Religious Education as a Pedagogy of Care in the Context of Violence: Re-Imaging Working and Thinking Together

Abstract

This qualitative paper couched with the decoloniality theory addresses the question of how religious education as a pedagogy of care can mitigate the ambivalent terrain of school violence. Despite various inventions within South African schools, the classroom remains violent and unsafe for both learners and educators igniting the adoption of religious education as a pedagogy of care. The author used the decoloniality theory since it calls for rehumanisation of people affected by school violence. The findings indicate that despite challenges associated with religious education, the subject can be conceptualised as a pedagogy of care to mitigate the challenges of school violence. The argument of the paper is that education authorities need to re-imagine religion as a pedagogy of care that has the impetus to evoke working and thinking together within the mainstream curriculum practices in South Africa. The paper contributes to knowledge in the sense that it locates arguments in decoloniality calling for equal representation of knowledge in the curriculum to address school violence. It sees religious education as the key to contributing to a peaceful existence in school and society.

Keywords

• living and working together
• religion education
• school violence
• best practices.