Dr Stephen Parker

Dr Stephen Parker

Head of Postgraduate Studies and Research Student Co-ordinator

Institute of Education

Contact Details

email: s.parker@worc.ac.uk

tel: 01905 542165


Qualifications
PGCert (H.E.)
Ph.D (Birmingham)
M.A. (with Distinction)
B.Ed (Hons)

 

Teaching & Research

Teaching Interests

Religious and moral education; research methodology and methods; professional learning; Masters and Doctoral supervision. 

Research Interests

My main areas of research are the religious history of education since 1944; religion and politics, and religion and the media; responses to religious pluralism; philosophies of religious education and faith schooling; spiritual and moral education; the effects of RE on students; professional and leadership ethics; the history of the Church of England; Islam and education. 

I am currently engaged in three funded projects:

  • The first, British Academy funded, is an investigation of the hidden history of Religious Education during a transitional period for the subject between the 1960s and the early 1980s. I am working on this with Dr Rob Freathy at the University of Exeter. 
  • A project to collect and analyze the professional life-histories of RE teachers, funded by the Westhill Endowment (again with Dr Rob Freathy)
  • An examination of the effects of Religious Studies as an Advanced-level subject on students’ world views and attitudes to religion. This is a project supported by the St. Gabriel’s and the St. Peter’s, Saltley Trust and I am working on this jointly with Professor Leslie Francis of the University of Warwick. 

I am also currently contributing to and editing a book on the Church of England and warfare in the twentieth-century, to be published by Ashgate in 2012.

I am interested in supervising students in any aspect of religion and education/religion and society.

I am an Associate Fellow of the University of Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit. See: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wie/research/wreru/aboutus/staff/associatefellows/

Professional Bodies

Associate Member of the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Member of Association of University Lecturers in Religious Education
Member of History of Education Society
Member of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain
Member of Ecclesiastical History Society
Member of the Church of England Record Society

Publications

Books

Parker, S.G. (2005) Faith on the Home Front: Aspects of Church Life and Popular Religion in Birmingham, 1939 – 1945 Oxford-Bern: Peter Lang. 
Campbell, W.S. and Parker, S.G. (eds) (2011). Faith in Education. Journal of Beliefs and Values (special edition in honour of Marius Felderhof), 32: 2
Parker, S.G. and Freathy, R.J.K. (eds) (exptd 2011) Freedom of Education and Freedom of Religious Belief. Oxford-Bern: Peter Lang
Parker, S.G. and Lawson, T. (eds) (exptd 2012). God and War: the Church of England and the Armed Conflicts of the twentieth-century. Aldershot: Ashgate.


Chapters in Books
Snape, M. F. and Parker, S.G. (2001). Keeping Faith and Coping: belief, popular religiosity and the British people.  In Liddle, P., Bourne, J. And Whitehead, I. (eds.). The Great World War (Volume 2): the people’s experience. London: Harper Collins.
Freathy, R.J.K and Parker, S.G. Freedom from Religious Beliefs: Secularists, Humanists and Religious Education in England, 1963-1975. In Parker, S.G. and Freathy R.J.K. (eds) (expected 2011) in Religious Education and Freedom of Religion and Belief. Bern: Peter Lang
Freathy, R.J.K and Parker, S.G. Freedom from Religious Beliefs: Humanists and Religious Education in England in the 1960s and 70s. In Parker, S.G. and Freathy R.J.K. (eds) (expected 2012). Religious Education and Freedom of Religion and Belief. Bern: Peter Lang

Articles in refereed journals

Parker, S.G. (2009a) Theorizing sacred space in educational contexts: a case study of three English Midlands Sixth Form Colleges. Journal of Beliefs and Values, 30:1, 29-39.
Parker, S.G. (2009b). ‘Blessed are the Pacifists’: E.W. Barnes of Birmingham and Pacifism, 1914-1945. Midland History, 34:2, 204-219.
Parker, S. G. (2010) 'Teach them to pray Auntie’: Children's Hour Prayers at the BBC, 1940-1961', History of Education, Vol. 39: 5, 659-676.
Freathy, Rob and Parker, Stephen (2010) The necessity of historical inquiry in educational research: the case of religious education, British Journal of Religious Education, 32: 3, 229 — 243.
Parker, S.G. and Freathy, R.J.K. (2011) ‘Context, Complexity and Contestation: Birmingham’s Agreed Syllabuses since the 1960s’, Journal of Beliefs and Values, 32: 2, 247 – 263.
Parker, S.G. and Freathy, R.J.K. (in press) ‘Ethnic diversity, Christian hegemony and the emergence of multi-faith religious education in the 1970s’, History of Education

Recent Book Reviews

Barnes, L. Philip, Wright, Andrew and Brandom, Anne-Marie (2008) Learning to Teach Religious Education in the Secondary School: a companion to school experience. London: Routledge at: http://escalate.ac.uk/5381 published December, 2008.
Robinson, Alan (2008) Chaplains at War: The Role of Clergymen during World War II. [International Library of War Studies, No. 11.] (New York: I. B. Tauris), Catholic Historical Review, 96, 1, 2010.
King, Ursula (2009) The Search for Spirituality: our global quest for meaning and fulfilment, Norwich: Canterbury Press at: http://www.shapworkingparty.org.uk/reviews.html published February, 2010
Shapiro, Joan Poliner and Gross, Steven Jay (2007) Ethical Educational Leadership in Turbulent Times (Re-solving Moral Dilemmas). London: Routledge at: http://escalate.ac.uk/5018 published April 2010.

Articles in non-refereed journals

Life After Death and Personhood, Dialogue: A Journal of Religion and Philosophy, Issue 29: November 2007.

Unpublished Reports

First Thoughts on Spirituality in the Sixth Form College, Farmington Fellowship Report, 2008. See: http://www.farmington.ac.uk/documents/reports/framed/phil_spir.html

Recent conference papers and invited contributions

International Standing Conference for the History of Education, The Birmingham Agreed Syllabus for Religious Instruction (1975): Learning ‘to live and work together in a pluralist situation’, Aug 2009.
European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction, The Birmingham Agreed Syllabus for Religious Instruction (1975): Paradigmatic Change, Academic and Public Discourse and Professional Lives, Aug 2009.
History of Education Society, Teach Them to Pray Auntie: Children’s Hour Prayers at the BBC, 1940-1961, informal religious education in broadcast liminal space and Putting Religious Education in its Place: a case-study of the Birmingham Agreed Syllabus for Religious Instruction (1975), Dec 2009
Religious Education in Historical Perspective, a symposium at the University of Tuebingen, 18-19 December, 2009.
‘Keep Praying Through’: religion on the Home Front in Birmingham in World War Two, Centre for Birmingham and Midlands History, March 2010, University of Birmingham.
Children’s Hour Prayers at the BBC, 1940-1961: a case study in secularization? Secularization and the Christian World: A colloquium to mark the retirement of Professor Hugh McLeod, April 2010.
Bishop E.W. Barnes of Birmingham, 1923-1953; the Eric Hopkins’ Memorial Lecture, May 2010, University of Birmingham and the Historical Association.
International Seminar on Religious Education and Values, Freedom from religious beliefs: A case-study from the history of English Religious Education, Ottawa, July 2010.
‘Love Thy Neighbour’?: Religious Education and the politics of diversity, History of Education Society conference, November 2010.

External Responsibilities

External Examiner, University of Sunderland
Book reviews editor and peer reviewer, Journal of Beliefs and Values and peer reviewer for History of Education
History of Education Society (UK) executive committee member
Editorial Board Member for the journal Practical Theology (2011) Faith in Education. Journal of Beliefs and Values (special edition) (expected August 2011)