This article is a report of the author's doctoral research completed in 2007. The research was carried out among secondary school pupils in England aged 12–17. Its purpose was to find out what they understood spirituality to be. ‘Spirituality’ here does not mean religious spirituality or the ‘alternative’ or ‘countercultural’ spirituality which was the primary focus of this conference. Instead the author addresses the distinctive debate in England about the nature of that spirituality, or to use the exact term, ‘spiritual development’, which has to be promoted by law in English schools. This is referred to this as spirituality-in-education. Students’ rationales for selecting religious education are dependent on their understanding and experience of the subject and what they get out of it. Students regard content as more important in religious education than any other subject, but as a means to ends (developing beliefs, developing in one’s religion, understanding others) than as an end in itself. What is apparent here is that many students from different perspectives have found religious education to make a significant contribution to their spiritual development, but that contribution varies for each person.
Andrew Wright’s critical radicalism, Clive Erricker’s radical postmodernism and teenage perceptions of spirituality