Affective Engagements with Religion and Citizenship in English Primary Schools

This article draws on qualitative data from the ‘Becoming Citizens of “Post-secular” Britain’ study to examine different ways in which religion becomes interwoven in affective citizenship in school worlds. Focusing on the ‘affective atmospheres’ associated with Religious Education (RE) and collective worship in two contrasting primary schools in England, our analysis highlights how Christianity remains privileged to different degrees in both. We investigate the children’s emotional and embodied engagements with the aspects of religion they encounter through RE and collective worship – ranging from interest via boredom to feelings of injustice – and reveal how these problematize current policies for English schools as failing to mirror shifting landscapes of non/religious diversification. We argue that the children’s responses can be interpreted as an expression of their lived citizenship in relation to the new non/religious pluralism they are growing up within and shaping.