Here is a questionnaire I would like put to all school children in all schools, at various ages. I’d be very interested in the results.<\/p>\n
Answers: STRONGLY AGREE, AGREE, DISAGREE, STRONGLY DISAGREE.<\/p>\n
(i) It’s a good thing for [child’s religion] children to be at school with children of other or no religion.
(ii) If you disagree with someone’s religion, it’s OK to say so.
(iii) I have to have a religion.
(iv) People without religion are more likely to be bad (follow up question – if they believe this, why? were they told it?)
(v) We get to ask lots of questions and discuss things in religion class.
(vi) My teacher tells me what I must believe about religion.
(vii) We pray at school.
(viii) My teacher makes it clear it’s up to us what we believe about religion.
(ix) I have heard people from other religions talk about what they believe.
(x) I have heard a humanist\/atheist talk what they believe.
(xi) All religions are equally true.
(xii) There is only one true religion.
(xiii) There are no true religions.
(xiv) If I didn’t believe in [child’s religion], my teacher or my school would be angry with me.
(xv) I am free to choose my own religion.
(xvi) I know quite a lot about some other religions.
(xvii) I know quite a lot about what atheists and humanists believe.
(xviii) I shouldn’t question my teacher about whether [child’s religion] is true.
(xix) At school, we sometimes think and talk about whether [child’s religion] is really true.
(xx) It’s best to be friends only with people of the same religion as you.<\/p>\n
I’d be particularly keen to put this questionnaire alongside a questionnaire for their teachers aimed at revealing the teacher’s own perception of what they are doing and see whether they match up. Would be interesting!<\/p>\n
Also, to compare answer to question (v) with answers to (iii), (xiv), (xviii) and especially (xix) [my guess is this would reveal that though many RE teachers encourage “discussion” it’s of a very stage-managed and superficial sort.]<\/p>\n
What kind of answers would you predict for various different kinds of school, and why?<\/p>\n
What answers would constitute worrying or unacceptable answers?<\/p>\n
POSTSCRIPT:<\/p>\n
few more questions:<\/p>\n
(xxi) I might get in trouble at school if I said I didn’t believe in [child’s religion]
(xxii) My parents would be angry if at school we discussed whether [child’s religion] is really true.
(xxiii) My parents would be unhappy if I was friends with children of a different or no religion.
(xxiv) My parents would be angry if my school told me I can choose whether or not to believe in [child’s religion].<\/p>\n
I think a lot of schools are concerned about (xxii), which is one reason why critical discussion of religion, while officially encouraged, tends in reality to be stage-managed and toothless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here is a questionnaire I would like put to all school children in all schools, at various ages. I’d be very interested in the results. Answers: STRONGLY AGREE, AGREE, DISAGREE, STRONGLY DISAGREE. (i) It’s a good thing for [child’s religion] children to be at school with children of other or no religion.(ii) If you disagree […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}