Download The Warwick REDCo Community of Practice

The Warwick REDCo Community of Practice
Robert Jackson & Kevin O’Grady
Introduction
Currently, at the University of Warwick, a group of researchers is working as a
community of practice on new pedagogies for religious education using the key
concepts of the interpretive approach (Jackson 1997, 2004, 2006). The concept of a
community of practice refers to the process of social learning that occurs when people
who have a common interest in a subject or problem collaborate over an extended
period to share ideas, find solutions, and build innovations (Wenger, 1998). A
community of practice is a group of researchers committed to collaborative
investigation through mutual support and critical friendship (e.g. Altrichter 2005).
The Warwick REDCo community of practice includes members based in universities,
schools and a local authority. All have experience as practitioners and all have or are
gaining experience as researchers. The community of practice is attached to the
European project on religion, education, dialogue and conflict (REDCo: see
www.redco.uni-hamburg.de/), funded by the European Commission for three years
(March 2006-March 2009). The community of practice is the discrete Warwick
contribution to the project, which involves a consortium of ten universities from eight
different countries.
The composition of the community of practice
The community of practice consists of six teachers, one local authority adviser
(retired) and four academics based in education departments in universities, all
involved with teacher education at either initial or in-service levels. For organisational
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purposes, Professor Robert Jackson acts as overall co-ordinator, with one of the
teachers (Dr Kevin O’Grady) and one of the teacher educators (Dr Julia Ipgrave) as
research co-ordinators. Dr O’Grady teaches religious education at High Storrs School,
Sheffield, and is associate fellow in the Warwick Religions and Education Research
Unit. Dr Ipgrave is senior lecturer at Oxford Brookes University and associate fellow
in the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit. All the researchers are using
action research or practitioner research methodologies with the aim of improving
practice in religious education at a national level. Their studies are guided by the
concepts of the interpretive approach to religious education (Jackson 1997, 2004,
2006) and the action research methodology developed in Dr O’Grady’s Warwick PhD
thesis on motivation in lower secondary religious education. The contributors to the
project are all former or current PhD and distance learning MA students in religious
education at the University of Warwick. Most researchers are focusing on primary
and secondary religious education, with two working on teacher training at primary
and secondary levels and one on school-based continuing professional development.
They are also working at the interface between religious education and other fields
such as citizenship education and intercultural education.
The Warwick community of practice’s action research and practitioner research
(mainly school-based) has the objectives of developing pedagogies that foster
dialogue and counter religious conflict. The first meeting of the community of
practice took place at Warwick in June 2006. The second meeting as a group was to
present research and development completed so far to an invited group of teachers
and other educators attending the Westhill seminar in Birmingham in January 2007.
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The seminar provided an excellent opportunity for the group to engage with one
another and with other teachers and educators.
The group decided that it needed to meet on its own, in order to be able to develop its
research and the most effective ways to communicate with teachers for continuing
professional development purposes at the end of the project. Although members of the
community of practice are in close contact by e-mail, it became clear that the group
needed to meet on a regular basis. The individual projects are all of interest and
potential value to teachers. The group enjoys an excellent focus and spirit. The vital
process of presentation, constructive criticism and support is well established.
However, the group felt that emerging theoretical and practical issues needed to be
dealt with at the collective level rather than at the individual study level during
focused meetings of the community of practice.
The following issues are under discussion in community of practice meetings:

The community of practice is articulating and developing the shared concepts
of the project (representation, interpretation, reflexivity), bringing insights
from practices of teaching and learning in different settings, and working out
how to apply them consistently, clearly and critically.

The community of practice is giving increased attention to the concepts of
dialogue and conflict and what these mean in religious education practice. For
example, is dialogue always positive and conflict always negative? In
promoting dialogue, is there a danger of failing to recognise difference and
therefore setting up misunderstandings?
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
The community of practice aims to present findings in language that is
unambiguous to practitioners who have not had the benefit of working in a
research context.
Outputs
The fieldwork for all studies is scheduled to finish by summer 2008. There will then
be a period of data analysis and writing, culminating in the publication of an edited
book to be submitted to Waxmann for publication in 2009, subject to acceptance by
the editorial team. This book will include introductory chapters outlining the
principles and strategies for the action research studies and linking this work to the
wider European REDCo project. Each of the subsequent chapters will be written by
one of the participants on his or her particular study, though making links to the other
studies reported so as to represent a second analytical level (analysis level one is that
of individual studies). The final chapter will pick up themes from across the previous
chapters and relate them to the practice of religious education in schools and to
European REDCo findings, thus representing a third analytical level. This final
chapter will be written by a Norwegian member of the REDCo project, who is
especially interested in the development of action research to improve practice in
schools.
The nature of the Warwick community of practice
Our community of practice is a team of researchers committed to mutual collaboration
and support. We have a shared vision grounded in several principles:

The vital importance of an epistemologically open religious education.
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
The need to relate such religious education to issues of social values as found,
for example, in intercultural education and citizenship education.

The need for collaboration between practitioners and researchers in different
national and international locales.

The power of an interpretive approach to religious education as a stimulus to
the development of research and practice.

The utility of an action research approach in the task of improving religious
education pedagogy.

An approach to religious education (and related fields) that seeks positive
dialogue between young people of different religious faiths, and of none – but
recognises that conflict is often a feature of relations between those of
different backgrounds and persuasions and does not try to bracket this reality
out of pedagogical focus.
In order to assess these principles in practice, a series of individual research projects
is being developed, designed to test the principles in different settings (again, see
below, ‘individual enquiries’). However, it is important not to see our projects in a
thematically or methodologically isolated way. There is a rich variety of focal points,
but these are different focal points for common themes. Each individual will have
responsibility for a different branch of our practice – in most cases, this will mean that
a researcher undertakes one individual enquiry – but the collective responsibility for
the success of our practice as a whole means that relationships and communication are
of high importance. Further remarks about these will be made below but the concept
of the critical friend can be introduced now as a guiding concept. Processes of
constructive mutual criticism will support our research.
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Key texts
The key texts for our practice are Robert Jackson’s Religious Education: An
Interpretive Approach (Jackson 1997), together with various publications by Jackson
that have developed the approach, especially in relation to the concept of reflexivity
(Jackson 2004, 2006) and the representation of religions (Jackson 2008), and Kevin
O’Grady’s PhD thesis Motivation in Secondary Religious Education, together with
various associated articles and book chapters by O’Grady (O’Grady 2003, 2005,
2006).
Religious Education: An Interpretive Approach provides the theoretical underpinning
of our work. Its central concerns over representation, interpretation and reflexivity
(including edification) in religious education pedagogy suggest both starting points
and fundamental principles for the individual projects. Motivation in Secondary
Religious Education develops the interpretive approach through the use of classroombased action research (e.g. Elliott 1991, 1997, 1998). Here the emphasis switches to
adolescents’ experiences of religious education: attempts are made to record factors in
their motivation to learn and to offer related pedagogical principles and strategies.
Individual researchers within the Warwick REDCO community of practice will aim to
take insights from Religious Education: An Interpretive Approach and Motivation in
Secondary Religious Education and channel the ideas in new directions, but will
begin from a strong knowledge base in both texts and will regularly return to both
texts, and papers based on them.
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Roles and responsibilities
Professor Robert Jackson has overall responsibility for the Warwick REDCO
community of practice. Dr Kevin O’Grady and Dr Julia Ipgrave act as research coordinators. Dr O’Grady provides specialist action research advice and support; Dr
Ipgrave provides specialist advice and support as required, in the areas of dialogical
approaches to religious education and to research (Ipgrave 2002, 2003). All three
leaders have roles in monitoring and supporting the various studies, and with
facilitating the dissemination of findings.
Professor Eleanor Nesbitt assists with research methods training (via the Warwick
MA in RE research methods module, and through feedback to those who are making
their contribution as part of the Warwick MA). Ursula McKenna provides research
and administrative support to Professor Jackson and contributes to the survey work
being conducted as part of the wider European REDCo Project.
All other community members are individual researchers, bearing in mind the point
made above that we are collectively responsible for the success of our practice as a
whole. It is also important to recognise the cross-institutional nature of our
collaboration. Whilst Warwick is the key institution (including Robert Jackson, Kevin
O’Grady, Eleanor Nesbitt, Judith Everington and Ursula McKenna), our team
includes academic staff members of Oxford Brookes University (Julia Ipgrave) and
Middlesex University (Linda Whitworth) and a former Bradford local education
authority consultant (Joyce Miller). Julia Ipgrave’s own study is also related to the
Christian Muslim Forum; established by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2006, a
group providing a national platform for leaders and experts from the two faiths in
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promoting practical co-operation between Christians and Muslims for the common
good.
Individual studies
Brief details (researcher name, project title, and key research questions) of each
individual research study are given below. A work-in-progress update paragraph has
been added to each, as a result of the community of practice’s July 2007 meeting.
Judith Everington (Warwick University): The interpretive approach, beginning
teachers and the development of initial teacher training strategies – an action
research study. How can teachers in their initial training apply the principles of the
interpretive approach in relation to the backgrounds and needs of their pupils? What
can they learn, progressively, about how to use the principles of the interpretive
approach as foci for the improvement of their teaching?
At July 2007 fieldwork is complete. Very interesting findings have emerged. The
value of the interpretive approach has been of value in stimulating trainee teachers’
ability to theorise their practice, in the context of a deliberative community (the
cohort). In a sense, trainee teachers created their own versions of the approach. There
is resonance with the ideas of the teacher educator John Loughran (Loughran 2006).
Nigel Fancourt (Lord Williams’ School, Thame, Oxfordshire): Reflexivity and
Self-assessment– a practitioner research study. What kind of self-assessment is
appropriate for an interpretive pedagogy?
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At July 2007 fieldwork is complete, having been undertaken as part of a doctoral
study on current assessment paradigms in RE (thesis to be submitted early in 2008).
Given the depth and breadth of this study, findings are complex. Generally, ’high
stakes’ testing, together with a summative attainment model of progress, are presently
quite dominant in English education (Black and William 1998), but do not offer an
appropriate paradigm to interpretive religious educators. However, one emergent idea
is that of a synergy between interpretive approaches to religious education and
‘dialogic’ assessment (Ecclestone and Pryor 2003, Fancourt 2005). This focuses less
on external criteria, and more on formative teacher-pupil discussion on what has been
learned and where learning should go next.
Kate Gater (Bilton Grange Preparatory School, Rugby): Introducing 12 and 13
year olds to the Sikh tradition. What is the value of direct dialogue with members of
an unfamiliar tradition? Which pedagogical strategies promote the most effective
comparison and contrast of one’s own ideas about life with those of others?
At July 2007, fieldwork is under preparation, to commence in November 2007. A
very clear integration has been made of the key concepts of the interpretive approach
with the research plan. The study will be a MA dissertation, later written to book
chapter style and length for REDCo publication.
Julia Ipgrave (Oxford Brookes University): Media and Identity. What is the
nature of 10 and 11 year olds’ media interaction? How does it shape their selfidentification and their identification of others? (Young Muslims have already
expressed disquiet about the representation of Islam.)
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At July 2007, much interesting pedagogical activity has taken place and is ongoing.
The issue is how to make this into a research presentation. There are valuable
messages waiting to be communicated: children are ready for sophisticated analyses
of media and identity and activities can be sketched that can move them on in their
understanding, as part of religious education though in new forms of the subject.
Joyce Miller (research site: Nab Wood School, Bradford): The application of the
interpretive approach to teachers’ continuing professional development. Can the
use of the interpretive approach help to increase teacher confidence, sensitivity and
understanding in dealing with pupils from a range of backgrounds and in promoting
community cohesion? Will the teachers become more skilled as ‘cultural navigators’?
At July 2007 the studied school is still building community links. Several agendas
(school practice, community cohesion and research) are still to be connected. A model
may come via qualitative teacher reflection on how closer community links improve
pedagogy. There will be two action research cycles, one on a Humanities faculty and
one on an English faculty, but the REDCo chapter will be mainly concerned with the
first.
Gemma O’Dell (Barton Court Grammar School, Longport, Canterbury, Kent):
Intercultural Religious Education in a relatively mono-cultural local
environment. How can teenagers in a predominantly white, economically advantaged
local area be encouraged to consider issues of religious and cultural diversity? The
issue of religious education as a ‘gendered’ subject will be given particular attention.
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At July 2007 fieldwork has been completed. Data analysis and triangulation are in
progress and findings and conclusions will be ready for discussion by the beginning
of academic year 2007-8.
Kevin O’Grady (High Storrs School, Sheffield): Material from Kevin’s PhD
(recently completed but not yet worked into articles or book chapters) will contribute
to the project’s store of material. Our future discussions of book format and content
will determine how this is done, in due course.
Karen Van Coevorden (South Park Primary School, Redbridge): Holocaust
Education. What can the concepts of the interpretive approach and the methods of
action research contribute to young children’s education regarding the Holocaust?
What pedagogical principles and strategies should be developed, to maximise
children’s learning in such a sensitive and vital area? At July 2007, this project is in
the early stages. An initial research design has been made and access agreed with a
school. Fieldwork will begin during the next school year.
Amy Whittall (King Edward V1 School, Birmingham): Developing Appropriate
Principles and Strategies for the teaching of Gifted and Talented students of
religious education. How can the concepts of the interpretive approach be used in the
development of forms of religious education that meet the particular needs of gifted
and talented students? What roles can action research play in the development of
these forms of religious education?
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At July 2007, this research project is complete, having taken place in the contexts of
Amy’s MA studies and Farmington fellowship. Amy’s findings are that the
interpretive approach does indeed enable the development of higher level skill in
religious education, for example through the use of interpretation, and that action
research can help the gifted and talented to develop ‘voice’. Her study will need to be
written to the appropriate book format, style and length.
Linda Whitworth (Middlesex University): Developing Confidence amongst nonspecialist teachers of Primary religious education: An Action Research Study
using the concepts of the Interpretive Approach. Can knowledge and
understanding of the interpretive approach develop the confidence of teachers in
initial training? How can action research strategies be useful to teacher educators in
improving opportunities for student engagement and reflection?
At July 2007, a first action research cycle is complete and a second is being planned
on its findings. Methodological and conceptual fine-tuning is also taking place. An
emergent pattern is ‘destabilisation’. Trainee teachers find that acquaintance with the
interpretive approach challenges their existing assumptions. The consequent
professional discussion requires, but also helps to create, confidence and trust.
Critical Friends
Helen Harrison is Lancashire education authority consultant for religious education,
Dr Bill Gent is Redbridge education authority consultant for religious education and
Paul Hopkins is a freelance consultant on religious education and information and
communication technology.
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Relations between individual enquiries
In addition to the general commonality of themes and methods mentioned above,
there are potential specific co-operations across our individual projects. For example,
all teachers address issues of assessment (with Nigel Fancourt providing specialist
advice), and all teachers consider the needs of individual students or groups of
students whether these are conceptualised in terms of background, academic ability or
other variables. Moreover, all teachers will need to address the issues of dialogue and
conflict that are central to the overall REDCo proposal. We anticipate that a series of
interconnections will emerge over time, enabling high quality dialogues within our
community of practice. At July 2007, there are, for example, conversations between
Judith Everington and Linda Whitworth on the need for trainee teachers to be
theorists who live with ambiguity; and between Joyce Miller, Bob Jackson and Julia
Ipgrave on intercultural autobiography.
Relations between the Warwick community of practice and the wider
REDCo project
Similarly, there will be thematic and methodological interconnections with REDCo
projects taking place in other countries. All REDCo research investigates the themes
of religion, education, dialogue and conflict. That is the level of general co-operation
and commonality, and again, there is also a more specific form of interconnection to
be anticipated: within the overall project structure Warwick is guided to a more direct
co-operation with the Dutch, Spanish and Norwegian research teams. The Spanish
research team enjoys particular expertise in ethnography whilst our Dutch colleagues
have looked closely at issues of teacher identity and their consequences for school
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culture and religious education practice. The Norwegian team intends to set up action
research studies. Three members of the Norwegian team attended our Westhill
seminar in January 2007 and we plan to hold a joint Warwick-Stavanger meeting in
February 2008. Close reverberations with our Warwick projects can be envisaged.
They could be encouraged by the inclusion of Spanish, Dutch and Norwegian
colleagues as guest members of our practice community – critical friends from a new
kind of perspective.
The main REDCo project has a number of crosscutting themes. For example, there
will be some comparative studies of religious education or the study of religions in
different education systems, across different countries. Ursula McKenna, Julia
Ipgrave, Kevin O’Grady and Robert Jackson are involved with qualitative and
quantitative studies of the attitudes of 14-16 year old pupils to religious education,
plus various comparative studies. Oddrun Hovde Braaten, a Warwick PhD student
based in Trondheim, Norway, is contributing a comparative study of RE in England
and Norway, and is providing advice on comparative study derived from her research.
Communications
Close and frequent communication is taking place by email (the community of
practice members are geographically spread). Whole group residential face-to-face
meetings are being held 3 or 4 times a year. During these meetings, focused
presentations and discussions generate ideas development, energy, constructive
criticism and collaboration. There is a Warwick REDCo community of practice page
on the WRERU website [http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wie/wreru/] and also the
main REDCo website at www.redco.uni.hamburg.de ]
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Timescales, deliverables, dissemination
Our community of practice initially will have the same duration as the overall REDCo
project (March 2006-March 2009). Our writing should be a continuous process.
Different studies will be completed at different times, depending – for example – on
whether individual project reports are linked to study for different degrees. We will
aim to have a book completed by the end of the project (provisionally to be published
by Waxmann).
In the first six months there was a phase of historical and contextual analysis and
fieldwork preparation (March 2006-September 2006). The main part of school-based
empirical research followed (September 2006-July 2007), although a minority of
fieldwork investigations were complete by July 2007. There will now be a period of
analysis, reflection and fine-tuning of research methods including some writing-up of
studies (August 2007- October 2007). This phase will be followed by continuing
theoretical reflection, and by further fieldwork in most cases. Again, it is envisaged
that some writing-up will also be taking place (October 2007- April 2008).
The penultimate task will be to triangulate our data. We will seek to draw some
overall conclusions synthetically from our different English projects. These are
conceptualised as a second level of analysis (the findings of the individual studies are
the first level). We will also hope to chart interconnections between our English
findings and the emerging perspectives of the European REDCo research as a whole
(representing a possible third level of analysis). During this period, our writing will
continue to develop at these second and third levels (April 2008-July 2008). Then
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there will be a final phase of discussion, writing for publication and dissemination via
publications and conference(s) (July 2008-March 2009). We will complete an edited
book for publication by Waxmann by the end of the project period and use this as the
principal means to disseminate our findings, though there will also be a book launch
and dissemination seminar.
Meetings schedule
May 2007: Presentations and discussion of school-based and university-based
research projects: support for work in progress.
July 2007: Presentations and discussion of school-based and university-based research
projects: support for work in progress.
November 2007: Presentations and discussion of school-based and university-based
research projects: support for work in progress. Also, methodological reflection and
assessment and agreement of final report (book chapter) format.
February 2008: Second-level data analysis (comparison and contrast of different
project findings). Joint discussions with Stavanger community of practice – focus to
be negotiated with Norwegian colleagues, perhaps during St. Petersburg REDCo
conference 13 -17 September 2007.
May 2008: Second-level data analysis (integration of cross-cutting themes of
dialogue, conflict, identity, gender).
July 2008: Third-level data analysis (integration with emergent European findings)
and plans for dissemination.
November 2008: Presentations and discussions related to book.
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February 2009: Presentations and discussions related to book. Book launch and
project dissemination seminar involving community of practice members and invited
guests.
Following the Westhill Seminar in January 2007, we made a successful application to
the Westhill Endowment Trust for additional funding to cover the costs of our
meetings, book publication, to fund Kevin O’Grady and Julia Ipgrave to visit each
study ‘on site’ and to have the final dissemination seminar at the end of the project.
We are very grateful to the Westhill trustees for their kind support of our research.
Status of the community of practice at July 2007
At the time of writing, the Warwick REDCo community of practice is in excellent
health. We enjoy close team spirit and shared intellectual curiosity combined with the
desire and ability to generate positive professional change in religious education. As
detailed above, our individual research projects are progressing well and beginning to
present interesting and useful findings. We can envisage that this will continue until
completion. Referring to our general plan and timescales, it is clear that we will enter
a new phase over the next academic year. Though we will continue to give focus and
support to the individual studies, we will engage in deeper methodological reflection
and data analysis in the run-up to book production. Some of the data analysis will be
at the second level, involving extended conversation between individual studies, some
at the third, involving conversation with REDCo’s emergent European perspective.
The projected Warwick-Stavanger collaboration is a step in this direction and,
generally speaking, we might benefit from some face-to-face contact between
members of the community of practice as a whole (not just its leaders) and our
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colleagues in different European countries. We look forward, with confidence, to the
next phase of our inquiry.
References
Altrichter, H. (2005) The Role of the ‘Professional Community’ in Action Research,
Educational Action Research 13 (1) 11-25.
Black, P. and William, D. (1998) Assessment and classroom learning, in Assessment
in Education 5(1) 7-74.
Ecclestone, K. & Pryor, J. (2003) ‘Learning careers’ or ’Assessment careers’? The
impact of assessment systems on learning, British Educational Research Journal 29
(4) 471-88.
Elliott, J. (1991) Action Research for Educational Change (Milton Keynes, Open
University Press).
Elliott, J. (1997) ‘School-Based Curriculum Development and Action Research’ in
Hollingsworth, S. International Action Research: A Casebook for Educational Reform
(London, Falmer) 31-49.
Elliott, J. (1998) The Curriculum Experiment: Meeting the Challenge of Social
Change (Buckingham, Open University Press).
Fancourt, N. (2005) Challenges to Self-Assessment in Religious Education, British
Journal of Religious Education 27(2) 115-126.
Ipgrave, J. (2002) Interfaith Encounter and Religious Understanding in an Inner City
Primary School, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
Ipgrave, J. (2003) Dialogue, Citizenship and Religious Education, in Jackson, R. (ed.)
International Perspectives on Citizenship, Education and Religious Diversity
(London, Routledge Falmer) 147-68.
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Jackson, R. (1997) Religious Education: An Interpretive Approach (London, Hodder
and Stoughton).
Jackson, R. (2004) Rethinking Religious Education and Plurality: Issues in Diversity
and Pedagogy (London, Routledge Falmer, especially chapters 6 and 7).
Jackson, R. (2006) Understanding Religious Diversity in a Plural World: The
Interpretive Approach, in de Souza, M., Engebretson, K., Durka, G., Jackson, R.,
McGrady, A., (eds.), International Handbook of the Religious, Moral and Spiritual
Dimensions of Education (The Netherlands, Springer Academic Publishers). (Posted
in draft form on the REDCo website and circulated to Warwick team members).
Jackson, R. Miedema, S. Weisse, W. & Willaime, J.P. (eds.) (2007) Religion and
Education in Europe: Developments, Contexts and Debates, Műnster, Waxmann.
Jackson, R. and O’Grady, K. (2007) Religions and Education in England: Social
Plurality, Civil Religion and Religious Education Pedagogy, in Jackson, R., Miedema,
S., Weisse, W. and Willaime, J.P. (eds.) Religion and Education in Europe:
Developments, Contexts and Debates (Műnster, Waxmann) 181-202.
Loughran, J.J. (2006), Developing a Pedagogy of Teacher Education: Understanding
teaching and learning about teaching (London, Routledge).
O’Grady, K. Motivation in Secondary Religious Education (University of Warwick,
unpublished PhD thesis).
O’Grady, K (2003) ‘Motivation in Religious Education: A Collaborative Investigation
with Year Eight Students’ British Journal of Religious Education 25 (3), 214-25.
O’Grady, K. (2005) ‘Pedagogy, Dialogue and Truth: Intercultural Education in the
Religious Education classroom’ in Jackson, R. and McKenna, U. (eds.) Intercultural
Education and Religious Plurality (Oslo: Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or
Belief) 25-34.
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O’Grady, K. (2006) The Development of Beliefs and Values in Adolescence: A Case
Study through Religious Education Pedagogy, International Journal of Children’s
Spirituality 11(3) 315-18.
Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press).
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