In summer 2024, a stabbing attack in Southport, England, in which three children were killed, triggered riots across the country. These events demand an educational response. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson called the riots ‘a deeply powerful reminder of the power of education’ (Shearing, 2024). The wider political context in which the riots took place has been marked by divisive culture wars, anti-migrant discourse and the racializing of religious minorities.  

This BERA joint SIG event will bring education researchers and practitioners together to share research and begin critical conversations to develop educational alternatives that empower young people to resist the polarizing incitements of political extremism. 

A key focus of this joint ‘Religion, Values and Education’ with ‘Philosophy of Education’ event is the capacity of worldviews education to challenge exclusionary political rhetoric. The turn to world views in religious education has been both contested and welcomed: this event will highlight the possibilities and the potential of worldviews approaches to work at the intersections of citizenship and human rights education. 

The Commission on Religious Education (2018) report ‘Religion and worldviews: the way forward’ points out that religions as worldviews are ‘fluid’ and ‘dynamic’ (CoRE, 2018, 36); they both reflect and influence their wider context. Understanding religious, social and cultural difference requires sight of the bigger picture – the social, economic, political and cultural context (which includes non-religious worldviews) – with which there will necessarily be interaction and cross-fertilisation. 

Similarly, OECD/PISA foreground worldviews literacy in the global competence framework ‘Preparing our youth for an inclusive and sustainable world’ (OECD, 2018). Global competence is defined as: 

‘The capacity to examine local, global and intercultural issues, to understand and appreciate the perspectives and worldviews of others, to engage in open, appropriate and effective interactions with people from different cultures, and to act for collective well- being and sustainable development’ (OECD, 2018, 7). 

The worldviews turn signals a move in education to accommodate diversity and hold it in plural tension. As Gearon et al state: ‘The context of education is human life, and the vision of education is hope: if education is to be relevant, it has to be rooted in the present realities and concerns of our lives’ (Gearon et al, 2023, 11). 

So, in the light of the recent riots that form our ‘present reality’, not least for teachers returning to school in September in our locality, this event is an opportunity to ask: 

• In what ways can religions and worldviews approaches promote collective good by challenging polarizing discourse in politics, media and wider society? 
• What types of educational engagements with pluralism and difference can religions and worldviews education facilitate? 
• What perspectives does critical research bring to these issues? 
• What further research is needed? 

At this event, we seek to facilitate critical conversations, knowledge exchange, research collaboration and new directions in theory and practice. 

Draft programme