The role of the Anglican Church in English education from the perspective of clergy and educationalists

Abstract

This research investigated: The perceived role of the Church of England within the English state education system. Whether the Church should be raising people's awareness of its involvement in education. Whether there were any moral issues related to funding streams used for expansion. It commenced in 2011, a time when Church of England educational provision was reaching the end of 10 years of rapid expansion and was adjusting its provision following government changes to the Academies school programme in 2010, and the introduction of Free schools. The study was conducted in three stages with a six-year hiatus between stages two and three. A mixed-methods approach was employed with semi-structured interviews conducted with a small group of Anglican clergy occupying various positions in diverse parishes in England, and questionnaires distributed to all headteachers of Church of England schools. An interpretive paradigm, a constructivist grounded theory and reflexive approach were adopted, as these frameworks best fitted both the research focus and analysis of the data collected to address the main research question. The thesis uses the first person to reflect the reflexive approach taken to the study. This is a small-scale study and the conclusions reached are not assumed to be generalisable beyond the sample. Key findings, albeit from the small participant set, are that: Service to the community is perceived by participants to underpin the role of the Church of England in the state education system; There are differences in interpretation, of the Church’s role, between clergy in different conurbations; Church involvement in education is considered by participants to be very important; The Church appears unwilling to advertise its educational work. Church involvement in education is deemed to underpin the parochial role of service, and to support community cohesion. However, a Diocese Board of Education was perceived to be acting outside the parochial model of service expounded by the clergy, and there is a concern that the Church is becoming more Congregationalist, putting at risk the parochial service model. At a local level the Church receives recognition for the work of its schools, but it fails to receive national recognition for its commitment to education. The consensus was that the Church of England should expand its educational provision; however, participants in both rural and suburban areas expressed concern over the availability of human resource to cope with any expansion, and argued that the Church should adopt a pragmatic approach to sourcing the costs of any future expanded educational provision. A particular contribution to knowledge of this study is that clergy, in the same sample of participants in different conurbations and in areas of more or less advantageous demographics, have different views about the role of the Anglican church in education. This particular point deserves further investigation to explore its wider significance. This small-scale study has the potential to provide an informed basis for wider scale research in the use of school Chaplaincy Teams, offering their services to secular schools, to help address issues of mental health and advise on the teaching of religious education, as advocated by some participants.