RE Teachers' Religious Literacy

The author conducted an empirical study on RE teachers’ religious literacy, more specifically, on how they interpret a religious narrative. The transactional analysis of the RE teachers’ interpretations of The Prodigal Son brought forth four categories or typologies: the immanent approach, the ethical, the Christian, and the dialogical approach. The typologies reflect that the RE teachers’ interpretations are determined by different factors, more precisely, by the decisions made in the actual text-reader transactions. Kjørven therefore argues that it is important for RE teachers and RE teacher students to develop an awareness of and knowledge about the complexity of what is involved in meaning-making processes. A literacy of this kind, he concludes, will promote critical skills and thinking in school and in education.

press

This book is a timely reminder of the relationship between the interpretative and dialogic dimensions of RE and how these are important ingredients in religious literacy. It implicitly shows that attempts to construct knowledge as unframed givens are intellectually problematic, as the structures around data are part of what constitutes religious literacy and knowledge. It also exemplifies how teachers play a vital framing role in the mediation of learning in the RE classroom, not just in the representation of religion, but the representation of what religious knowledge is.
Robert A. Bowie, in: British Journal of Religious Education 2/2019, p. 233.