On Understanding Worship in School. Part One: on schooling and education
As worship in school is currently a topic of public debate, it may be useful to re‐examine one of the influential books on the subject,School Worship, an Obituary, by Professor J.M. Hull, published in 1975. I shall argue that it was mistaken in important respects. His case for the abolition of worsh...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
1999
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| In: |
Journal of beliefs and values
Year: 1999, Volume: 20, Issue: 2, Pages: 219-230 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | As worship in school is currently a topic of public debate, it may be useful to re‐examine one of the influential books on the subject,School Worship, an Obituary, by Professor J.M. Hull, published in 1975. I shall argue that it was mistaken in important respects. His case for the abolition of worship in schools was made on essentially philosophical grounds. He sought not just to make the weak point that it is increasingly difficult to overcome many of the practical obstacles, but to make the stronger claim that the practice is conceptually incoherent. This is what makes his position a philosophical one and, as such, subject to philosophical scrutiny. One of the factors that appears to influence Hull's position is his conception of philosophy. Despite his careful analysis of the concepts of education and worship, at a critical point his account seems to rely on a form of philosophical evidential‐ism. In opposition to Hull, I take the view that this is a mistake. A more consistent, philosophical approach of conceptual clarification would have shown that there are various forms of education and that, in at least one case, it not only makes sense to worship as a part of the educational process, but that worship is of its essence as its motivation, substance and goal. The implication of this conclusion is that politicians are not intellectually confused in insisting on a form of education in which worship has an integral role. Whether it is practicable, socially desirable and politically reasonable in an increasingly secular and religiously plural society is quite another matter. Given the current state of society, one might conclude that the government should take a more pluralistic approach through its legislation. The government is there to serve a variety of communities and interests. One might reasonably argue that if the state‐school system is genuinely to serve this plural society there should be more scope for incorporating into the education system a diversity of practice. There might then be different schools with distinctive concepts of education, consistent with the needs and aspirations of the diverse communities and interests. In this part of the article I shall look particularly at the way in which schooling might accommodate a variety of activities and raise the question as to why worship might not be one of them. Hull's answer seems to hinge on the definition of worship and on the definition of education. The former I shall examine in Part Two, but here I shall seek to identify and examine that feature of education that Hull claims would exclude worship in school. |
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| ISSN: | 1469-9362 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of beliefs and values
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/1361767990200207 |