6/2, Various papers submitted to the Working Party on Recruitment, Employment and Training of Teachers.
30 BCC/ED/2/6/1, Various papers including evidence, reports, etc. submitted to the Working Party on the Recruitment, Employment and Training of Teachers together with copies of unsigned minutes, 1969–70, Minutes of First meeting of Working Party on Recruitment, Training and Employment of Teachers concerned with Religious Education in Schools, 27 May 1969.
31 Ibid., Enclosure G.
32 Ibid., Enclosures H and I.
33 Ibid., Enclosure J.
34 Ibid., Enclosure K.
35 National Secular Society publications included Maurice Hill, Surveys on Religion in Schools (London, [1969?]); Margaret Knight, Morals without Religion, and other Essays (London, 1954); Submissions for a new Education Act (London, [1969?]); William McIlroy, Educational Reform: Story of a Campaign (London, 1968); David Tribe, Religion and Human Rights (n.pl., n.d.).
36 BCC/ED/2/6/2, Compilation of material gathered, 11 February 1971, 18–19.
37 BCC/ED/7/1/57, ‘Immigrants and Education – Various Papers’.
38 The meeting was attended by about forty people, including school inspectors, university tutors, members of the BCC and the Free Church Federal Council, and representatives of other Christian groups and of the Hindu, Islamic, Sikh and Jewish communities: ibid., Seminar attendance list, 15 September 1970.
39 BCC/ED/7/1/57, ‘Religious Education in a Multi-Religious Society’, 15 September 1970, Working Party Paper I. Further questions focused on the relationship between child development and the benefits to the pupil of being ‘exposed to religious material from faiths other than his own’, and an evaluation of ‘how newer techniques of teaching religious education help or hinder in a multi-religious approach’.
40 BCC/ED/2/1/2, Education Department minutes, 14 May 1971, item 71/9 (10) (Conference on Religious Education in a Multi-Religious Community, 3–5 May 1971); ibid., 25 January 1972, item 71/9 (8) (Joint WCC/BCC Conference on Interfaith Dialogue in Education, 1972); BCC/ED/2/1/11, BCC, Autumn 1971 Meeting, Education Department Report, 10 (WCC / BCC Conference on Interfaith Dialogue in Education, 10–14 July 1972, Stamford Hall, Leicester, Paper M).
41 The study groups which met in preparation for the 1972 Leicester conference had as their terms of reference ‘to consider some of the issues that emerge in trying to provide a religious education valid on educational grounds in a multi-faith society, and having theological cohesion acceptable to Christian people’: BCC, Autumn 1971 Meeting, Education Department Report, 10 (WCC/BCC Conference on Interfaith Dialogue in Education, 10–14 July 1972, Stamford Hall, Leicester, Paper M; emphasis in original). The term was also used a number of times as an underpinning principle within Working Paper 36 (e.g. ibid. 16, 37).
42 BCC/ED/7/1/40, 1963 Campaign for Education: Various papers and correspondence, 1963 Campaign for Education flyer.
43 BCC/ED/2/1/1, Education Department minutes, 21–22 June 1962, Report on the Nature of Religion and Religious Instruction; ibid., BCC, 12 March 1964 Meeting, Appendix 1, ‘Spring 1964. Programme of Investigation into the Nature and Future Needs of Religious Education in Schools’.
44 Ibid. (emphasis added).
45 Ibid., Executive Committee minutes, 27 October 1958, item 225.
46 Ibid., Education Department minutes, 12 November 1963, item 64/2 (Research on nature and future needs of Religious Education).
47 BCC, 12 March 1964 Meeting, Appendix 1, item 64/12 (appointment of Alves as investigating officer); Colin Alves, Religion and the Secondary School (London, 1968).
48 Alves, Religion, especially 36, 129 (Survey 65, 66 respectively).
49 BCC/ED/7/1/46, Papers and correspondence relating to the investigation into the nature and future needs of religious education primarily in county schools, working party, 1963–6; see also BCC/ED/2/1/1.
50 BCC/ED/2/1/2, Education Department minutes, 14 July 1967.
51 Ibid.
52 Alves, Religion, 11, emphasis original.
53 Ibid., Foreword by Kenneth Sansbury, dated October 1967.
54 Ibid. 13 (Special Committee Report, §1).
55 Ibid. 16–18 (Special Committee Report, §9).
56 Ibid. 15 (Special Committee Report, §7).
57 CERC, NS/7/8/1/14, Questionnaire (question 6).
58 Ibid., Paper 16, Response from County Councils Association.
59 For example, ibid., Paper 15, Evidence from Girl's Public Day School Trust.
60 NS/7/8/1/18, National Society proposed evidence to Commission on Religious Education.
61 For more analysis of this, see Doney, ‘“Ecumenical Matter”’, 51–115.
62 Terence Copley, ‘Rediscovering the Past: Writings on Religious Education in Religion in Education Quarterly, 1934–39, raise some Questions for Today's Religious Educators’, BJRE 20 (1998), 80–9; see also G. E. Phillips, ‘The Study of Other Religions in Schools’, Religion in Education 6 (1939), 221–6; A. Mayhew, ‘The Comparative Study of Religions in Schools’, Religion in Education 4 (1937), 14–21. Religion in Education was the professional journal for RE teachers; on its history, see Stephen G. Parker, Rob Freathy and Jonathan Doney, ‘The Professionalisation of Non-denominational Religious Education in England: Politics, Organisation and Knowledge’, JBV 37 (2016), 201–38.
63 For a historical account of the Institute of Christian Education, see ibid.
64 BCC/ED/7/1/3, Tatlow to Moberly, 28 November 1946.
65 Ibid.
66 BCC/ED/2/3/3, List of publications available from the BCC, 1948.
67 Alves, Religion, 13.
68 For more on the authoritative nature of repeated statements, see Doney, ‘“Ecumenical Matter”’, 141–9.
69 Ramsey, Ian, ed., The Fourth R: The Durham Report on Religious Education (London, 1970)Google Scholar, §216.
70 Ibid. 94–152, ‘Religious Education in Schools with Special Reference to County Schools’, 205–72, ‘Church Schools’.
71 Working Paper 36, 19; see Doney, ‘“Ecumenical Matter”’, 159–214.
72 Gordon, P., ‘The Schools Council and Curriculum: Developments in Secondary Education’, in Lowe, R., ed., The Changing Secondary School (London, 1989), 52–71Google Scholar; P. Fisher, ‘Curriculum Control in England and Wales: The Birth of the Schools Council, 1964’, JEAH 16/2 (1984), 35–44; Manzer, R., ‘The Political Origins of the Schools Council’, Secondary Education 4/2 (1974), 47–50Google Scholar.
73 Working Paper 36; Doney, ‘“Ecumenical Matter”’, 159–214.
74 Manzer states: ‘Almost everyone admitted that the bulletins and working papers which the Council's secretariat soon began to produce were useful and even influential documents’: Political Origins, 50; see also Gordon, Schools Council, 56–7, 68. Stewart highlights the influence of Schools Council publications overseas, linking its influence and authoritative standing to its role in regard to examinations: M. Stewart, ‘The Growth of the Schools Council 1966–1973’, Secondary Education 4/2 (1974), 51–3.
75 Alves, Religion, 15 (Special Committee Report, §7).
76 CERC, NS/7/8/1/7, ‘[Durham] Commission on Religious Education’, Draft for discussion, ch. 4, ‘Religious Education in County Schools’.
77 Kew, TNA, EJ 1/210, RE Committee minutes, 28 October 1970. Neither the files of the Consultative Committee nor those of the Religious Education Committee of the Schools Council include drafts of Working Paper 36, so it is currently impossible to ascertain the exact nature and extent of Alves's editorial work.
78 For a detailed analysis of this process, as traced through the contents of the main professional journal for RE teachers of the time (Learning for Living), see Doney, ‘“Ecumenical Matter”’, 66–81. Regarding policy change, see TNA, ED 135/35, HMI Memos 1975, Memo 3/75, discussed in detail in Doney, ‘“Ecumenical Matter”’, 78–9; also the Swann Report: Department of Education and Science, Education for All: The Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups (London, 1985); Education Reform Act 1988, ch. 40, §8(3).
79 For more detailed analysis of this process of normalization, see Doney, ‘“Ecumenical Matter”’, 66–81.