LAUSR

Scholarship and classroom discourse in Religious Education (RE) ‘gaze back’ at religion in exploring histories, traditions, ethics, philosophies and beliefs of religions but, importantly, at the same time ‘move forward’ for RE as an engaging, critical (not simply criticism) and re-contextualised subject relevant for children and young in a post-modern milieu. The oxymoron ‘gazing back and moving forward’ is drawn from Sankofa, an ancient African philosophy from the Akan people of Ghana. Sankofa is symbolised by a mystical bird known by that name (Slater 2019). The bird is depicted with its feet firmly planted on the ground and moving forward but with its head twisted backwards to bring forth an egg from its back – the egg representing precious knowledge gained from experience upon which wisdom is gained for the benefit of future generations (Quan-Baffour 2017). In essence, Sankofa encapsulates a quest for knowledge based on critical reasoning, as well as intelligent and patient investigation of the past. It draws on the belief that what happened in the past if critically understood can serve as a guide for planning the future and ‘where a mistake has been made, the wrong can be rectified and lessons can be learnt from the experience’ (Slater 2019, 2). Sankofa is about the wisdom of learning from the past to ensure a strong and positive future, and a quest for new knowledge based on critical examination and thoughtful investigation (Quan-Baffour 2017; Slater 2019). Applied in the context of scholarship and classroom discourse in RE a few points can be made. In different countries, and even within in-country locales, the dynamic of ‘gazing back’ and ‘moving forward’ is impacted by powerful contextual considerations such as history, politics, cultural tradition and religious demography (Leirvik 2004; Skeie 2006). These factors produce ambiguities as well as opportunities for RE in its attempt to address specific needs of the contemporary child as well as satisfy stakeholder demands (Conroy et al. 2013). In a nation state, contemporary RE grapples with not only how it responds to religion in its various confessional manifestations but also crucially to pluralism, non-religion and secular worldviews – issues that engender contested debates in the construction and re-construction of RE as a school subject (Barnes, 2015; Bråten and Everington 2019). In the three decades I have been teaching and researching RE on two continents (Africa and Europe) and three countries (Malawi, Botswana and Scotland), I have seen RE ‘gazing back’while also keenly ‘moving forward’. In addition to ‘gazing back’ at religious traditions and beliefs in classroom discourse, for example, my second proposition is that RE also ‘gazes back’ at the historical development of the subject. This does not suggest a nostalgia to return to the inefficacies of the past in the history of RE (Matemba 2014), but rather an opportunity to understand its contested past as a ‘Sankofa moment’ in the continuing development of RE as a school subject. In ‘moving forward’ not only does contemporary RE seeks to sharpen its pedagogical approaches, ascertain ‘what works’ but also, crucially, how it widens material coverage to include minoritised religions, non-religion and secular worldviews (Conroy et al. 2013; Zilliacus and Holm 2013). The ten articles published in this issue of BJRE are drawn from work in eight countries (UK, Spain, Australia, Greece, Israel, Poland, Russia and China). Many of the articles touch on ways in which the issues raised in different national and supranational contexts ‘gaze back’ at culture, religious history and RE curriculum development as contexts to understand the incorporation of new curriculum knowledge, and how classroom discourse responds (or not) to that dynamic. The articles also ‘move forward’ in their critical but thoughtful examination of RE as a field of scholarly investigation. BRITISH JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 2020, VOL. 42, NO. 2, 115–119 https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2020.1719464