Towards anti-colonial praxis in public school religious education

This paper argues for the need to turn decolonial rhetoric (‘knowing’) into anti-colonial praxis (‘acting’) in public school Religious Education (RE). This is to address the “so what must I do” quandary that often lingers when educators are confronted with the reality about the colonial embeddedness in RE, as in indeed across the school curriculum. It is an issue poignantly evident in the Western academy where (dis)engagement with coloniality is often met with rationales of white fragility exemplified by silence such as "... nothing to add" (DiAngelo, 2021: 1), which, in effect, is "... a form of ... psychological violence…” (Pillay, 2016: 157) and amidst indefensible denials of "I did not colonise anyone" or "colonialism wasn't all that bad" (see Bigger, 2024). Two objectives provide the guide for this paper. To examine the ways in which AcTRE can serve a dual role in facilitating a critique of the colonised status of RE whilst also offering analytical tools that support the development of an anti-colonial reflective mindset in classroom practitioners. Secondly, cognisant of Biesta’s concept of “subjectification” (e.g., learners’ ethical agency and engagement with pluriversal knowledge (Biesta, 2011)), to engage in anti-colonial praxis through the theoretical lens of AcTRE.