ABSTRACT
The study presented in this chapter investigates the epistemologies of 1,127 teachers in Philippine primary and secondary schools, revealing a prevalence – especially among religious educators – of an epistemic level in the domain of religious beliefs that impedes critical thinking. The findings, which propose an epistemological diagnosis of the problem of critical thinking in schools, are analyzed using critical realist conceptual tools: if the religious educators’ religious epistemologies are largely absolutist (or naïve realist) and thus lacking in epistemic relativism, then critical thinking would tend to be undervalued in the classroom. To promote critical thinking in Catholic religious education, one needs to examine whether or not an orthodox Catholic religious epistemology would warrant critical thinking.
