Categories in Discourse about Church of England Primary Education

Abstract

Urban areas in the United Kingdom with multi-religious populations can be served by Church of England schools and they can attract families from a variety of different religious backgrounds. Using focus group discussions and interviews with parents, school governors, and teachers, this article focuses on how participants understand the relationships between Christian belief and practice, and their own cultural and religious beliefs and practices. The findings show how emergent ways of talking about the interaction between different cultural practices, and between Christianity and Islam, produce reasoning wherein people understand their place in diverse communities through analogy.