ABSTRACT
Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to provide a summary of some of the major contextualising features that surround and impose themselves on the teaching of religious education today. In the sections that follow I have tried to provide a progressive ‘map’ of those features giving some historical information, some contemporary commentary and some informed opinions and judgements to help us make sense of the situation we are in if we concern ourselves with teaching RE.The aim, by the end of this chapter, is to reflect on what the present purpose of the subject should be, before embarking, in Chapter 2, on a more focused study of religious education and then, in Chapter 3, on some of the influential approaches that have been and are being undertaken. In brief we need to find our own starting point.
