Is there a place for Bildung in preparing Religious Education teachers to support and promote epistemic justice in their classrooms?

Abstract

This article draws on an empirical research project in which we explore the roles and understandings of knowledge in Religious Education (RE). Plural understandings of knowledge in schools (and society) lead us to concerns about the relationships between knowledge and social justice. We define epistemic literacy as the capability to recognise, and critically use, different types of knowledge. We also clarify that one’s own relationship with knowledge(s) is significant and is, therefore, important for students and teachers to develop to respond to the epistemically plural RE curriculum and classroom. Drawing on literacy frameworks to identify the need for non-hierarchical conceptualisations of knowledge that include the expert and everyday (Hannam et al., 2020; Shaw, 2019, Vernon 2020), we acknowledge the need for a particular disposition when approaching knowledge about religion and worldviews. Building on the analysis of our empirical study and subsequent developments of epistemic literacy, we revisit the notion of epistemic justice (Fricker, 2007) and present a theoretical justification for the experiential preparation of teachers that draws on Biesta’s (2002) reformed Bildung of encounter and Rawls’ “veil of ignorance” (Rawls, 2005). What emerges from these reflections on the future of Bildung is, therefore, an image of a learning society conceived as a society in which the real encounters with who and what is other are a constant and continuous possibility. (Biesta, 2002, p. 350)

Important Perspectives and Concepts to Teach in Ethics Education

“…To avoid teaching that simplifies the content, Stones and Fraser-Pearce suggest that teachers develop their own, as well as their students', epistemic literacy. An epistemic literacy implies a competence to identify, to interpret, to understand, to ask questions, and to navigate and to communicate about knowledge, according to Stones and Fraser-Pearce (2022). They argue, in line with research from Young and Muller (2010) and Deng (2021), that there are disciplines that "have power and potential for social justice through their facilitation to imagine the not yet imagined".…”