What sort of Religious Education is appropriate for Northern Ireland? A response to the CCEA GCSE RE Review.
One of the positives of my job as a teacher educator is that I regularly get to talk with student teachers of RE about their ideals and vision for their profession and the subject as a whole. While there is variety in what they see as the ultimate goal of religious education, the most persistent aspiration is that the subject will contribute to a more cohesive society. This is often articulated with reference to both sectarianism and the many examples of hate-crimes in Northern Ireland against those of minority faith traditions in the region. What young teachers of the subject seem to hold instinctively is the conviction that the type of religious education appropriate for Northern Ireland is one which recognises the reality of religious difference; acknowledges that negative and harmful expressions of religion exist; understands the importance of using education as a vehicle to explore those differences and address negative stereotypes as well as providing accurate knowledge of re