ABSTRACT
One of the interesting aspects of the policies of New Labour has been the increased recognition of the role of faith communities in education and community development.
I want to consider how the government’s support for faith communities’ role in regeneration activities in inner cities has influenced their policy of supporting an increase in faith schools. The new policy is stated in the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) publication Schools: Achieving Success (DfES 2001) where it is written:
I will argue that this policy development reflects the ‘communitarianism’ of both Tony Blair and David Blunkett, which has been influenced by the emergence of an influential communitarianism in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA), which has both liberal and conservative orientations. This communitarianism has a distinctive view of civic religion which sees religion as contributing to a democratic political culture. This policy development is also based on a realisation of the role that faith communities can play in developing ‘social capital’ in the inner cities. Following Robert Putnam (2000) this assumes that such social capital will lead to increases in active citizenship, although I want to critically examine this claim.
