Robert Jackson, Eleanor Nesbitt, Robert Jackson, et al.
Leiden
Brill
This article reports the views which groups of Hindu and Christian children who attend places of worship in Coventry expressed about their own religious traditions and other people's. Some observations were common to both groups. However the Christian children showed less sign of relating their faith to any other and tended to be more negative in their assumptions than Hindus were about Christianity. By the Hindu children, unlike most of the Christians, religion was generally closely associated with their ethnic background. The article concludes with discussion of whether such differences in attitude are inherent in Christian and Hindu world views. Attention is focused on Britain's particular situation in which members of traditions other than Christianity are in many cases also members of ethnic minorities whose roots are in areas previously subjected to Britain's imperial rule and Christian missionary activity. The part played by religious education in schools is also considered. The wider context is that of identity-formation in a plural society. This article reports the views which groups of Hindu and Christian children who attend places of worship in Coventry expressed about their own religious traditions and other people's. Some observations were common to both groups. However the Christian children showed less sign of relating their faith to any other and tended to be more negative in their assumptions than Hindus were about Christianity. By the Hindu children, unlike most of the Christians, religion was generally closely associated with their ethnic background. The article concludes with discussion of whether such differences in attitude are inherent in Christian and Hindu world views. Attention is focused on Britain's particular situation in which members of traditions other than Christianity are in many cases also members of ethnic minorities whose roots are in areas previously subjected to Britain's imperial rule and Christian missionary activity. The part played by religious education in schools is also considered. The wider context is that of identity-formation in a plural society.