Towards a religiously literate curriculum – religion andworldview literacy as an educational model

The phrase ‘religious literacy’ whilst contested, is increasingly used both within Religious Education and more broadly in a range of professions and settings to describe a level of knowledge and understanding about the diverse religion and belief landscape and the skills to be able to engage with that diversity in a positive way. Taking as a starting point a four-part theoretical framework for religious literacy, consisting of a) category b) disposition c) knowledge and d) skills, this is examined in relation to learning about religion and worldviews in schools and developed into an educational model. Drawing on data from a national study into stakeholders’ views on the future of teaching and learning about religion and worldviews in schools, this article explores the potential of ‘religion and worldview literacy’ to reconcile stakeholders’ aspirations for the purpose and content of learning in RE. Religion and worldview literacy is presented as a model with potential to bridge perceived tensions between intrinsic and instrumental aims of RE and concerns around its knowledge-base.


Introduction
In discussions around the future of Religious Education (RE) in England, and those around religion and public life more generally, the term 'religious literacy' seemingly provides an axis on which there pivots a tentative consensus. The phrase is increasingly used both within RE and more broadly in a range of professions and settings to describe a level of knowledge and understanding about the diverse religion and belief landscape and the skills to be able to engage with that diversity in a positive way. Yet despite its increasing usage, there is no agreed, shared definition of what constitutes religious literacy, or what it looks like in the educational context. If RE and schools more broadly are tasked with developing religious literacy, a shared understanding of what this implies will be central to curriculum planning and pedagogy. This article addresses this gap in suggesting an educational model of religion and worldview literacy 1 for use in RE and more broadly in other educational contexts.

Religious literacy
In the last decade, varied definitions of religious literacy have regained currency in debates around RE. In 2010 Ofsted 2 bemoaned the 'very low level of religious literacy' of schoolleavers, calling for a stronger focus in RE on deepening pupils' understanding of the nature, diversity and impact of religion and belief in the contemporary world (Ofsted 2010, 7). With a difference of emphasis, the Religious Education Council's 2013 review of RE promotes religious literacy defined in terms of pupils developing skills in: 'investigating religions and worldviews through varied experiences, approaches and disciplines; reflecting on and expressing their own ideas and the ideas of others with increasing creativity and clarity and becoming increasingly able to respond to religions and worldviews in an informed, rational and insightful way' (REC 2013, 10).
Usage of the phrase draws on Wright (1993) who provides a starting point for discussions around religious literacy in RE. For Wright religious literacy rests on skills of theological and philosophical reflection, defining religious literacy as pupils' ability to 'reflect, communicate and act in an informed, intelligent and sensitive manner towards the phenomenon of religion' (Wright 1993, 47). Pupils are enabled to articulate their own worldview, through dialogue with the truth claims of other religious and non-religious traditions. The encounter that is of concern to Wright is that with the 'various public linguistic traditions that seek to account for the ultimate nature of reality' (Wright 1996, 174).
Usage also draws on understandings from outside RE that suggest a broader social phenomenon of religious illiteracy. Prothero (2007) contends that Americans have lost their understanding about religion and that there is a set of 'building blocks' of religious traditions that the religiously literate person should understand. Prothero's religious literacy rests on propositional and normative knowledge about the world religions that can be broken down into a set of facts that every American needs if they are to participate successfully in the world.
Similarly, Moore (2007) bemoans a growing religious illiteracy and broadens the focus beyond knowing about the 'building blocks' of traditions to understanding their social and historical manifestations. Taking a cultural studies approach, Moore defines religious literacy as, 'the ability to discern and analyse the fundamental intersections of religion and social/ political/cultural life through multiple lenses' (Moore 2007, 56). Religion is viewed alongside race, ethnicity, gender and class as a concept central to an understanding of history and society and religious literacy as central to the effective, peaceful functioning of a plural democracy. As such, religious literacy is seen as an essential life skill: 'Even in schools where the population is seemingly (or perhaps truly) religiously homogenous, cultivating an informed respect for religious differences will equip students with the skills and temperaments to function more meaningfully and effectively within their home communities and the workplace realities they are likely to encounter in the future' (Moore 2007, 33).
Moore's approach is closely aligned with models of intercultural competency, with a focus on skills of encounter. Such an understanding of religious literacy is most relevant to the learning envisaged in Jackson's Signposts (Jackson 2014), intended to assist implementation of the Council of Europe's 2008 Recommendation on the dimension of religious and non-religious convictions within intercultural education (Council of Europe 2008).
Like Prothero and Moore, Dinham (2016) contends that secular assumptions about the nature and relevance of religion have resulted in society losing the ability to talk well about religion. Dinham highlights that this process has been accompanied by a period of rapid change in the religious landscape (Dinham and Francis 2016), leaving society ill-equipped to engage positively with the current reality. The current state of RE in English schools is seen as contributing to religious illiteracy (Dinham 2015). Firstly, the confused status of RE and its colonisation by policy agendas such as cohesion are seen as reinforcing an idea that religion is problematic and needs to be managed (Dinham 2015;Dinham and Shaw 2015). Secondly, the representation of religion in much RE is seen as at odds with the reality of the religion and belief landscape (Dinham and Shaw 2017). This assumption is evidenced in research exploring the contribution RE might make to religious literacy, resulting in a set of recommendations in this regard (Dinham and Shaw 2015).
Taking this forward, Dinham proposes religious literacy as a framework that is intentionally broad and applicable to a wide range of contexts, as well as schools, such as higher education (see e.g. Dinham and Jones 2012), and professional and vocational training (see e.g. Davie and Dinham 2016). Dinham (2016) proposes religious literacy can be understood in terms of; a) category, b) disposition, c) knowledge and d) skills. Category implies thinking critically about the concept of religion in relation to the secular, and draws on a sociological perspective. Disposition involves the questioning of one's own prejudices towards religion, non-religion or another's religion.
Knowledge refers to what we need to know about religion and belief in any particular setting. Finally, Skills incorporates the translation of knowledge into skilful encounter. Dinham's model is devised in relation to religious literacy in professional practice, acknowledging that the knowledge needed will differ along with the context. Education, in a broad sense, is given the essential task of re-equipping public actors to engage positively with religion and worldviews in public life.
In this article, I take Dinham's framework as a starting point for a model of religion and worldview (R&W) literacy in education 3 . In exploring the application of this model in the context of schools, this article populates Dinham's model with the views of key stakeholders, as voiced in research Shaw 2015, 2017). In doing so, R&W literacy is proposed as an educative model with potential to meet stakeholders' aspirations and to reconcile key contests in discussions around RE.

Religion & worldview literacyan educational model
This section populates Dinham's framework of religious literacy as category, disposition, knowledge, and skills (Dinham 2016), drawing on research into the aspirations of stakeholders to land the framework in the educational context. Stakeholders are taken to mean those people who have an interest in RE in English schools as well as those concerned with learning about religion and worldviews more broadly, in the wider curriculum, and in other learning spaces. As one would expect the aspirations of these stakeholders are not homogenous. Indeed, the role and form of RE has historically and continues to be an area of much debate. These debates find expression in the views of participants in the RE for REal study conducted in 2014-2015 Shaw 2015, 2017).
This national study researched the views of teachers (n = 97), parents (n = 34) and pupils (n = 190) in 19 secondary schools (for young people aged 11-16) across England on the purpose and shape of learning about religion and belief. Alongside those directly engaged in Religious Education in schools, the project also explored the views of 10 employers, representing a range of private and public sector organisations. The findings from the research were presented periodically throughout the project cycle to a group of 'influencers', leaders in policy, practice and academia, selected for their expertise and experience in RE and related areas. This enabled a process of critical reflective analysis, bringing the findings from schools into conversation with the views of the wider RE and educational community. This article draws then on the views of those in and outside schools, on the highlights and the contests that emerge.
In Dinham's Framework, category, disposition, knowledge, and skills are taken as phases in a process of becoming religiously literate. In the model of R&W literacy that follows, these are taken as parallel and concurrent strands of an educational process. As outlined below, these strands are interwoven in a model of R&W literacy as praxis.

Category
The use of the phrase 'religion and worldview literacy' as opposed to 'religious literacy' foregrounds the importance of categories, placing religion within the broader framework of worldviews. This is in recognition of both the complexity of the religion and worldview landscape and of the reductionist way in which the term 'religion' has often been employed. A focus on category demands consideration of what gets classed as 'religion' or 'non-religion' and the relationship between the two. As a theoretical model, religious literacy takes a starting point that there is a gap between religion and worldviews as imagined by the majority and as framed in policy and some RE, and the 'real religion or belief landscape' that is out there Shaw 2015, 2017). Indeed, failure to get to grips with the growing diversity of religions and worldviews (Ofsted 2010(Ofsted , 2013Barnes 2014) and the dynamism of the landscape (Jackson 2004) is a wellrecognised critique of RE. Stakeholders' concern in this regard is expressed in a desire for a broader representation of religions and worldviews that reflects the growing diversity between and within traditions, encompassing both formal and informal expressions, religion and worldview as identity as well as tradition, and the fluidity of the religion and belief landscape.
As recognised by many (Jackson 1997;Revell 2012;Thobani 2017) the 'world religions' approach that has dominated English RE in recent decades has promoted the idea that religions have a set of shared characteristics or themes through which they can be understood (founding fathers, holy books, doctrine, etc.), thereby essentialising religious traditions and side-lining practices that do not fit into this framework. King (2005) questions the usefulness of the category 'religion' in relation to non-Western cultures, recognising the 'preoccupation with truth (rather than practice and forms of life) and with a canon of authorised scriptures as the location of the true essence of religion' (King 1999cited in King 2005. Category refers to an understanding of religion and worldview at the conceptual level, a focus that is increasingly recognised as central to in-depth understanding (CoRE, 2018;Earl 2015;Freathy and John 2019). This encompasses the idea that religion and worldviews can be understood as more than belief systems or sets of beliefs and practices, suggesting a much stretchier definition of religion. This broadens out the focus beyond formal traditions, to the informal, the lived, social, political and embodied nature of religion and worldview.
The reductionist representation of religion in some RE and in society at large is influenced by broad assumptions about the nature and relevance of religion in society, rooted in the secularisation thesis (see Davie 2015a). It is argued elsewhere that RE in England has been shaped by such assumptions about a religion that perpetuate a set of false binaries (religious/secular, public/private, good/bad, fluid/static) in the way that religion and worldviews are represented (Shaw 2018). R&W literacy means challenging these binaries and the dominant secular, liberal epistemology that shapes them, 'stressing the importance of a scholarly engagement with issues of identity, power and status' (Knott 2005, 245). Critical engagement with category both develops epistemic awareness and is essential to an authentic representation of religion and worldviews.

Disposition
Alongside academic enquiry, personal development is perceived as a key aim of RE, although this is contested (Wright 1993;White 2004). This reflects the longstanding duality of the aims of RE and the debate over its intrinsic (academic) or instrumental (personal or civic) value (Jackson 2015). In the RE for REal research, whereas some teachers and parents regarded RE as a space for the promotion of moral and spiritual development, the majority, and nearly all the pupils saw its value in terms of personal awareness. Some of this was housed in the language of overcoming stereotypes and promoting open-mindedness. Alongside this, pupils particularly focused on the idea of personal reflection.
Disposition relates to the reflexive element of R&W literacy that contributes to both selfawareness and open-mindedness gained through the process of understanding. Whilst reflexivity is an essential element of R&W literacy in any setting, it comes to the fore in an educational setting and is what makes the model an educational process. Disposition is linked to the epistemic awareness nurtured through a focus on category, and applied at the personal level in terms of one's own position in relation to the 'subject' matter under study. As with Jackson's Interpretive approach (Jackson 1997), the disposition element of R&W literacy highlights the student's own perspective as central to the learning process. Rather than seeking to promote a set of moral or social dispositions such as tolerance and respect, the focus is on promoting a level of self-awareness through which personal attitudes and prejudices towards religion and non-religion are brought to the fore and challenged.
The disposition element then highlights a hermeneutical process of understanding, drawing on Gadamer's argument that when encountering religion and belief as 'other', students can understand best when this 'other' is explored in relation to their own 'fore-meanings' (Gadamer 1975). As Gadamer explains, 'this kind of sensitivity involves neither 'neutrality' with respect to content nor the extinction of one's self, but the foregrounding and appropriation of one's own fore-meanings and prejudices' (As cited in Roy and Starosta 2001, 16), a positive shift away from the 'phenomenological agnosticism by which pupils temporarily suspend their judgement on the religious beliefs of others' (Ipgrave and McKenna. 2008, 114).
Gadamer suggests a process of Bildung, 'a core process of self-examination' (Roy and Starosta 2001, 16). This is a process of personal development that also has social or civic worth in that it develops the character and sensitivity to 'recognise(s), accept(s) and appreciate(s) the fundamental differences between people of different cultures' (Roy and Starosta 2001, 16). A hermeneutical approach might be seen to promote humility, which Paine, Jankowski, and Sandage (2016) suggest is central to intercultural competence. Indeed, Gadamer's critical hermeneutics have been adopted by scholars in relation to intercultural communication (see Roy and Starosta 2001;Dallmayr 2009) and is influential in intercultural education, distinguishing the latter from multicultural, transcultural and some models of culturally responsive pedagogy. R&W literacy can then be seen as contributing to intercultural understanding and competency by developing the ability to talk well about and engage well with religion and worldview in diversity, from a self-aware perspective.

Knowledge
The focus on category and disposition adds shape to the kind of knowledge allied with R&W literacy. As outlined above, with regard to the content of RE, a key message from the research is the desire for a broader representation of religion and worldviews that reflects the growing diversity and fluidity of the religion and belief landscape. This relates to key aims for RE as expressed in the data: Firstly, that of preparing young people for positive engagement with religion and worldview diversity, a rationale that finds expression in the proposed national entitlement (CoRE 2018) with an emphasis on preparing 'young people for living in the increasingly diverse world in which they find themselves' (CoRE 2018, 6). Secondly, the desire for curricula that represent the real religion and belief landscape relates to the value placed on academic enquiry and the critical understanding of religion as a socio-historical phenomenon.
R&W literacy does suggest knowledge about a broader range of religions and worldviews, but not simply as more propositional knowledge. Rather, a situated knowledge is suggested, one that is embedded in and forefronts the social context. This reflects stakeholders' interest in lived religionhow individuals and communities make sense of and experience religion in their daily lives. Part of this is to do with the complexity of identification and the interaction between religion or worldview and society at the individual level. This also reflects the live nature of religions and worldviews and how they too change through encounter, as examples of transnational religion demonstrate (see e.g. Levitt 2006;Pasura and Erdal 2016) A broader representation in curricula, is not, as some fear, a call for breadth over depth or more superficial knowledge about a wider range of religions and worldviews at the expense of more nuanced understanding of the complexity of religions and religious belief (Lewis 2017). Nor does such a turn deny the existence of 'prototypical' elements of traditions (Wright 2010). What is suggested, is that knowledge about religion and worldviews reflects the live nature of tradition, identity, belief and practice as evidenced in contemporary research (see e.g. Davie 2015a; Woodhead and Catto 2012). Non-belief is widely recognised as an important part of this landscape. R&W literacy calls for a nuanced understanding of the complexity of 'unbelief' alongside that of religionmaking sense of the religious and the secular and the complex relationship between them.
As outlined above, R&W literacy requires young people to engage in critical enquiry around the construction of knowledge. As such R&W literacy seeks to problematise rather than reproduce the dominant discourse around religion and worldview. The focus on the situatedness of knowledge as key to understanding the real religion and belief landscape highlights the dialogical and reflexive nature of knowledge production. In R&W literacy the scholar and 'object' of study are engaged as co-participants in the dynamic formulation of a narrative about religion (Collins 2002). As highlighted by Knott (2005), such a stance 'invites us to step away from the imprisonment of [the] modernist position' (Knott 2005, 255) to delve into the insider/outsider debate.

Skills
In the RE for REal research students, parents, teachers and employers all stressed the need for young people to be equipped with the skills to engage well with diversity. From a student perspective, this focused on day-to-day encounter and the desire to feel more at ease with difference, as well as an understanding of the skills of intercultural navigation that are required in the workplace. Echoing Dinham's argument for religious literacy in public professions (Dinham 2018) employers place great importance on R&W literacy as workplace readiness (Dinham and Shaw 2015). Surprisingly, this remains a rather neglected theme in discussions around RE. The skills element of R&W literacy refers to skills of encounter across difference from a self-aware perspective, skills that are then applied to any setting, including the workplace.
A specific skill associated with religious literacy is discernment (Davie 2015b), echoing Gadamer's notion that 'the gebildete (cultured) person is not only learned in the traditional sense by having knowledge of the facts, but s/he also possesses the ability to discriminate between good and bad, beautiful and ugly, important and unimportant, and so on' (Roy and Starosta 2001, 11). Here disposition is entwined with skills; the R&W literate person, having gone through a process of self-examination in terms of their disposition towards religion and worldviews, is able to practice discernment with regard to religion and worldviews with an openness to the wisdoms that may lie within. Within the concept of Bildung lies the notions of tact and judgement, and thus 'combines knowledge about how to conduct oneself in the world with the tact to act appropriately in social situations' (Roy and Starosta 2001, 11). R&W literacy incorporates the skill or ability to ask questions about someone's religion or belief with confidence and sensitivity. Bernstein (1983) identifies three elements of hermeneutics; understanding, interpretation and application, highlighting Gadamer's assertion that these are not three separate elements, but that 'they are internally related; every act of understanding involves interpretation, and all interpretation involves application' (Bernstein 1983, 39). Through the learning process, the student develops the skills of critical enquiry and positive engagement with difference. Understanding and disposition are enacted and developed through the application of skills of encounter.

R&W literacy and RE
I propose R&W literacy as a potential way forward for thinking about learning about religion and worldviews in schools, both generally, across curriculum areas and specifically in RE. In relation to the latter, R&W literacy as an educational model speaks to some key issues and debates around the subject's nature and purpose.
Firstly, through the Knowledge and Category strands, the model addresses the issue of religion and worldview diversity and how this is best represented in the classroom. Whilst calling for more breadth in the representation of religions and worldviews, the suggestion is not that curricula aim to cover every possible religion or worldview present in Great Britain or the world. As suggested in the recommendations of the RE for REal report (Dinham and Shaw 2015) and elsewhere (Shaw 2018), the aim is to depict the 'real religion and belief landscape' as evidenced in contemporary sociological research on religion. As such curricula should represent a diversity of traditions, both formal and informal and the diversity between and within traditions. There is a focus here on 'lived religion', on religions and worldviews as they are experienced by their adherents as well as on the dynamic nature of both traditions themselves and individual engagement with them.
This complexity and dynamism are embedded in the focus on religion and non-religion as categories. It is through this strand that religion and worldview literacy contributes to epistemological discussions. Approaching religion and worldviews at this conceptual level means looking beyond the orthodoxies of representation that have dominated RE, the most obvious of which limits religions and worldviews to belief systems. A focus on category moves beyond the false binaries of religious/secular, public/private, good/bad, fluid/static that such representations reproduce (Shaw 2018). Reflection on the categories 'religion', 'secularity' and 'worldview' and the relationship between them both at the level of the individual and as social, historical and political concepts, contributes to epistemic awareness. In this sense religion and worldview, literacy seeks to contribute to the insider/ outsider debate through questioning whose knowledge about religion and worldviews the learner is faced with. The focus on category demands an exploration of knowledge construction and the power relationships embedded in representations of religion and worldviews.
Secondly, R&W literacy as a goal of RE may contribute to a reconciliation of the longstanding duality of intrinsic and instrumental aims (Jackson 2015). The intrinsic aim of critical academic enquiry (knowledge and category) is combined with both formational (personal) development through disposition and the social or civic worth of skills in navigation as an element of intercultural competency. The reflective stance demanded by the focus on category is operant at the personal level through the disposition strand of R&W literacy. Here the focus is on the learner exploring their position in relation to religion and worldviews. It is concerned with a two-way process of encounter with religion and worldviews, and as such can be described in terms of an 'I-Thou' relationship (Gadamer 1975). The disposition element of religious literacy asks that we explore our own prejudices, so that we might gain understanding of ourselves and the 'other'a challenging of one's own attitudes towards religion and worldviews. It is about an openness that 'always includes our situating the other meaning in relation to the whole of our own meanings or ourselves in relation to it' (Gadamer 1975, 271). The hermeneutic nature of enquiry suggested as core to R&W literacy demonstrates the 'symbiotic relationship between knowledge and the knower' (Freathy and John 2019). This move away from an objectivist approach brings the student into the learning process, allowing for the study of religion and worldviews that is 'at once a form of self-discovery, no less spiritual than political, no less therapeutic than classificatory' (Mandair 2001, as cited in Knott 2005 and ties category to disposition. In such a model, understanding cannot be divorced from the formational. So too is learning entwined with the development of practical skills of intercultural competency. This hermeneutic element emphasises R&W literacy as a process of understanding, interpretation and application, rather than a product of good RE, or any other education. As in the interpretive approach (Jackson 1997), learning about religion and worldviews is not distinct from the interpretation of others' and one's own beliefs. Neither is it distinct from application, as the very act of understanding is acted out in everyday engagement and encounter. And it is through encounter with another's religion or belief that understanding happens.
R&W literacy can be seen then in terms of both personal and social or civic worth. Along with approaches to intercultural education, R&W literacy seeks to reduce prejudice and promote acceptance, and as such these approaches have a moral value base (although the extent to which this is an explicit learning goal may vary). This moral judgement is what separates praxis it from techne (learned technical skills). The skills element of religious literacy is more than techneit is also about coexistence and discernment. Understanding another's worldview is not just about understanding, but about 'coming to grips with one another' (Roy and Starosta 2001, 10). This is not to suggest that understanding automatically leads to empathy or respect. As highlighted by Hannam and Biesta (2019) understanding, care and respect are all laudable, but not necessarily connected aims for education. The understanding through application within R&W literacy, in which phronesis plays a central part, seeks to widen students' horizons and experience and foster an open-minded curiosity, which is a good place to start.

Conclusions
I have shown how a model of R&W literacy based on the four phases of category, disposition, knowledge and skills (Dinham 2016) relates to the aspirations of stakeholders with regards to learning about religion and worldviews. I suggest that R&W literacy, as an educational model, may be a useful framework for thinking about RE. To do so is not to proffer R&W literacy as the panacea for the future of REalthough it may go some way to reconciling the debates over its role.
Wintersgill and colleagues (Wintersgill 2017) argue for the adoption of a set of 'Big Ideas' for RE that would help shape the curriculum, in line with the approach taken in science education in England. The six 'Big Ideas' suggested for RE are consistent with the aspirations of stakeholders in the RE for REal research, particularly in terms of the focus on continuity, change and diversity, on religion and worldviews in society, and on religion and worldviews as identity. At the same time, Freathy and John (2019) acknowledge their positionality in the construction of the categories 'religion' and 'worldview' that underpin the 'Big Ideas for RE'. They highlight the need for epistemic awareness and a consideration of methodology in relation to epistemology. The model of R&W literacy presented in this article contributes to this endeavour by offering a critical lens through which to view religion and worldviews. It does so through a focus on the construction of knowledge through the categories employed and through a reflexive methodology that brings the knower and the known into a hermeneutic circle.
I have highlighted the importance of this reflexive element in R & W literacy. The 'hermeneutical realisation at the heart of RE' (Bowie 2018) has long been recognised and well explored (eg. Jackson 1997Jackson , 2004Aldridge 2011;). Yet with rare exceptions (e.g. Lewin 2017) reflexivity is understated in understandings of religious literacy. R&W literacy is presented here as a framework for learning about religion and worldviews that brings situated knowledge into critical dialogue with students' own perspectives. The idea of religious literacy as praxis draws further on a hermeneutical approach and brings R&W literacy closer to understandings of intercultural education. Religion and worldview literacy is presented as a form of praxis which can enrich learning inside and outside the RE classroom.
A challenge going forward is how R&W literacy might be integrated and exemplified in classroom practice and curricula. Equally, pertinent is how R&W literacy can be best articulated at policy level and translated into teacher education and training. Notes 1. The phrase 'religion and worldview literacy' is used in preference to 'religious literacy', in order both to signal the inclusion on non-religious worldviews, along with the religious, and to mirror the terminology used in the recent report from the Commission on Religious Education (CoRE 2018). 2. The UK Government's Office for Standards in Education Children's Services and Skills. 3. Here I mean 'education' in the formal sense of in schools.

Disclosure statement
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Notes on contributor
Martha Shaw is Senior Lecturer in Education at London South Bank University. Previously a teacher of Sociology and RE, Martha spent eight years as a researcher at the Faiths and Civil Society Unit, Goldsmiths, where she remains a research fellow. Martha's research focus has been the role of religion and worldviews in the public sphere and her main area of interest is religion and worldviews in education and intercultural education.