Worldview Literacy: Understanding as reflexive encounter
By Martha Shaw
Recent developments in Religious Education (CoRE recommendations, the Ofsted subject review and the emerging articulation and practice of a ‘worldviews approach’) have refocused attention on two key relationships, which have long been the subject of educational theory and debate: 1) the relationship between narrowly academic and broadly formative purposes of education; 2) the relationship between content and ‘learner’.
Whilst central to education and its practice, these two relationships have been side-lined within the current system and its focus on performativity, at the centre of which lies a relentless regime of standardised testing wedded to the idea of ‘knowledge’ as an unquestionable good. Despite its exceptional status (as a statutory subject but not on the National Curriculum), RE has by no means escaped these structural forces, in many ways embracing the ‘knowledge rich’ turn. This is evident in growing attention to disciplinary knowledge and the increased focus on content and knowledge acquisition in the 2015 GCSE Religious Studies examination reforms. Whilst the focus on disciplinary knowledge is felt by some to enhance the academic rigour of RE, a concern is that the wider educational aims and benefits of the subject are neglected.
Alongside debates around the purpose of RE, there is of course the question of content. Much discussion has focused on the ‘what’, with a consensus that RE should broaden its scope beyond the “main” world religions to embrace the complex multi-religious and multi-secular world within which we live. The concept of ‘worldview’, though contested, has been a helpful vehicle in shaping content to reflect the dynamic and complex nature of personal and organised ‘ways of being’ in the world.
Whilst these are important developments, there is the risk that an overfocus on content detracts attention from the ‘forgotten [educational] dimension’ of RE. Yet the shift towards Religion & Worldviews is about more than content; the way in which a ‘worldviews approach’ is being articulated by Trevor Cooling and colleagues, amongst others, very much places the educational at the heart of RE. A worldviews approach is here described in terms of the reflexive encounter between the student and content, or the ‘fusion of horizons’ that philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer argues is central to the ‘event of understanding’. As argued by Kate Christopher, understanding may well be enough of an aim for RE (or indeed for any subject), but it depends what we mean by it. Prioritising ‘understanding’, as with the turn to disciplinary knowledge, underlines the academic rigour of the subject and is, in part, a reaction to the over emphasis and over-burdening of RE with various ‘whole school’ aims (spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, community cohesion, promotion of British Values). Yet in the process of understanding, the academic and the formative can no more be separated out than can the ‘content’ and ‘learner’. In terms of Richard Kueh’s framing in the recent Ofsted report, ‘substantive’, ‘disciplinary’ and ‘personal’ forms of knowledge are interrelated and interdependent elements of the process understanding.
Within the After RE project, and within my own thinking on this, the educational theories of ‘Didaktik’ have been helpful in articulating this relationship. Its roots in Northern European educational theory and practice, Didaktik was pioneered by German educationalist Wolfgang Klafki. Didaktik differs from Anglo-American approaches to education and curriculum development which centralise content, through a focus on the relationship between content and learner. Central to Didaktik is the concept of bildung, which although articulated in various ways, is concerned with the encounter between content and learner as a transformative process. Similar to Biesta’s (2021) notion of ‘subjectification’, this is about more than knowing something (knowledge) or being able to do something (skills). In the words of Hopmann, it is about “the use of knowledge as a transformative tool of unfolding the learner’s individuality and sociability”.
The idea of ‘encounter’ is important here and distinguishes learning as a reflexive journey from more traditional ‘instruction’. I have developed the ‘worldview literacy’ framework to outline the key elements in this process. I think of worldview literacy, not as an aim of RE as such, but as a practice that should be part of RE. I use the term ‘praxis’, a cycle of reflection and action, to describe this process and see it as having three key elements or foci; interpretability, reflexivity and encounter. Taken together (and I would argue they are inseparable) these foci provide a framework for a transformational process of understanding that foregrounds the relationship between content and learner.
Interpretability, Reflexivity and Encounter
Firstly, interpretability refers to the idea that all worldviews are processes of interpretation – what might be thought of as ‘traditions’ are interpreted variously by adherents as they are lived through action and interaction. Likewise, this promotes the understanding that traditions themselves are not fixed, but change through this process of interpretation and interaction. In addition, the notion of interpretability relates to representations of religion/worldviews or ‘knowledge’ about them. Understanding worldviews involves understanding that representations are just that, ‘representations’, i.e. someone’s interpretation. This inevitably and very importantly, involves examining and critically deconstructing representations and the power imbalances that underpin which worldviews get represented and how they are represented.
The second element, reflexivity, is central to a ‘worldviews approach’ rooted in hermeneutic traditions. This is about foregrounding the learner’s own assumptions and prejudices as they ‘meet’ new content, and them being aware of how their positionality is moved on through engagement with it.
This encounter is what brings together the content and the learner in dialogue. As with Didaktik, what is important is not simply the content itself, it is the meaning that is made when the content comes into dialogue with the learner. For this reason, more attention needs to be paid to the process of interpretation that occurs when the learner meets new content; how, through encounter with the content, the pupil develops understanding, and how they take up or apply that understanding. The idea of praxis is cyclical, so as a pupil comes to an encounter with the diversity of worldviews, their understanding is re-interpreted in light of that encounter in a continuous spiral, as they develop their understanding of difference and of themselves in relation to it.
Going back to the types of knowledge outlined in the Ofsted report, this process combines substantive knowledge (of worldviews as lived) and disciplinary knowledge (as understanding of worldviews as interpretable), and personal knowledge (pupils’ understanding of themselves and their relationship to the world). Personal knowledge is developed and applied through dialogic, reflexive encounter with the ‘livedness’ of worldviews, which in turn informs engagement in it.
Understood in this way, worldviews education is a reflexive engagement in plurality. As such, the aims are neither solely academic, nor formative. Rather, as recognised by Trevor Cooling, this process contributes to pupils’ “academic understanding, their personal development and their growth as active citizens”. This is not to say that RE as a subject has a particular responsibility for the formation of citizens or for SMSC. However, when we consider the process of understanding that takes place when pupils encounter worldviews, which are an intrinsic part of the world and of the people in it, the academic, personal and social aims are interdependent.
Reference
Worldview Literacy as Transformative Knowledge in Franck, O. & Thalen, P. eds. (Forthcoming) Powerful knowledge in Religious Education. Exploring Paths to A Knowledge-Based Education on Religions, Palgrave:Macmillan
