Paradigms, beliefs and values in scholarship: A conversation between two educationists

Abstract

Paradigms, beliefs and values in scholarship: a conversation between two educationists Scientific paradigms constantly play a role in scholarship, but researchers tend not to examine the roles of the belief and value systems associated with them. From time to time, however , a researcher may be confronted with a situation where such an analysis is unavoidable. This article takes the shape of a conversation between two researchers who have been working for several years in quite different research paradigms in the field of Religion Studies/Religion Education/Religion in Education. 1 They investigate the possibility of collaboration as they were initially trained at the same university. After their graduate studies, their ways parted, and they developed quite different 1 The terms Religion Studies/Religious Education/Religion in Education are defined in the South African Policy on Religion in Education (2003) and explicated in more detail in the Curriculum for Religious Studies for the FET-Band. The ambivalent use of the name for the subject Religious Education and/or Bible Education prior to 2003 led to confusion, and the various interpretations (natio-nally and internationally) that were bandied about necessitated the formulation of a definition for circumscribing the new subject in the curriculum, namely as a subject that would be fully inclusive. Its curriculum embraces a study of various different religions and value orientations (worldviews) and hence differs considerably from the content and definition of the previous religious education (cf.