Dr Stephen Parker

Dr Stephen Parker

Head of Postgraduate Studies and Professional Learning; Research Student Coordinator

Dr Stephen Parker

Tel: 01905-542165
Email: s.parker@worc.ac.uk

University of Worcester
Henwick Grove
Worcester
WR2 6AJ

 

 

Qualifications:
B.Ed (Hons)
Cert.Ed
M.A.
Ph.D (Birmingham)
PGCert (H.E.)

Professional and Peer Esteem:

FRHistS
FHEA

Teaching:
Religious Education; the philosophy of education and values in education; research methodology and methods; professional learning; leadership, pastoral and ethical issues in education; Masters and Doctoral supervision.

Research:
My current interdisciplinary research interests are in the area of religious education, particularly its history and the cultural, religious and political influences upon it since 1944; I am also working on the construction of an oral history of academics and subject practitioners. I am involved in a research project which explore the impact of the study of RE on the worldviews and attitudes of young people. More broadly I am interested in the role of religion in society – especially as demonstrated by the history of the Church of England across the twentieth-century; the politics and theologies of religious pluralism; philosophies of religious education and faith schooling; and the idea of the spiritual, and sacred and material cultures and performances in educational contexts.

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: www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wie/research/wreru/aboutus/staff/associatefellows/

Membership of 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 British Educational Research Association
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. #

Other External Roles:

External Examiner, University of Sunderland
Peer reviewer for the Journal of Beliefs and Values and History of Education
Editorial Board Member for the journal Practical Theology
Trustee of Education for Ministry (UK)

 

Key Publications:

Books:
Parker, S.G. and Lawson, T. (eds) (forthcoming). God and War: the Church of England and the Armed Conflicts of the twentieth-century. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Parker, S.G. (2005). Faith on the Home Front: Aspects of Church Life and Popular Religion in Birmingham, 1939 – 1945. Oxford-Bern: Peter Lang.

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.

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’: Children’s Hour Prayers at the BBC, 1940-1963. History of Education.
Freathy, R.J.K and Parker, S.G. (2010) The Necessity of Historical Inquiry in Education Research: the case of Religious Education. British Journal of Religious Education.
Parker, S.G. and Freathy, R.J.K (in progress) Religious Education and the Politics of Diversity: an historical case study. Oxford Review of Education.

Book Reviews:
William Boxx, T & Quinlivan, G.M. (1998). Towards the Renewal of Civilization: political order and culture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans in Reviews in Religion and Theology, 1999, 3, pp.345-346.

Marie Parker-Jenkins, Dimitra Hartas and Barrie A. Irving (2005).  In Good Faith: Schools, Religion and Public Funding in Journal of Law and Religion, Volume XXI, 1, 2005-06.

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) in 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.

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.