ABSTRACT
Attitudes to the teaching of world religions, other than Christianity, vary considerably. Class teachers in multiracial schools need to be knowledgeable about the religious and cultural background of the children they teach. Teachers need to be sensitive to the attitudes which they are conveying to the children in their care, both from the host and from the minority communities. The teacher who explained to her class that there was a religious rule which required Sikh boys to let their hair grow long like girls not like our boys who have it cut’ was in a small way helping to foster unhelpful attitudes. If the school serves a religiously-mixed neighbourhood there will be much religious education going on incidentally. As children develop and their understanding is less tied to objects in their immediate experience, it becomes possible to introduce more material drawn from a variety of religious traditions.
