ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 offers a critical discussion of three influential approaches to religious education, showing how each relies on under-examined assumptions as revealed in Chapter 1. Each discussion takes a similar format with an examination of theological, philosophical and educational aspects to reveal distinct problems in each proposal. The three approaches discussed are (i) the interpretive approach, (ii) the critical realist approach and (iii) the conceptual enquiry approach. Each approach accepted that there were problems with the phenomenological approach to the study of religion and also wanted to avoid accusations of confessionalism. Nevertheless, I show that all three missed recognising assumptions in relation to religion and education, which I proceed to investigate in Chapters 4 and 5.
