Religious education and collective worship in state schools: England and Wales

Abstract

The great diversity in the ethnic, cultural and linguistic backgrounds of the population of England and Wales today poses a major challenge for the government in developing policy and formulating a legal framework for the provision of religious education and collective worship in state maintained schools. The tacit assumption of the Education Act 1944 that religious education and collective worship in state schools would reflect only the Christian faith and tradition no longer holds good in the twenty-first century. Very important legislative reforms in the 1980s and 1990s have now brought about a compromise, under which a broadly multi-faith approach is adopted, but with some degree of centrality for the Christian tradition. This chapter explores the nature of that compromise and some of the key problems that remain.

School of Law, University of Southampton