British Journal of Religious Education

Vol. 30, No. 1, January 2008, 49–58

Can children and young people learn from atheism for spiritual
development? A response to the National Framework for Religious
Education
Jacqueline Watson*

Centre for Applied Research in Education and Keswick Hall Religious Education Centre, School of
Education and Lifelong Learning, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
British
10.1080/01416200701711717
CBRE_A_271067.sgm
0141-6200
Original
Taylor
102007
30
Jacqueline.Watson@uea.ac.uk
JacquelineWatson
000002007
and
&
Journal
Article
Francis
(print)/1740-7931
Francis
of Religious Education
(online)

The new National Framework for Religious Education (RE) suggests, for the first time in
national advice on agreed syllabuses, that atheism can be included in the curriculum alongside
world religions. This article counters objections to the inclusion of atheism in RE and argues
that children and young people can learn from atheistic beliefs and values for their spiritual and
moral development. It explores the idea of atheism as ‘faith’ and illustrates atheism’s spiritual
and moral potential through examples of writing from Bertrand Russell and Jean Paul Sartre.
The article concludes that RE (preferably under a new name) can continue to be a valuable
curriculum subject, provided it responds to the non-statutory guidance of the new framework
by offering a broader, more inclusive spiritual education which includes positive accounts of
atheistic beliefs. Indeed, it is contended that without this change schools can not fulfil their
legal obligation to provide opportunities for spiritual and moral development to all pupils.
Keywords: atheism; National Framework for Religious Education; spirituality

Introduction
The new National Framework for Religious Education (RE) in England (QCA and DfES 2004),
for the first time in national advice on agreed syllabuses, gives space for the teaching of forms of
atheism, described in the framework as ‘secular philosophies such as humanism’ (ibid., 12) and
‘a secular world view’ (see for instance, ibid., 25). This means all children and young people
could now be expected to learn from atheism as well as learn about it, and atheism could offer
opportunities for their spiritual development. A reference to ‘secular world views’ first appeared
in the controversial 1975 Birmingham Local Agreed Syllabus (City of Birmingham Education
Committee 1975, 10) and atheistic ideas have begun to surface more recently in the form of
philosophical issues in some GCSE and A Level syllabuses. However, the new framework marks
a significant new milestone in the development of RE because it proposes that all children, in both
primary and secondary schools, should study non-religious world views alongside religious ones.
Although the framework is not statutory, and refers to secular philosophies rather than atheism
per se, it offers hope to those of us who are atheists because it suggests children and young people
can learn from atheism as well as learn about it; in other words that atheism could offer opportu-
nities for spiritual development.
Including atheism in RE has met with opposition and this article begins by examining some
of that recent criticism. However, the main purpose of the article is to explore the notion of

*Email: jacqueline.watson@uea.ac.uk

ISSN 0141-6200 print/ISSN 1740-7931 online

© 2008 Christian Education
DOI: 10.1080/01416200701711717
http://www.informaworld.com
50 J. Watson

atheism as a source of spirituality and to argue that children and young people can learn from
atheistic beliefs and values for their spiritual and moral development. This argument looks to
illustrations from the writing of Bertrand Russell and Jean Paul Sartre for support and to young
people’s voices for its justification. The article then discusses the inclusion of atheism in the
context of an earlier argument in the British Journal of Religious Education (BJRE) between John
White and Andrew Wright (2004, 2005), and it concludes that state schooling can not fulfil its
legal obligation to offer opportunities for spiritual and moral development to all children and
young people unless there is a new form of spiritual education which includes positive accounts
of atheistic beliefs.

Religious objections
The arrival of atheism in the new National Framework for RE has not been greeted with enthusiasm
by everyone.
Members of the Association of Christian Teachers (ACT) have objected to the inclusion of
atheism in RE on the grounds that this would be illegal, illogical, relativistic and threatening to
religion (ACT 2004). The inclusion of atheism would be illogical because we are, after all, talking
about RE. This point has been met by, for instance, the Institute for Public Policy Research
(IPPR) and the British Humanist Association (BHA) with the suggestion that RE could be given
a name change (IPPR 2004): Wright, for instance, has recently suggested ‘Philosophy and Reli-
gious Studies’ as a potential new title (Wright 2004, 173) and RE departments are increasingly
taking this route in practice. ACT’s argument from relativism was surely lost with the arrival of
multi-faith RE for, while all theists believe in God, they have differences of opinion on such
significant factors as, for example, the true identity of Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad.
Surprisingly, ACT also appears to be worried that atheism is a threat to religion. This is implied
in their illustration of what it would be like to teach atheism alongside religion: ‘It would be like
trying to introduce children to the benefits of business studies by declaring that business is
ecologically unsound and that children need to be helped to adopt a ‘green’ lifestyle’ (ibid.).
As I understand it, the implication of this simile is that teaching about atheism alongside
religion would undermine religion. This suggests that atheism is more powerful than theism and
religion, and that it would inevitably win any moral or intellectual argument. I can see no reason
why religious teachings should be threatened by a discussion of atheism. I doubt, in fact, that
many young people would choose atheism over agnosticism and clearly a number do choose
theism over both. ACT’s legal argument raises issues I want to discuss in greater detail toward
the end of the article.
Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has argued that atheism has little place in RE
because it does not constitute a set of belief systems equivalent to religious systems and, as a
result, is merely ‘the denial of a transcendent agency but little else’ (Williams 2004, online). Will-
iams, in my view, presents a more complex critique and his arguments also provide several routes
into the main discussion of this article, which is about the contribution of atheism to spiritual and
moral education. The article and this discussion conclude by responding to ACT’s legal objection
to the inclusion of atheism in RE.

Atheism as ‘faith’
One of Rowan Williams’ objections to including atheism in RE is that atheism is about ‘the denial
of a transcendent agency but little else’ (Williams 2004, online). However, the word ‘atheism’
resembles the word ‘theism’ in the sense that each term does ‘little else’ than denote a belief about
the existence of God: in this sense, each term merely affirms or denies God. In another sense, of
 British Journal of Religious Education 51

course, each of these words is doing a major job of work, for each makes a significant statement
about reality and the human condition. In this sense, each word denotes a ‘faith’ position: each
expresses a commitment to radically different views of reality.
I recognise that it is strange, and even uncomfortable, to use the word ‘faith’ in relation to the
word ‘atheism’. I say this, though, and perhaps even more oddly, on the basis of a disagreement
with Bertrand Russell. Russell described himself as an agnostic rather than an atheist because
God’s existence can be neither proved nor disproved (see for instance, Russell 1957/1993, 43).
Russell’s argument for agnosticism is based in the scientific discourse of evidence and proof. This
scientific discourse is, however, an entirely different discourse to that of belief and faith. It must
be more appropriate to say that on the basis of material evidence both theist and atheist remain
equally agnostic about the existence of God and, in the absence of empirical evidence, each
commits to a conviction about reality and the human condition. This is not mere opinion, but a
paradigm shift in perspective: each feels and understands reality from a very different stand point.
I agree here with Rowan Williams that ‘the assumption that science and religion are rival systems
of problem-solving … [is] an assumption quite extraordinary in the context of contemporary
philosophies of both science and religion’ (Williams 2004, online). In the absence of scientific
evidence, believer and non-believer take a ‘leap of faith’ which is ‘neither acquired nor lost by
argument’ (ibid.). Replace Williams’ words ‘religious belief’ with the simpler ‘belief’ in the
quotation below and, in my view, it then becomes apparent that atheist and theist can equally be
described as having committed to a spiritual journey.
The sense of fit, the sense of compulsion by a story of authoritative and total transformation of the
world’s self-definition, the sense of personal address or vocation, of personal and corporate liberation
and so on – all these things are habitually involved in retaining or acquiring religious belief, but are
significantly different from a process of evaluating evidence. (ibid.)
Russell might have called himself an agnostic but it is very clear from his writing that he did
not believe there is a God. He had faith in, or had committed to, a God-free reality and this was
the starting point for his spiritual and moral journey.
A fundamental contention of this article, then, is that atheism is a faith position and is the
expression of a spiritual perspective of equivalent validity and strength to a theist spiritual
perspective. I should perhaps make it clear, however, that this claim is being made for atheism
and not for secularism, since ‘secularism’ is usually understood as an expression of neutrality on
matters of religion. It is unfortunate that the national framework has used the, perhaps less
controversial, word ‘secular’ in preference to ‘atheistic’, although the step forward is welcomed.

The varieties of atheism

Rowan Williams also objects to including atheism alongside the study of religions on the premise
that, ‘To speak as though “atheism” were a belief system alongside varieties of religious belief is
simply a category mistake’ (ibid.).
As I have argued above, atheism and theism are generic terms which make a statement of faith
about the existence or non-existence of God. In this sense, it would indeed be a category mistake
to place the word ‘atheism’ alongside the phrase ‘belief systems’, but equally it would be a
category mistake to place the word ‘theism’ alongside ‘belief systems’. The assumption behind
Williams’ argument, however, and presumably also behind ACT’s comparison of religion with
business studies, is that atheists merely set out to deny and discredit the theistic position. Of
course, atheists have made a point of challenging theism but that is not all they do, any more than
Muslims or Jews merely deny the divinity of Jesus. Both atheism and theism are fundamental
spiritual starting points for different beliefs, belief systems, world views, philosophies and
personal beliefs, which stem from them. David Hume, Karl Marx, Bertrand Russell, Jean Paul
52 J. Watson

Sartre, to name a very few, represent different atheistic responses leading to a variety of forms of
atheistic belief ‘systems’ or world views, for instance, the Enlightenment, Rationalism, Commu-
nism, Existentialism and Humanism. Such atheistic beliefs and belief systems could perfectly
well be explored alongside theistic beliefs and belief systems in RE.

The relationship between atheistic spirituality and RE

In discussing the relationship between atheism and RE some years ago, John Hull made an impor-
tant distinction between the ‘atheism of negation’ and the ‘atheism of hope’ (Hull 1994, 374).
When teaching about atheism in RE, it would be essential to include a description of the ‘atheism
of negation’: the fact that atheism denies theism. But, if children and young people are to learn
from atheism for their spiritual (and moral) development, RE must also offer an ‘atheism of hope’.
This is vital because a second, and compelling, objection to the inclusion of atheism in RE is
contained in Williams’ statement that atheism is ‘the denial of a transcendent agency but little else’
(Williams 2004, online). The claim that atheism is merely the denial of God and religion carries
the added implication that atheism is ‘without hope’. The conclusion here is that children and
young people could not learn from atheistic beliefs and teachings, that is derive spiritual enlight-
enment (or moral guidance) from them, because these beliefs have nothing spiritually positive to
offer. Rowan Williams and ACT are not alone in finding atheism an unlikely source of positive
spiritual enlightenment. David Carr, for instance, has said that while atheistic ideals may be moral,
‘we can hardly describe them as “spiritual”’ (Carr 1995, 89) and that atheistic works of the likes
of Sartre, offer no ‘transcendent vision’ and no ‘cosmic perspective’ for ‘human cruelty and injus-
tice … and man’s impotence in the face of it’ (Carr 1996, 176–7). And Jack Priestley, who unlike
Carr has acknowledged atheism as a source of spirituality and morality, has nonetheless argued
that Bertrand Russell’s atheistic faith in reason and intelligence is antithetical to spirituality and
that Russell, ‘in his deep atheism, provides a philosophy which, by his own acknowledgment,
leads to the death of the thinker by subordinating the person to the thought’ (Priestley 2000, 124).
Atheism, then, appears to offer no positive vision to take us beyond despair and death.
My personal response to Carr and Priestley’s conclusions was the realisation that my journey
to atheism was much affected by the writings of Russell and Sartre, along with Marx, Nietzsche,
Camus and others, as well as by religious texts. This was a positive spiritual journey, involving
reflection and contemplation on God but also on the absence of God, as well as spiritual
experiences of connection with a naturally evolving world and cosmos, and confronting and
contemplating the realities of a God-free morality and a God-free death (see also Watson 2005).
Sartre, for instance, brings us face to face with the reality of the inherent cosmic meaninglessness
which stems from the acceptance of a God-free reality. But while the reality of this meaningless-
ness is certainly challenging, it does not have to be bleak, negative or threatening. Throughout
history many atheistic writers and thinkers have embraced this reality positively and put forward
ideas and world views based in this spiritual ‘truth’ in a way similar to the Buddha’s response to
the bleak reality of suffering.
To illustrate this point, I use writings from Sartre and Russell as two representative atheistic
thinkers who put forward positive beliefs grounded in a commitment to an atheistic ‘revelation’.
So, Sartre makes the following spiritual claim:

Atheistic existentialism … declares … that if God does not exist there is at least one being whose
existence comes before its essence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any conception
of it. That being is man, or as Heidegger has it, the human reality. What do we mean by saying that
existence precedes essence: we mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the
world – and defines himself afterwards … Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself.
… man is, before all else, something which propels itself towards a future and is aware that it is doing
 British Journal of Religious Education 53

so. … We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to
be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the
moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does. (Sartre 1948/1973,
28, 33–4)
Starting from this spiritual position, both Sartre and Russell argue that the atheist must accept
personal responsibility for establishing what is of moral value, and use reason to work out the
‘good life’ in a God-free world in which humans are perceived as totally accountable.
We are ourselves the ultimate and irrefutable arbiters of value, and in the world of value Nature is
only a part. … It is we who create value and our desires which confer value. In this realm we are
kings, and we debase our kingship of we bow down to Nature. It is for us to determine the good life,
not for Nature – not even for Nature personified as God. … I do not believe that we can decide what
sort of conduct is right or wrong except by reference to its probable consequences. Given an end to
be achieved, it is a question for science to discover how to achieve it. All moral rules must be tested
by examining whether they tend to realise ends that we desire. (Russell 1957/1993, 48, 51)
Russell believed that the good life could be achieved through democracy, through scientific
advances in technology and medicine, and through the use of reason.
To live a good life in the fullest sense a man must have a good education, friends, love, children (if
he desires them), a sufficient income to keep him from want and grave anxiety, good health, and work
which is not uninteresting. All these things, in varying degrees, depend upon the community, and are
helped or hindered by political events. The good life must be lived in a good society, and is not fully
possible otherwise. … There is no short cut to the good life … To build up the good life, we must
build up intelligence, self-control and sympathy. This is a quantitative matter, a matter of gradual
improvement, of early training, of educational experiment. (ibid., 60–2)
He also believed in equal access to an education which would encourage his values of
intelligence, courage and hope, and enable young people to engage in moral thoughtfulness and
enquiry. And, while Russell placed a high value on intelligence and knowledge, he also placed a
high value on love:
Neither love without knowledge, nor knowledge without love can produce a good life. …
Although both love and knowledge are necessary, love is in a sense more fundamental, since it
will lead intelligent people to seek knowledge, in order to find out how to benefit those whom
they love. (ibid., 48–9)
Inspirational and deeply ethical, Sartre and Russell offer much that is spiritually and morally
uplifting. But, of course, they are only two of many thinkers from a wealth of atheistic traditions
and beliefs: Marxism’s core sense of union with one’s fellow brothers and sisters is a vital spiritual
dynamic; Darwinian evolution arouses a spiritual sense of oneness with the natural world; the
Enlightenment’s philosophers and scientists’ faith in reason and scepticism continues to motivate
spiritual and moral outrage at prejudice and superstition. Rowan Williams’ claim that such athe-
istic traditions ‘necessarily begin from various aspects of religious doctrine and are determined
by what they set out to refute’ is demeaning, as is his suggestion that atheism should be used
merely to demonstrate ‘what loss of faith involves’ (Williams 2004, online). Atheism is a positive
statement of belief, interpreted in a number of insightful ways, which could offer hope and inspi-
ration to children and young people whose spirituality is not touched by religious traditions.

Why include spiritual education in the state school curriculum?

As an atheist, I might be expected to argue that RE should be done away with or at least whittled
down, as John White argued in the BJRE in 2004 and 2005. This is not the view I take. I do have
a problem with the notion of religious education but not with the broader idea of spiritual educa-
tion, although the subject needs a more suitable name than either of these.
54 J. Watson

White argued that there is no longer a need for compulsory RE in England because increasing
secularisation means few people in this country now engage in organised acts of worship (White
2004, 151–2). I share Andrew Wright’s counter view that White’s argument from secularism is
not a strong one. As Wright says, the move to the individualisation and privatisation of spirituality
is well documented (Wright 2004, 165–7) and while organised Christianity may die out, other
forms of spirituality, including perhaps ‘disorganised’ Christianity, may flourish. That fewer
people are attending religious places of worship (or at least Christians are, or at least traditional
Christians are) may perhaps mean that society is less engaged in traditional religious practice but
it does not mean it is any less spiritual (or religious in a more general sense).
It is no doubt the case that many young people (and perhaps not so young people, though by
no means all people) are drifting away from organised religion, but there is no reason to conclude
from this evidence that people are becoming more secularised. This drift could equally be the
result of a general lack of enthusiasm for authority and insularity, and an increasing enthusiasm
for individualism and eclecticism. A number of authors have now documented the rise of individ-
ualism and eclecticism among young people in western societies, including in the area of the spir-
itual (see for instance, Crawford and Rossiter 1996; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2002; De Souza
2003; Tacey 2004). Over recent years I have gathered, largely anecdotal, evidence from talking
with young people, both as an RE teacher and during snatched opportunities to speak with them
in research situations. In three focus group discussions with 6th form students in three different
schools,1 and in individual interviews with young people (Watson 2001), I had opportunities to
discuss religion, spirituality and RE, and to analyse their responses. In these discussions, I was
particularly struck by the way in which some non-religious students resented RE for, as they saw
it, imposing (Christian) beliefs on them; how one particular girl, who was a committed practising
Anglican Christian, revealed the depth of individualism in youth culture today; and how another
boy searched for the spirituality of his own choosing (Paganism) on the internet. Their comments
are included here in Table 1 to illustrate these kinds of responses.

Table 1. Young people talking about religion.

I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in Jesus, don’t believe in anything, it’s just … it’s my belief! And that’s
how I feel about it. It will never change. I know it won’t change. I’ve been like that for years now – I know
what I believe in, there’s no God. … I’ll never find religious studies, or whatever, interesting or beneficial
to me, personally. (School A Focus Group: Male student)
I was put into a Roman Catholic school, and up to about year 5 you just accept it, and then I just thought,
No, I really don’t believe in any of the stuff they’re telling me … They kept going on about religion and trying
to like enforce it on us, but … even though I was only about 10 or 11, I knew that I didn’t believe in it, so,
you know, I didn’t get myself confirmed and stuff, so I think [you] can actually underestimate how children
… can say no to it … You can enforce it up to a point but then the child’s going to realise, No, you know, I
don’t believe in it. (School A Focus Group: Female student)
If some people take it too seriously then it does become a restriction to what they do but … I don’t think that
it [Christianity] should affect the way I live my life. It gives me certain beliefs and values but it doesn’t affect
that I shouldn’t do this and I mustn’t do that … I don’t let it rule my life that way. I believe in it but I’m not
going to live differently because some bloke dressed in a vicar’s uniform says I should! (School B Focus
Group: Female student)
I think [RE] should do all of them. ’Cos I mean my parents themselves are Christian, or my mum is, my dad’s
just not religious, and I am Pagan, yet in school, really, you learn nothing about that, and I had to learn
that. And from a young age I always knew that I wasn’t happy with Christianity. … My parents agreed that
when I was old enough to make my own decisions and choose responsibly myself, then they’d let me. So, you
have to come back, and you have to look for it all yourself, and you have to find it all yourself. And there’s
dangers. You can go out and, you know, talk to one person and they may not have your best interests at heart,
whereas teachers tend to want to look after students, … so they’ll give the information and they’ll try to give
it in an unbiased way. (School B Focus Group: Male student)
 British Journal of Religious Education 55

If young people are no longer traditionally religious, this does not necessarily mean they have
lost concern for spiritual matters. Religious individuals are perfectly at liberty to hold understand-
ings of spirituality and morality that link these inextricably with traditional religion but it is unac-
ceptable to make such an inextricable link in the state school or education context as this would
be to deny many children and young people a spiritual and moral identity, as Marilyn Mason
(2000, 2000a, 2003) and Linda Rudge (1998) have already suggested.
However, while I disagree with White about RE, I strongly agree with his point about the
danger of linking morality with religion.
The close linkage throughout the Model Syllabuses and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority
(QCA) aims between religious and moral notions may engender or reinforce in some children the
notion that morality is impossible without religion. … This is false and it is important that children
know this, too. (White 2004, 158)
In my view, it is precisely because of this confusion that it is so important to inform
children and young people about non-religious approaches to morality; otherwise, we run the
risk of leaving the non-religious child with a thin secular morality with no ethical depth or
spiritual vision.
White contends that there is insufficient content to merit RE having a curriculum area of its
own (White 2004, 162). I disagree; and including atheistic world views would give scope for
further expansion. It would open up opportunities to give information on non-religious forms of
birth, marriage and death ceremonies. The discussion of ethical dilemmas, for instance same-sex
marriage, birth and genetics, the care of the elderly, the use of animals in drugs testing, euthana-
sia, the challenge of resolving Islamic respect for the Prophet Muhammad with the enlightenment
values of free speech, all would be enhanced by reference to atheistic views. Allow greater space
for children and young people’s own views, as Clive and Jane Erricker have long argued (see for
instance, Erricker and Erricker 2000), and the subject could expand to have a richer depth and
breadth, with a better chance of engaging children and young people who might then come to feel
that the debate has something to do with them.

ACT’s legal objection to atheism in RE

I want to conclude by returning to ACT’s legal objection to include atheism in RE. ACT points
out that the law currently appears to state that RE should teach predominantly about Christianity
and always about religions. It is certainly true that both the 1988 and 1992 Education Acts are
clear that Agreed Syllabuses ‘shall reflect the fact that the religious traditions in Great Britain are
in the main Christian whilst taking account of the teaching and practices of the other principal
religions represented in Great Britain’ (Education Act 1988, section 8(3); Education Act 1992,
section 45(b)). This aspect of law, then, appears to allow in a discussion of atheism only as a foil
for religious faith, which may partly explain Rowan Williams’ method of including atheism in
RE as a kind of poor relation to religious faith.
However, schools are also under a legal obligation to provide all pupils with opportuni-
ties for spiritual (and moral) development (Education Act 1988, section 2(a); Education Act
1992, section 2:1(d), section 9:4(d)). In recent advice, OFSTED ‘confirms the importance of
pupils’ SMSC development’ and that ‘schools are required by law to promote pupils’
SMSC development and inspectors are required to inspect it’ (OFSTED 2004, 4). OFSTED
remains clear that, while definition of the word ‘spirituality’ is problematic, ‘any definition
has to be acceptable to people of faith, people of no faith, and people of different faiths’
(ibid.).
Currently, opportunities for spiritual development are achieved in three ways: (a) through acts
of worship, which are clearly theistic; (b) through RE, which currently is clearly religious; and
56 J. Watson

(c) across the whole curriculum. It is only through this third, cross-curricular route that the atheist
and agnostic have positive opportunities for spiritual (and moral) development. In its recent
guidance, OFSTED refers to a number of definitions of spirituality for education including one
in its 2003 secondary handbook. This states that:
Where schools foster successfully pupils’ self-awareness and understanding of the world around
them and spiritual questions and issues, they will be developing a set of values, principles and beliefs
– which may or may not be religious – to inform their perspective on life and their behaviour. They
will defend their beliefs, challenge unfairness and all that would constrain their personal growth ….
(OFSTED 2003, 67 my italics)
In this quotation, ‘spiritual questions and issues’ are identified as a sub-set within the spiritu-
ality. This may appear odd but is common practice in attempts to devise inclusive educational
definitions of spiritual development by encompassing properly spiritual matters, those to do with
meaning, beliefs and values, within a wider secular concern with such matters as self-awareness,
emotional literacy, curiosity or creativity. In other words, ‘spiritual development’ has been
constructed in such a way that its predominant concerns are secular and generally pedagogical,
emphasising the value, for instance, of the ability to question and the wellbeing of the whole child
(Watson 2007).
Cross-curricular opportunities to explore spiritual matters may crop up where non-religious
pupils might be able to, as the above quotation puts it, ‘defend their [non-religious spiritual]
beliefs’, but this can only happen peripherally and in ad hoc fashion since this is not the main
thrust of most curriculum subjects. This means, in practice, that non-religious pupils must make
do with a secularised, slimmed down, ad hoc ‘spirituality’, while religious pupils have the oppor-
tunity to properly engage with spirituality in RE, where they have space to properly ‘defend their
beliefs, challenge unfairness and all that would constrain their personal growth’ (ibid.). OFSTED
concludes its exploration of definitions of spirituality in education by identifying three principal
elements to spirituality:

● the development of insights, principles, beliefs, attitudes and values which guide and
motivate us. For many pupils, these will have a significant religious basis;
● a developing understanding of feelings and emotions which causes us to reflect and to learn;
and
● for all pupils, a developing recognition that their insights, principles, beliefs, attitudes and
values should influence, inspire or guide them in life. (ibid., 11)

Those pupils whose ‘insights, principles, beliefs, attitudes and values’ are not religious are being
offered a lesser opportunity for spiritual (and moral) development.
If atheism and atheistic beliefs and world views are included in this peripheral way they can
not be presented to children and young people as a positive option and non-religious pupils will
not be offered an equal opportunity to a spiritual education. The legal obligation to make provi-
sion for the spiritual and moral development of all pupils can only be properly met by including
a positive discussion of atheistic beliefs and values in an inclusive form of spiritual education. My
hope is that educationalists and teachers will respond positively to the new National Framework
for RE and welcome this opportunity to acknowledge atheistic beliefs and values as vital and
valid sources of spirituality.

Note
1. These focus groups were part of a Farmington project I carried out in 2002 examining the relationship
between Religious Education and Citizenship Education (Watson 2003). Unfortunately there was insuf-
ficient material to include the results of the focus groups in the final report.
 British Journal of Religious Education 57

Note on contributor
Jacqueline Watson is a research associate at the University of East Anglia and an associate of
the Keswick Hall RE Centre in the School of Education. Her research interests are in spiritual develop-
ment and RE, as well as RE’s links with Citizenship Education. Until recently she was a secondary
school RE teacher.

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———. 1996. Rival conceptions of spiritual education. Journal of the Philosophy of Education 30, no. 2:
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