Abstract
This slim volume, simultaneously published as issue 1.1 (2019) of the new journal Religion and Education, sets out to make a case for “religion and education” as a distinct field for cross-disciplinary research. It contains four main essays (with a very brief introduction and conclusion), coming from three different disciplinary angles, that seek to outline existing scholarly approaches to religion and education and map questions and approaches for future inquiry.
The first two essays take a historical approach. In the first, Stephen Parker begins by considering how religion relates to the public sphere, moving from a model in which religion and education are virtually synonymous (when society and religion are likewise enmeshed) to the emergence of education as an activity distinct from religion and the complications introduced by the separation of public and private spheres. He then offers a typology of six types of religious education (as nurture, as practical theology, as nation-building, as religious literacy, as intercultural/interreligious education, and as preparation for academic study of religion), highlighting the variety in religious education as an object of inquiry. This is followed by Deirdre Raftery’s essay about research on religion in the history of education. Noting the breadth of the field, Raftery chooses to focus on missionary contributions to education and their complex relationship to Western imperialism and on the contributions of women religious to monastic and conventual education. Her essay surveys a range of scholarship in these areas and illustrates how particular lines of inquiry have emerged.
In David Lewin’s essay, the frame shifts from history to philosophy of education. Lewin takes his point of departure from the idea of influence on learners, pointing out that the “tendency to see religious influence as substantially different from other forms of influence (moral, political, aesthetic, and so on), or at least deserving of special criticism” is not obviously justified. This leads to exploration of the nature of good influences and the justification of educational influence and to discussion of the limitations of cognitive and propositional views of religion as a set of mutually exclusive systems. If religion involves the expression of meanings in practices, then arguments about whether teaching of rival claims results in indoctrination unduly constrict understanding of the kind of influences that religion might exert in education. Moreover, if good influences enable us to make decisions, it is not obvious that religious influences are antithetical to autonomy.
Finally, Jenny Berglund brings sociology to bear. After brief overviews of sociology, sociology of religion, and sociology of education, Berglund outlines the strengths and weaknesses of quantitative and qualitative sociological approaches to religious education with examples from Europe, particularly Sweden. While expressing caution concerning the need for even the most empirically grounded studies to be subjectively interpreted, Berglund calls for more between-country comparative studies of religious education.
The volume is explicitly intended as an invitation to future research and seeks to balance summaries of existing work with pursuit of the authors’ own specialisms and indications of wider possibilities. Viewed as a book, the results are somewhat uneven in emphasis. While Lewin, for instance, uses his chapter to develop an argument that touches on a range of current debates but focuses on constructing a contribution, Berglund focuses more on a basic introduction to her discipline and its approaches to research, with relatively little focus on findings or specific arguments.
Viewed as a cluster of journal articles exemplifying scholarly approaches to religion and education through the concerns of four scholars, the volume is useful and interesting, with Lewin’s paper in particular offering important food for thought. Measured against its subtitle’s gesture toward framing and mapping a field, there are limitations; indeed, the chapters themselves acknowledge that there is much more to the field than they can address. In several places, the chapters point out that the relationship between religion and education is broader than religious education, yet there is also a tendency at times to lapse into talking mostly about religious education. There is comparatively little focus on how religion may be relating to education when religion is not the topic being taught. The implied backdrop is often elementary/secondary schooling. The choice and framing of issues and examples often feels quite specifically Western European, and a more international frame would have been welcome. While the articles do contain some overlapping themes, it is not easy to read them as a cohesive overview. The prose could at times be more winsome, and there were enough editing issues (missing words) to be distracting to this reader. As a conversation starter, however, and with the awareness that it is more a journal issue than a book, the volume contains useful material and is recommended for those looking to understand how questions about religion and education are being framed, particularly by European scholars.