Exploring religious education teachers’ perspectives on character development and moral virtues, in state-funded, non-faith schools in England

Abstract

This article details the findings of a qualitative interview study with 30 Religious Education [RE] teachers, working in state-funded, non-faith secondary schools in England. Salient findings included participants’ almost unanimous agreement about the role of RE in developing character, virtue literacy, and moral, intellectual and performance virtues. Whilst there was general agreement that RE contributes to educating moral virtues, participants differed concerning whether moral virtues were a) both a subject aim and a taught element, b) either of these respective positions, or c) an implicit by-product of RE lessons. There was no indication of this disagreement being due to participants’ personal characteristics, suggesting that further guidance is necessary to clarify the role of RE vis-à-vis moral development. These findings mark a distinctive contribution to the literature on the role of RE, at a time when Ofsted is considering character education amongst the requirements of schools that are judged as good or outstanding.