School of Religious Education, and
Cardinal Clancy Centre for Research in the Spiritual, Moral, Religious and Pastoral Dimensions of Education.
Spiritual, Moral and Religious Education is a key area for Teaching and Research in Australian Catholic University

The identification and evaluation of social meanings:   A fundamental dimension for religious education

 

Religion as a provider of meaning has always done this at three levels:  personal, social and transcendent.   It gave believers personal psychological meaning and social meaning – how they understood themselves and how they interpreted what was going on outside in their community and society.   The third level had to do with the ultimate mysteries of life:  god, death and afterlife.

 

Formerly, the religious meanings were mediated through the comprehensive world view of the religion.   People were prepared to accept the interpretations given to them on the basis of religious authority.   They accepted ‘the faith' in a relatively unquestioning way.   Also, they may not have fully understood the teachings;   they may have had misgivings about how appropriate some of them were, but they still tended to accept them obediently.   Thus they subscribed to a lot of religious teachings whether or not they seemed useful or relevant.   Today, in secularised Western countries, many people, but not all, do not accord that same level of respect for, and faith in, religious authority and teachings.   They are more questioning and more ready to judge for themselves whether they will believe something and be committed to it or not.   For these people, there has been a significant change in the role of religion as a source of life meaning.   This applies especially to young people.

 

In the secularised situation, individuals are often not prepared to accept religious teachings unless they themselves sense that the meanings are appropriate and useful at personal and social levels.   As far as the transcendent dimension is concerned, they feel that they do not have the capacity to judge the appropriateness of religious beliefs about God or life after death (unless they are too extravagant and implausible);  but they remain hopeful;   life would be harder without these beliefs.   They hold onto beliefs about transcendence, while being more ‘choosey' about religious teachings related to their personal and social life – here they are more likely to be critical and selective.   While previously they may have accepted the whole religious belief package on authority, now they tend to select according to subjective views and felt needs.

 

In their sort of world, with its fast pace to life and expensive lifestyle, they do not have much time for beliefs for which they see no significant or useful function.   If religious teachings do not seem relevant, if they have little perceived connection with life, or if they cut across people's own personal views and lifestyle, they may well be ignored;   people feel that they can get by well enough without them – when you are already busy and stressed with life, why burden yourself with beliefs that do not seem to help.  Or, it may be that the beliefs do have relevance, but they are expressed in language and concepts that have no substantial meanings for people;   if they have no meaningful access to those beliefs, they will be less likely to look to them for life guidance.   Or, if they have little respect for their religion, or if they are disaffected or alienated, they will hardly look to religious teachings for life interpretations and inspiration.

 

If religious traditions are going to be beneficial to these people, then they will need to give special attention to communication at these personal and social levels.

 

These principles have much significance for religious education in the church-related school.   While the school has a clear commitment to hand on the religious heritage to young people and to encourage them to become active members of the Church, it also seeks to foster their spiritual and moral development – whether or not they ever become church going.   Hence, the significance of paying special attention to personal and social meanings:   this is needed at two levels:

 

Firstly, access to Church Theology and teachings will be more helpful to youth if it uses a relevant language of psychological and social meanings;  study of such explicitly religious material needs to make use of ideas that mesh with their understandings and experience.   Secondly, a study of psychological and social meanings is important for young people in its own right, and not just as a vehicle for trying to make Theology more interesting and acceptable.   Religious education seeks to help young people become better equipped to address the spiritual and moral issues they will face in life.   This is where the notion of religious education helping young people become critical interpreters of culture is so important.

 

Religious education therefore should study social meanings, their generation, history and psychological functions.   This approach tries to make religious education relevant to the lives of young people.   However, it has a wider significance.   ‘Education in meaning' is increasingly becoming a fundamental goal for schooling itself – as the notion of constructing meaning is considered to be a key function of education.   Given that provision of meaning is one of the main roles of religion, it can be expected that religious education should be able to make a distinctive contribution in this direction.

 

Hopefully, the study of social meanings will be perceived as relevant by young people;   if so, they may take the study to another more personal dimension – not necessarily then and there in the classroom.   Their study of meanings may come to have a helpful formative influence on their own personal interpretation of life.   This would be one of the hopes for such an education, to help young people become thinking, critical and discerning as regards the shaping influence of culture on people's beliefs, attitudes and behaviour.

 

There are implications for both the school curriculum and for the professional development of educators.

 

The school curriculum, particularly in religious education, needs to give formal attention to the critical study of social meanings.   Meaning, along with other key constructs like identity and spirituality, have become the new and pertinent ‘religious words' (or spiritual words) in secularised culture;   therefore, they merit attention in the selection of curriculum content.   For example, in Catholic schools, if the religion curriculum is perceived by young people as dealing only with Church theology, scripture, liturgy etc. and not sufficiently with contemporary spiritual/moral issues, they will more likely remain disinterested, seeing the exercise as concerned almost exclusively with Church maintenance and the handing on of Catholicism .   It is  not that Church maintenance and communicating Catholicism are undesirable hopes for religious education;   they are desirable.   But there needs to be a balance where the formally religious content is clearly complemented by study of issues, meanings and social questions.   In addition, these two dimensions can be harmonised in a study of religious content (Eg Theology) through and with issues.

 

However, helping young people aspire to become critical interpreters of the culture is not likely to be fostered in the school by teachers who themselves do not understand the importance of this dimension to education, and who have not tried to become critical interpreters themselves.   This does not mean that educators would require ‘perfect' answers for all of the students' questions;   but they would have to be engaged in that searching/questioning activity themselves – they need to be seen by students as fellow searchers for meaning, models of the critical interpreter of culture.   This is not an unrealistic hope.   In practice, many teachers do model these characteristics, helping their students learn how to inquire for themselves and how to think critically.   What we are suggesting is that this role be more clearly articulated as a fundamental dimension to education.   This could help make the critical interpretation of culture have an even more visible and effective place in teaching.

 

What then can be done to promote this approach with educators?   They need to consider the arguments about the importance of this dimension to education (for example, here and in related literature).   Then, they need to develop their own competence and skill in analysing and evaluating issues.   It is common for people to think about contemporary events and issues, and to argue and debate them.   Educators need to give special attention to this because they have the opportunity of guiding young people in their development of analytical and evaluative skills.

 

In addition, educators need to focus specifically on themes like ‘meaning', ‘identity', ‘spirituality', ‘individuality', ‘freedom' etc. so that they will develop some familiarity with the language, concepts and issues related to these themes.   If they have at least a basic grasp of the ‘geography' of these themes, and can talk about them in more than a superficial way, then this background will start to filter through into their interactions with students both inside and outside the classroom.   Good teachers who have some understanding of the questions, even though like most people they do not have simple perfect answers, know intuitively when and where they can draw attention to issues related to meaning, identity etc. in their teaching, whether of not this is the explicit content they are dealing with in the classroom.   There is even more scope for them when such issues are the explicit content in religious or moral education.

 

There is evidence in good teaching that what we have described here is already happening to some extent.   Our purpose is to articulate, confirm, consolidate and extend this important dimension to education, and particularly in religious education.

 

The principal aim of this feature in the Journal of Religious Education – Religious Education as Cultural Interpretation – is to foster this dimension for educators.   It sets out to stimulate their interest, questioning and analytical skills in looking at questions that warrant a closer scrutiny of meanings and thoughtful evaluation in the light of values.   We welcome short contributions from readers that will extend and advance this agenda.

 

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