Our main theoretical stimulus was the interpretive approach to the study of religious diversity. It seeks to approach the study of religions with a theoretical framework derived from the social sciences. For the topic of our project the interpretive approach to the study of religious traditions transcends widespread barriers of interreligious and intercultural understanding.
The key concepts in the approach are as follows:
Representation: Religions should be presented not as homogeneous and bounded systems, but in ways that recognise the diversity within religions and the uniqueness of each member, as well as the fact that each member is subject to many influences.
This approach encourages a view of religions which acknowledges their complexity, internal diversity, and their varying interactions with culture. It especially emphasises the personal element in religions, seeing religion as part of lived human experience. However, the approach is not relativistic with regard to truth, aiming for epistemological openness, acknowledging often competing truth claims and encouraging students to formulate their own views and opinions.
Interpretation: Students should not be expected to set aside their own presuppositions, but should compare their own concepts with those of others: "the students' own perspective is an essential part of the learning process". The approach's interpretive methodology most closely relates to debates in interpretive anthropology and to theory from hermeneutics . Rather than asking students to leave their presuppositions to one side - as in traditional approaches to the phenomenology of religion - the method requires a comparison and contrast between the learner's concepts and those of the "insider". The approach employs a movement backwards and forwards between the learner's and the "insider's" concepts and experiences. Sensitivity on the part of the student is regarded as a prerequisite and a necessary condition for empathy.
Reflexivity: Students should re-assess their own ways of life; they should be constructively critical of the material they study; and they should maintain an awareness of the development of the interpretive process, reflecting on the nature of their learning.
Since learning is seen as a hermeneutical process, attention needs to be given to students' reflection on their own worldviews in the light of their studies. Reflective activity is intimately related to the process of interpretation. Interpretation might start from the insider's language and experience, then move to that of the student, and then shift between the two. Thus the process of understanding another's way of life is inseparable in practice from that of considering the issues and questions raised by it.
This allows for a combination of ethnographic and educational approaches to RE, and is especially useful for achieving a rich and empirically grounded analysis of the local practice and individual interpretations. With a focus on religious diversity, conceptualising this through "representation", "interpretation" and "reflexivity", it covers the individual as well as the group level. It also allows for theoretical reflection including a discussion of how certain aims, contents and methods in religious education may or may not contribute to peaceful coexistence in a multicultural Europe both through curriculum design and in classroom practice. The international reputation of the Interpretive Approach is partly a result of it drawing on international research, and makes it suitable for comparative research in a European context.
Historical and societal background
We all began with an analysis of the special historical and societal backgrounds in our states and/or regions of Europe and in the whole of Europe, focusing on the contribution of religion in education to dialogue and/or conflict. Thus we saw where we have common ground and where we have different backgrounds regarding the basic questions of our project. We combined this analysis with a study of the ideas and the development of European identity (focusing on the documents of the European Council).
Methods and methodological setting
We all used the same repertoire of methods:
- For text analysis, we refered to mainly hermeneutical methods.
- For empirical methods, we all used the following:
- Participant observation,
- Semi-structured interviews,
- Questionnaire (qualitative and quantitative)
- Videotaping of RE-lessons for interaction analysis,
- Triangulation
Within this repertoire, special methods, like e.g. action-research were also used. The shared methods were also used in different proportions by the different project groups, but nevertheless there was sufficient similarity for valid comparisons to be drawn.
All our projects looked at religious education for school students in the 14-16-year age group in various countries. Arrangements had been made to apply a shared core methodology (participant observation, semi-structured interviews, classroom interaction) to similar questions while allowing specialised tasks to be addressed with a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods appropriate to the purpose.
We all used hermeneutical as well as empirical methods. We combined analyses of concepts of RE with the concrete views of pupils: We observed them, we interviewed them, we asked for written answers in questionnaires, and we analysed their interaction. With this combination, we could capture both the perspective from above and the perspective from below, and combined both perspectives in a triangulation.