Policy Framings of Religion and Belief: Consolidating the Muddle

Abstract

This chapter examines the overarching themes framing religion and belief in 21st-century public policy. This reveals a long gap from around 1945 to about 2000 when religion and belief were barely noticed in the public sphere, underpinned by vaguely secular assumptions. At the same time, the religion and belief landscape was changing dramatically, just as few people were watching. What seemed to subsequently burst back into public prominence was a preoccupation with religion and belief as deeply problematic. This has landed in policy approaches focused predominantly on extremism, cohesion, and equality, each designed to manage the risk. As responses, the dominant policy spaces imply a degree of anxiety about religion and belief as risky and problematic, and in need of a solution. These broad responses to the 'problem' of public religion and belief form an important part of the context for what happens about religion and belief in spaces of learning.