Explaining atheism in the RE classroom
Project Leads
Start and end dates: 1 June 2023 – 30 June 2024
Award: £29,923
The Religious Education (RE) classroom in England (Religion Values and Ethics (RVE) in Wales, and Religious and Moral Education (RME) in Scotland) is the ideal place for school pupils to explore understandings of atheism and its causes, and the nature of non-religion. There is a growing interest in this area within the study of religion in the classroom. This is a result of demographic changes over the last two decades, the active involvement of humanists in the structures of RE at local level, a growing research interest in non-religion, a national move towards examining worldviews in the classroom, and a recognition that this needs to include the (mainly) non-religious worldviews of pupils. In this context, the Explaining Atheism programme offers an important opportunity to understand some nuances of what it means to have a non-religious worldview.
For this project, RE Today will collaborate with researchers working within the Explaining Atheism programme, and other Explaining Atheism Outreach projects, to bring findings about atheism and unbelief into the classroom. Incorporating research from Explaining Atheism and its predecessor programme Understanding Unbelief, the project will:
bring into the classroom a focus on people with non-religious worldviews across diverse contexts
create innovative ways of communicating ideas about understanding and explaining unbelief in the RE/RVE/RME classroom for 11–16-year-olds
build on the national interest in multidisciplinary approaches within the subject by drawing attention to the research methods used, supporting pupils to examine and test the findings
connect with the need for more case studies of non-religious worldviews, to show something of the complex influences that play in how people believe, belong and behave, including insights into causes of atheism and agnosticism and their varied impact in people’s lives
offer opportunities for pupils to reflect on the influences on their own worldviews, and the impact of these on how they encounter (non)religion in the classroom and beyond.
