About
Research
Biography
Stephen Parker, Director of CERRL and Professor of Education and Religious History, joined St. Mary’s in May 2023 from the University of Worcester, where he held a personal chair in Religion and Education. Prior to this, he taught across sectors of education, from Primary to Sixth Form, as well as being a diocesan RE Adviser and lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies.
Prof Parker is a historian of education and religion in the nineteenth and twentieth century, focussing upon multiple ways in which the churches and changing religious life of Britain and Ireland have impacted upon education in different contexts, from schools to religious broadcasting. His research on religious education on radio and television led to a prestigious Leverhulme Trust Research Project grant for ‘Faith on the Air’, which enabled him to investigate the changing shape of public service broadcasting and its place in forming the public understanding of religion across generations. His book, the culmination of this work, Religious Education: a broadcasting history is to be published by Oxford University Press in due course.
As Director of CERRL, Stephen leads and coordinates colleagues across the remit of the Centre’s activities, promoting research-informed debate around matters related to Catholic education. Over the next few years, he is looking to lead and develop the University’s and Centre’s strategic responses to the ongoing developments in Catholic education, while establishing CERRL as an international hub for research in Catholic and religious education. Recently, Prof Parker has succeeded in obtaining funded support from the Sisters of the Holy Cross Charitable Trust to explore the distinctiveness of Catholic Multi-Academy Trusts and the role of the CEOs in this. More broadly, he intends to ensure that CERRL’s activities and courses continue to promote inter-religious dialogue and learning.
Stephen is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Beliefs and Values: studies in Religion and Education as well as being on the editorial board of the British Journal of Educational Studies, Practical Theology and Religions. He edits the Brill Research Perspectives series on Religion and Education and Peter Lang’s series on Religion, Education and Values. Stephen is a past-President of the History of Education Society, UK.
Stephen Parker ORCiD research page
Research
Research profile
Research Funding
Prof Parker has successfully completed several funded research projects including: ‘The hidden history of curriculum change in Religious Education in English schools, 1969-1979’ (British Academy); ‘Faith on the Air: a religious educational broadcasting history’ (Leverhulme Trust’; ‘An oral history of RE teachers’ (Westhill Trust) and ‘The Worldviews and Values of 16-19 year olds (St. Peter’s, Saltley Trust). He is a member of the Peer Review College of the AHRC.
Doctoral Supervision
Stephen has thus far supported nine doctoral researchers towards the successful completion of their doctorates. He would be pleased to receive enquiries about supervision in any of the following areas:
- History of education in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
- Catholic education and Catholic religious education
- Educational media and the history of educational technology
- International and comparative histories of religion and education and religious education
- The churches, state and education
- Faith and supplementary schooling
- Religious Education: history, philosophy, policy, practice and pedagogy
- Childhood and religion
- The history of Sunday schooling
- Religion in the Second World War
- The history of Christianity in Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
- Theories and theologies of education
- History of religious education, curriculum, pedagogy and texts.
Select Publications
Books
Parker, S.G., Cruchley, J. and Roberts, S. (forthcoming) Religious Education: a broadcasting history, Oxford: OUP.
Parker, S.G. (2005) Faith on the Home Front: aspects of Church life and popular religion in Birmingham, 1939 – 1945. Oxford: Peter Lang.
Edited Books
Schweitzer, F., Freathy, R., Parker, S.G. and Simojoki, H.(eds) (2022) Improving Religious Education Through Teacher Training: experiences and insights from European countries, Munster: Waxmann.
Francis, L.J., Lankshear, D. and Parker, S.G. (eds) (2021) New directions in religious and values education: international perspectives. Oxford/Bern: Peter Lang.
Cruchley, J., Parker, S.G. and Roberts, S. (eds) (2019) Sight, Sound and Text in the History of Education. London: Routledge
Strhan, A., Parker, S.G and Ridgley, S. (eds) (2017) The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion and Childhood. London: Bloomsbury.
Parker, S.G., Freathy, R. and Francis, L.J. (eds) (2014) History, Remembrance and Religious Education. Bern: Peter Lang.
Parker, S.G. and Lawson. T. (eds) (2012) God and War: the Church of England and Armed Conflict in the Twentieth-century. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Parker, S.G., Freathy, R. and Francis, L.J. (eds) (2012) Religious Education and Freedom of Religion and Belief. Bern: Peter Lang.
Book Chapters
Freathy, R. and Parker, S.G. (2023) ‘Insights from the history of the education of teachers of Religious Education in England. Subject specialists and specialization’ in
Schweitzer, F., Freathy, R., Parker, S.G. and Simojoki, H.(eds) (2022) Improving Religious Education Through Teacher Training: experiences and insights from European countries, Munster: Waxmann
Parker, S.G. (2023) ‘Religious Education and the Re-Christianization of Western Europe in the Long 1950s: A Missed Opportunity?’ in Lamberigts, M, Pizzey, A and Schelkens, K. eds.(2023) Vatican II after 60 years: developments and expectations prior to the Council, Belgium: Brepols.
Parker, S.G. ‘Catholic Education’ in Harris, A. (2023) Oxford History of British and Irish Catholicism (Vol. IV) 1914-present. Oxford: OUP.
Freathy, R. and Parker, S. G. (2021) ‘The Professionalization of Teachers of RE in England: A Case Study’ in Simojoki, H.; Schweitzer, F.; Henningsen, J., and Mautz, J-R. (2020). Professionalisierung des Religionslehrerberufs. Analysen im Schnittfeld von Lehrerbildung, Professionswissen und Professionspolitik. Leiden: Brill | Schöningh. pp. 501–527.
Parker, S.G., Freathy, R. (2020) The Church of England and religious education during the twentieth century. In Rodger, T., Williamson, P., and Grimley, M. (eds) The Church of England and British Politics Since 1900. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer.
Journal Articles
Parker, S.G. (2021) ‘God is not dead in education, s/he never went away: beyond the secularization of the history of education’, Bildungsgeschicte: International Journal for the Historiography of Education 2021(2), pp.192-195.
Parker, S.G., Allen, S., Freathy, R. (2020) ‘The Church of England and the 1870 Education Act’, British Journal of Educational Studies 68(5), 541-565.
Doney, J., Parker, S.G., and Freathy, R.J.K. (2017) Enriching the historiography of Religious Education: insights from oral life history, History of Education, 46(4), 436-458.
Parker SG, Freathy R, Doney J (2016). The Professionalisation of Non-Denominational Religious Education in England: politics, organisation and knowledge. Journal of Beliefs and Values: Studies in Religion and Education, 37(2).
Freathy R, Parker SG, Schweitzer F, Simojoki H (2016). Conceptualizing and Researching the Professionalization of Religious Education Teachers: Historical and International Perspectives. British Journal of Religious Education, 38(2), 114-129.
Parker, S.G. (2015) Mediatising childhood religion: the BBC, John G. Williams, and collective worship for schools in England, c.1940-1975, Paedagogica Historica: international journal of the history of education, 51(5), pp. 614-630.
Freathy, R.J.K., Parker, S.G. (2013) Secularists, Humanists and religious education: religious crisis and curriculum change, 1963-1975, History of Education: journal of the History of Education Society, 42: 2, 222—256.
Parker, S.G., Freathy, R.J.K. (2012) Ethnic diversity, Christian hegemony and the emergence of multi-faith religious education in the 1970s, History of Education: journal of the History of Education Society, 41: 3, 381–404.
Parker, S.G., Freathy, R.J.K. (2011) Context, Complexity and Contestation: Birmingham’s Agreed Syllabuses since the 1960s, Journal of Beliefs and Values: Studies in Religion and Education, 32: 2, 247 – 263.
Freathy, R.J.K., Parker, S.G. (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. (2010) 'Teach them to pray Auntie’: Children's Hour Prayers at the BBC, 1940-1961, History of Education: journal of the History of Education Society, Vol. 39: 5, 659-676.
Invited Lectures and Presentations
Invited keynote, Catholic Record Society, Hinsley Hall, Leeds, July 2024, ‘Catholic education in a time of dissolution: towards an appraisal of the contribution of Francis Drinkwater (1886-1982) to religious education in home, school and parish in the mid-twentieth century’.
Invited presentation in light of the anniversary of the Bloom Review on Faith Literacy in public life, Woolf Institute for Faith in Public Life, Wesley House, Cambridge, May 2024, ‘Religious Education in the Bloom review’.
Invited keynote, Scottish Church History Society, Edinburgh, March 2023, ‘Differentiating religious broadcasting for children and youth in Scotland: priorities and personalities in the radio years’.
Invited keynote, Vatican II and Religious Education in the 1950s, KU Leuven, Belgium, March 2022, ‘Religious Education and the rechristianization of Western Europe in the long 1950s: a missed opportunity?’