As Britain continues to become more religiously plural and, simultaneously, less religiously affiliated, interactions with people whose relationship with faith differs from their own is an increasingly common feature of people’s lives. Yet the debate about religious education (RE) has been conducted largely between institutions (regulators, examination boards, faith bodies and campaigning groups), but has less commonly been informed by the views of people of faith themselves.
As the government prepares to bring RE into the national curriculum in England for the first time, this report seeks to bring these views to the forefront of the conversation. Drawing on a nationally representative survey of 1,196 people of faith who have either received RE within the past decade or have a child receiving it now, and supplemented by fourteen in-depth interviews, the report presents a detailed, faith-aware picture of what RE actually does for people of faith.
