Gateways to accessing powerful RE knowledge: a critical constructive analysis

This article examines the conditions for designing an epistemologically grounded teaching about religions through an identification of what knowledge is central to the subject of Religious Education (RE). A starting point for the analysis is a discussion of Michael Young's well-known concept of powerful knowledge, as a possible platform for developing an approach for how a knowledge base in the subject could be identified. The concept of powerful knowledge is shown to be relevant for how epistemological perspectives can be considered in relation to an analysis of the subject's knowledge base. Such an analysis is carried out, and the concept of threshold concepts is introduced to develop a broader and sharper theoretical framework, at the same time as Young's approach becomes the subject of a more in-depth discussion. The presentation leads to a discussion of various considerations relevant to an analysis of how a powerful RE knowledge may be understood.