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Analysing religion and education in Christian academies

This article presents an analytical framework for analysing the interaction of religious faith and institutional culture in Academies sponsored by Christian organisations. It utilises theoretical tools drawn from Bourdieu and proposes that his concepts of habitus, cultural capital and symbolic power can be broadened out from their traditional use in accounting for social positioning in order to explore the interaction of religious faith and institutional culture. The analytical framework was developed for an ethnographic study of a City Technology College (CTC) and academies sponsored by a Christian foundation. This was the first empirical study of a faith-based CTC and academies to be carried out in the UK; it was funded by an ESRC studentship and comprised the author’s doctoral research. The analytical framework developed for the thesis challenges the marginalisation of religion in sociology of education research; it treats as authentic expressions of religious faith and culture found in faith-based educational settings and critically examines the way theological assumptions interact with institutional structures and student culture.On the basis of this doctoral work and the framework proposed the author was commissioned to carry out two further research projects evaluating the impact of ethos on Church of England Academies and jointly sponsored Church of England and Roman Catholic Academies, funded by the Jerusalem Trust. The author through this work has been identified by the Church of England National Society as a leading expert in the field of Christian Education and asked to consult on the implementation of the Chadwick School of the Future review.