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Dear God...
“Hate leads to fights, Fights lead to war, War leads to beautiful world no more”
Kieran Hunt

NATRE: National Association of Teachers of Religious Education
Promoting inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue in RE classrooms

Despite growing racial diversity, cultural tensions persist in UK primary and secondary schools, so that understanding how to improve community relations is of urgent importance. One way of improving community relations is through promoting value in diversity, which can encourage individuals to interact meaningfully with cross-group peers (‘contact theory’). Young people spend a substantial proportion of their time in education; schools are an important setting for possible interventions. In particular, the RE curriculum is well-placed to promote positive community relations. However, insufficient attention has been given to capturing how, and why ‘good RE’ promotes community cohesion.

This information is of considerable interest to our partners NATRE (the subject association for RE in England) who provide support for practicing RE teachers and who effectively lobby policy makers. NATRE seeks to establish persuasive evidence that RE has a positive impact on interreligious and intercultural relations in the classroom. Using contact theory and attitude development as tools in the psychology of education will help to capture, explain, and provide examples of best practice.