This volume explores numerous themes (including the influence of ethnography on religious education research and pedagogy, the interpretive approach to religious education, the relationship between research and classroom practice in religious education), providing a critique of contemporary religious education and exploring the implications of this critique for initial and continuing teacher education.

'This book is relevant for the European reader who is concerned about RE. However, anyone can take away some lessons related to how teachers should deal with religion when it comes up either through the curriculum or because of world events.' - Thomas Lamborn, Journal of Education and Christian Belief "This is one of the most ambitious books on religious education that I have read in some time. Its importance lies in the challenging question that it raises. Patricia Hannam identifes ? shortcomings of current approaches to RE in England by focusing on its history as exemplifed through the work of three key scholars. Her intention in doing this is to then provide a new, normative answer to the question 'what should religious education seek to achieve in the public sphere?' In her words, this book is intended as 'an interruption in current thinking about the relationship between religion and education' ? ? In an age when content is king, she is absolutely right to be asking penetrating questions about the relationship between the child and that content."- Professor Trevor Cooling, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK ?