Challenging knowledge in RE: Vol 2: World Views

It is always both exciting and daunting when starting to plan one of these books. It gives us an opportunity to help teachers and students examine some fascinating content, but even with extensive online support resources one publication cannot cover everything.

The RE community is beginning to respond to the idea that the subject should examine worldviews, but substantial reports from Theos and the RE Council have already pointed out the complexity of the concept (see p. 3 for details). As such, we
recognise our limitations. We can only introduce some ways of thinking about worldviews, but we hope that these will prove practical and engaging in the classroom, increasing students’
knowledge and awareness of their own and others’ worldviews

We spend some time on examining and applying James W. Sire’s model of worldview questions (pp. 4–11). This is a good starting point, as the questions are close to the kinds of things we
often address in our subject. As always, we include voices from religious and non-religious perspectives (pp. 12–13), which indicate something of the complexity and fluidity of worldviews in people’s lives. As well as starting by asking people questions, we also start at the other end: we present case studies that look at people’s actions, and ask students to discern what these reveal about these activists’ worldviews (pp. 14–15)

Our multidisciplinary approach introduces sociology and its questions and methods, with our disciplinary experts, Dr Rachael
Shillitoe and Dr Chris Cotter. We have set it up so you can take students through different processes, including gathering data, analysing it and drawing conclusions. Having examined it though the sociological lens, there is an opportunity to apply a religious studies lens as well. There are opportunities to reflect on the
potential of these disciplines for enriching an understanding of worldviews