Blog

By Krystian McInnis (Reimagining Education)

What do we mean when we talk about decolonising Religious Education?

It seems a straightforward question, but the language has become increasingly difficult to pin down. Decolonising is sometimes used interchangeably with diversifying the curriculum, increasing representation, anti-racism, or including perspectives that have historically been excluded. All of this work is crucial, but treating these terms as though they describe the same thing risks diluting what decolonisation asks us to confront.

This reflection emerges from my ongoing research into questions of knowledge, authority and representation in Religious Education, alongside my professional work in curriculum development and racial justice. My involvement in developing educational resources that seek to reflect the diversity of Christian traditions has brought questions of authentic representation into sharper focus, particularly whose perspectives are included and who is afforded the authority to interpret them. While broadening representation is important, these experiences have led me to question whether greater visibility necessarily challenges the underlying assumptions through which certain forms of religious knowledge become authoritative. These are questions I approach through both scholarly inquiry and critical reflection on educational practices and institutional processes in which I have been directly involved.

My concern is not whether more voices should be present within Religious Education. Of course they should. It is whether adding what was previously absent goes far enough. A curriculum can become visibly more diverse, while leaving largely untouched the inherited structures that determined what counted as legitimate knowledge in the first place. Curriculum choices do not emerge from nowhere. They sit within longer histories of power, authorised theologies, educational traditions and assumptions about which forms of knowledge can be trusted. These shape not only what appears in a curriculum, but what teachers are equipped to teach and what pupils may consequently come to understand as normative.

This brings me to the question of voice. Terms such as “voiceless”, “hard to reach” or “underrepresented” can sometimes place the problem with the individual or community rather than with the structures that have marginalised, ignored or refused to listen to them. The issue is not simply whether people are given opportunities to participate, but what happens when they do. Their presence does not necessarily mean that their knowledge, experience or expertise is recognised on its own terms. They may be heard, yet the authority to interpret, validate and determine what counts as legitimate knowledge can remain elsewhere.

Being present is not the same as possessing epistemic authority. We can see this when people are invited to contribute because of their race, culture or religious background and subsequently expected to speak primarily as a representative of that identity. Their presence may satisfy a desire for representation while their wider expertise, theological understanding or intellectual contribution remains less readily recognised. They are heard when speaking about “their community” but not necessarily recognised as someone whose knowledge can shape the wider conversation.

This is particularly important in Religious Education because we have a responsibility to represent communities, faiths and worldviews authentically. That does not mean that only insiders can teach, research or speak about a religious tradition. Such an approach would create its own problems, not least because no community speaks with one voice. It does mean, however, taking seriously what people say about themselves and questioning why those accounts sometimes require authorisation through somebody else’s interpretive framework before they are accepted as legitimate knowledge.

Perhaps the question, then, is not simply “Who am I?” but “Why does my account of who I am need to be authorised through the lens of someone else?” This becomes particularly complicated when we consider the diversity that exists within religious traditions themselves. Who, for example, gets to define what counts as an authentic or representative expression of Christianity?

Christianity is a global religion, shaped and expressed through different cultures, histories and theological traditions. Yet in education, particular expressions of Christianity can become so familiar that they are treated as though they are simply Christianity, while others are presented as contextual or alternative expressions of it. What interests me here is not simply whether those other expressions are included, but why some have come to require a qualifier while others have not. We might speak of Māori Christianity, Black Christianity, African Christianity or Asian Christianity, for example, while another expression of Christianity can remain largely unnamed and therefore appear normative.

This also matters beyond Christianity itself. If one particular expression becomes the assumed starting point, it can also shape the position from which other religions and worldviews are encountered and interpreted. The question of representation therefore brings us back to authority: not only who is included, but who has had the power to define the centre from which everyone else is understood.

Ultimately, this brings me back to the problem with which I began. Diversification and decolonisation are related, but they are not interchangeable. Diversifying can ask what is missing and seek to add it. Decolonising has to ask why it was missing in the first place. Why did particular forms of knowledge become normative? Why were others marginalised, distorted or excluded? Whose theological and epistemic assumptions shaped those decisions, and where do those assumptions remain embedded in what we teach today?

Adding voices matters as does representation too, however, perhaps decolonising Religious Education begins when we stop treating absence as the whole problem and start interrogating the structures that produced that absence.