Religious Education for Free and Equal Citizens

Overview & Synopsis

The aim of this article is to interact critically with Matthew Clayton and David Stevens's recent critique of non-confessional religious education, constituted as a separate, compulsory subject in the school curriculum. Three different critical arguments are considered: the contention that religious education is an unsuitable vehicle for fostering toleration and mutual understanding; their framing and application of an 'acceptability requirement' to religious education, which states that government principles and policy should be justified by reasons that cannot be rejected by reasonable citizens, and which they believe religious education fails; and finally, their rejection of the view that religious education fulfils a democratic purpose in providing pupils with the competences to consider and assess religious claims to truth. Religious education is defended against all three charges.