‘Faith in the system?’ State‐funded faith schools in England and the contested parameters of community cohesion

Abstract

Within the wider context of interest in the relationships between faith and the state, this paper focuses on the case of state‐funded faith schools in England and how opposition to them has been mobilised and negotiated. Discussion focuses specifically on the role of community cohesion policy – a policy adopted to combat social and ethnic division after 2001 – and the contested parameters of this policy when introduced to monitor schools. Analysis suggests that faith school providers were able to interpret the policy in ways that challenged government articulations and reworked dominant meanings, revealing the political and spatial instabilities of the policy. However, our analysis suggests that these challenges to state meanings were less successful in shaping mechanisms to monitor admissions practices in faith schools – producing some unanticipated entanglements of state and religious authority with implications for the shaping of communal religious life. These findings both add to the wider critical policy analysis of community cohesion policy and contribute to debates about the role of religion in the public sphere.

Multicultural learning: parent encounters with difference in a Birmingham primary school

“…This raises some important questions about the value of multicultural schooling more widely and speaks back to debates around faith schooling, segregation and the value of intercultural contact (Dwyer and Parutis ). While some proponents of faith schooling have rejected claims that they are socially divisive by dismissing the value of contact to instead highlight the value of school curriculum in promoting cultural and religious understanding (Short ), some of the examples discussed in this paper suggest that the opportunity for contact is indeed significant and can be vital to challenging what are often considered to be acceptable forms of intolerance towards difference.…”

“…). In much the same vein, debates continue to examine the value of shared school spaces in order to question the ability of faith schools to prepare children and families for diverse societies (Dwyer and Parutis ; Short ). As such, interaction with difference is considered to be paramount on a number of levels.…”

Competition or cooperation? Jewish day schools, synagogues and the (re)construction of young people’s Jewish identities in England

“…Consequently, forms of Jewish identification that exist beyond synagogue communities are largely neglected, with families obligated to negotiate pre-defined Jewish criteria that are relatively easy to achieve but bear little personal relevance to their lived identities. As a result, as was the case before R (on the application of E) v Governing Body of JFS, selfidentification as Jewish is subordinated by external ascription, even if the authority has shifted from halakhah to the state (Dwyer and Parutis 2013).…”

Conceptions of justice in the planning of the new urban landscape – Recent changes in the comprehensive planning discourse in Malmö, Sweden

“…Therefore, it is far too early to judge what its future interpretations and their practical consequences may be. Internationally, however, the concept has been widely used, and critical scholars have warned that the fostering of common values in multicultural societies might lead to suppression of particular interests (Dwyer & Parutis, 2012;Jensen, 1998;McGhee, 2003). In a case study of local community cohesion policies in Bradford, England, after the riots of 2001, Derek McGhee explicitly examines initiatives taken to transform exclusive bonding social capital 52…”