Recording of the Academy of Ideas Education Forum discussion on 25 April 2024 in central London.

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION

A High Court judgement hangs over Michaela Community School for banning ritual prayer. A Wakefield school suspended pupils for damaging a copy of the Quran. Two recent studies claim that faith schools select against poor and SEN children. Two thirds of the liberal Alliance Party in Northern Ireland want Catholic schools banned. Three years after showing pupils images of the Prophet Muhammad, a teacher in the north of England remains in hiding.

It seems undeniable that schools are a new crucible for religious and social conflict. How do we navigate between tolerance and intolerance in these disputations?

How does the right of faith communities to exercise their beliefs reconcile with established wider freedoms? Should the right to pray be available to all –  even in non-religious schools? Should we defend a parent’s right to send their child to a faith school? Or is that tantamount to a defence of privilege? Have we lost sight of whether faith-based liberties impinge on secular freedoms or vice versa? Who are the liberals and illiberals here?

‘What kind of school environment could so easily be destroyed by one group of students publicly expressing their religion for a mere few minutes a day?’, asks author and teacher Nadeine Asbali. She describes the ban on Muslims praying in school as ‘a dystopian, sinister vision of multiculturalism’. Yet commentator Tim Black thinks, ‘we are witnessing not quiet displays of faith, but loud all-too-visible assertions of Muslim identitarianism … with little to do with Islam’.

Has tolerance become too abstract and impoverished to deal with concrete forms of cultural and religious difference?  What do you think: are our schools fighting an age-old battle between sacred and secular visions of society, or are they on the front line of a new culture war? 

SPEAKERS
Khadija Khan
journalist and commentator

Adam Eljadi
Media Studies teacher, NEU workplace representative and British Muslim. He speaks here in a personal capacity.

Gareth Sturdy
former teacher and religious affairs journalist

CHAIR
Kevin Rooney
teacher and Education Forum convenor

Religion in schools: protecting or neglecting the faithful?

Listen to the first of our regular discussions with the Academy of Ideas team on the highs and lows of election campaigning.

Subscribe to our Substack to keep up to date:

https://clairefox.substack.com

Podcast of Ideas: General Election specials, episode 1

The Academy of Ideas team discuss the latest in the General Election campaign - plus a view from Europe.

Just when you think things couldn’t get any worse for the Conservative Party, its leader - Rishi Sunak - managed to mess up on an international scale. The prime minister’s decision to leave D-Day commemorations early - allegedly returning home for a TV interview - has upset many people, including his own colleagues. While Sunak immediately apologised for what he described as a scheduling issue, it doesn’t seem to have quelled disquiet within the party - or consternation among voters. 

Meanwhile, both Labour and the Tories have been scrambling to select seats. The deselection of Labour’s Faiza Shaheen and the parachuting in of the Tories’ Richard Holden both caused problems among local party supporters. And who could forget Nigel Farage who, like a twist in an Agatha Christie novel, announced that he will stand in Clacton to the sound of Conservative sighs nationwide. But does this mean that Reform poses a serious threat to the Tories? And, while much of the European media is reporting a rightward shift in this week’s European elections, will that prophecy come true? Or will the trend of fickle voters prove yet again that trying to predict elections is a mug’s game?

Listen to all of this and more on our latest episode in our General Election Podcast of Ideas specials, and subscribe to our Substack: https://clairefox.substack.com/subscribe

Podcast of Ideas General Election special: D Day, selection madness and the return of Farage

The manifestos are in! And, perhaps unsurprisingly, the two main parties have caused the least stir. Reform UK’s ‘contract’ has been denounced by commentators and think tanks alike as ‘uncosted’, while the SDP’s manifesto was praised for standing out as an unusually comprehensive list of ideas in a sea of general obfuscation. Meanwhile, both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have been battling it out for who had the most-hard-done-by childhood, with rows about Sky News and toolmakers providing some comedic relief for the electorate in what has otherwise been a rather depressing three weeks of campaigning. From Tory implosions to Labour infighting, Emmanuel Macron’s shock election announcement to the rumblings of a Reform challenge, we cover it all in this latest podcast.

Listen, subscribe to our Substack and don’t forget to get your tickets for the Battle of Ideas festival…

Podcast of Ideas: manifestos, media snobbery and Macron

Sean Ellis, creator of growth hacking, and Morgan Brown, his co-author of "Hacking Growth", discuss why a good user experience is not only compatible with growth hacking... but also critical to its success.

For the full interview and article, please visit:

www.whatusersdo.com/blog/hacking-growth

Is growth hacking compatible with good user experience?

WhatUsersDo is a UX testing platform that allows businesses to understand their audiences through user insights.

Is growth hacking compatible with good user experience?

WhatUsersDo

Related tracks