Dr Julia Ipgrave MA PhD

Senior Research Fellow, WRERU
Institute of Education
University of Warwick
Coventry CV4 8EE

email: j.ipgrave@warwick.ac.uk

Background

Julia Ipgrave has degrees from Oxford University (MA Modern History) and Warwick University (MA Religious Education; PhD Education). She has taught for 16 years in Leicester schools as class teacher, assistant head and head teacher. For most of this time her work was in a predominantly Muslim inner city area. From this experience she developed a research interest in children’s religious understanding and inter faith encounter. Research in this area led to the development of pedagogies for dialogical religious education. From 2004 to 2008 Julia was a Senior Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University engaged in Initial Teacher Education, supervision of postgraduate degrees, research and consultancy. Her present research interests include religion in education, young people’s experiences of and attitudes towards religion, inter faith dialogue between school pupils and biblical influences on seventeenth century political theory. She is currently working on an AHRC/ESRC research project into young people’s attitudes towards religious diversity (2009-2012) involving qualitative studies in schools across the UK. She is also engaged in evaluation studies of inter faith dialogue programmes for school pupils. Previous research work includes a role as joint research co-ordinator with Robert Jackson and Kevin O’Grady for the English strand of the EC funded REDCo project 2006-2009 (REDCo), and co-ordinator of the case study strand of a DCSF project into the use and reception of religious education materials in English schools 2009-2010.

Julia is currently involved in teaching on the MA and Postgraduate Certificate in Religious Education (distance learning) and the PhD programme

Julia is a Member of the Autobiography of Intercultural Experiences working group for the Language Policy Division of the Council of Europe. She is the Christian education specialist on the Christian Muslim Forum and assistant editor of the Journal of Utopian Studies.

Recent conference papers

2011 An epistemology-based approach to inclusion of Muslimsin mainstream education at Educating Muslims in the UK CREME national conference, Institute of Education London, 4th June

2011 From story books to bullet points: comparing the status of books in primary and secondary RE and the implications for the Bible in school? at Biblical Literacy & the Curriculum, University of Sheffield, 19^th/20^th May

2011 Relationships between local patterns of religious practice and school students’ attitudes to the religiosity of their peers at European Network for Religious Education through Contextual Approaches Conference: Religion, Education and Locality, The Royal Foundation of St Katharine’s, Limehouse, London, 12th – 15th May

2011 Current Trends in Multi-Faith Education With Young Children in the United Kingdom at Interreligiöse Bildung in Kindertagesstätten, Universität Tübingen, 5th – 6th May

2010 Spirituality and Current Trends in European Religious Education at St Petersburg Education Forum: Education for Spirituality, St Petersburg 23rd – 26th March

2010 The Education of Muslim Minority Students: What can we learn by contrasting the French, English and Canadian experiences? at 12th National Metropolis Conference, Montreal 18th to 21st March

2010 Education for Diversity: Diversity in Education at 12th National Metropolis Conference, Montreal 18th to 21st March

2010 Dialogues between the religious and the secular in English schools at ‘Religious-Secular Distinctions’, The British Academy, London 14th -16th January

2008 Religious Diversity: Models of Inclusion for Schools in England at 'International Colloquium on Multicultural Education' McGill University, Montreal, December

2008 English Pedagogies of Religious Education at A Study-of-Religions Approach to RE in Europe and Norway, Fagutvinlingskonferanse, Universitetet i Agder, Kristiansand November

2008 Including the Religious Viewpoints and Experiences of Muslim Students in and Educational Environment that is both Plural and Secular at Colloquium ‘Minority Islam and Education: Integration and Transformations' Université de Montréal, Montreal, May 2008

2007 Factors in the Educational Inclusion and Success of Religious Students in a Plural Society at Secularity and Religious Vitality: International Society for the Sociology of Religion, Leipzig, July.

2007 Setting the Threshold: religious discourses in the public sphere of the English community school at Accounting for Context in Religious Education, European Network for Religious Education Contextual approaches, Utrecht, March.

Recent Conferences

Organisation and leadership of education conferences:

Faith Schools Seminar: being a faith community and being a faith school in the community with the Christian Muslim Forum, Lambeth Palace April 28th 2010

Belief and Being in School: conference for Christians and Muslims teaching in secular contexts with the Christian Muslim Forum, Rugby, 14th – 15th March 2008

Selected recent publications

Books and Journals

McAndrew, M., Ipgrave, J., Triki Yamani, A. (eds) (2010) The Education of Minority Muslim Students Comparative Perspectives (special issue) Journal of International Migration and Integration SpringerLink

Ipgrave, J., Jackson, R., O’Grady, K. (ed) (2009) Religious Education Research through a Community of Practice: Action Research and the Interpretive Approach Münster: Waxmann

Knauth, T., Jozsa, P. , Bertram-Troost, G., Ipgrave, J. (eds.) (2008) Encountering Religious Pluralism in School and Society: A Qualitative Study of Teenage Perspectives in Europe Münster: Waxmann 416pp

McKenna, U., Ipgrave, J. & Jackson, R. (2008) Interfaith Dialogue by Email in Primary Schools: an evaluation of the Building E-Bridges project Münster: Waxmann 136pp

Report

Jackson, R., Ipgrave, J., Hayward, M., Hopkins, P., Fancourt, N., Robbins, M., Francis, L. (2010) Materials used to Teach about World Religions in English Schools DCSF

Recent chapters in edited volumes

Ipgrave, J. (2011) ‘Current Trends in Multi-Faith Education With Young Children in the United Kingdom’ in Interreligiöse und Interkulturelle Bildung in der Kita, ed. by F. Schweitzer et al., Münster: Waxmann 2011, pp. 125-143

Джулия Ипгрейв. (2010) Духовность: современные тенденции в религиозном образовании // Петербургский образовательный Форум – 2010: Модернизация образования и приоритеты развития. – СПб: РХГА, 2010. – С. 42-49 [Julia Ipgrave (2010) Spirituality: current trends in religious education, in: St. Petersburg Educational Forum – 2010. Modernization of Education and Priorities of Development (St. Petersburg: Russian Christian Academy for Humanities), 42-49]

Ipgrave, J. and O’Grady, K (2009): ‘Reflecting on the case studies as action research: issues and responses’ in Ipgrave, J., O’Grady, K. (ed) (2009) Religious Education Research through a Community of Practice: Action Research and the Interpretive Approach Münster: Waxmann pp137-154pp155-167

Ipgrave, J. and Jackson, R. (2009) ‘Reflecting on the interpretive approach: issues raised by individual studies’. in Ipgrave, J., O’Grady, K., Jackson, R. (eds) (2009) Religious Education Research through a Community of Practice: Action Research and the Interpretive Approach Münster: Waxmann pp137-154

Ipgrave, J. (2009) ‘My god and other people’s gods: children’s theology in a context of plurality’ in Yde Iversen, G., Pollard, G., Mitchell, G. (eds.) (2009) Hovering over the face of the deep: Philosophy, Theology and Children Münster: Waxmann.

Ipgrave, J. and McKenna, U. (2008) Diverse Experiences and Common Vision: English Students' Perspectives on Religion and Religious Education in Knauth, T., Jozsa, P. , Bertram-Troost, G., Ipgrave, J. (eds.) (2008) Encountering Religious Pluralism in School and Society: A Qualitative Study of Teenage Perspectives in Europe Münster: Waxmann 113-147

Ipgrave, J. and Bertram-Troost, G (2008) European Comparison: Personal Views and Experiences of Religion in Knauth, T., Jozsa, P. , Bertram-Troost, G., Ipgrave, J. (eds.) (2008) Encountering Religious Pluralism in School and Society: A Qualitative Study of Teenage Perspectives in Europe Münster: Waxmann 375-387

Ipgrave, J. and McKenna, U. (2007) Values and Purposes: Teacher Perspectives on the ‘Building E-Bridges’ Project for Inter Faith Dialogue Between Children Across the UK’ in Bakker, Cok & Heimbrock, Hans-Günter (ed) Researching RE Teachers, RE Teachers as Researchers Münster: Waxmann 215-234

Selected journal articles

Ipgrave, J. (2011) ‘Religious Diversity: Models of Inclusion for Schools in England’, in Diversity and Critical Issues in Education for the Next Decade (special issue) Canadian and International Education Journal Volume 40 issue #2

Ipgrave,J., Miller, J., Hopkins, P. (2010) ‘Responses of three Muslim majority primary schools in England to the Islamic faith of their pupils’ in The Education of Minority Muslim Students Comparative Perspectives (special issue) Journal of International Migration and Integration SpringerLink pp73-90

Ipgrave, J. (2010) ‘Including the Religious Viewpoints and Experiences of Muslim Students in an Environment that is Both Plural and Secular’ in The Education of Minority Muslim Students Comparative Perspectives (special issue) Journal of International Migration and Integration SpringerLink pp5-22

Ipgrave, J. (2009) ‘English Pedagogies of Religious Education’ Norsk Teologisk Tidsskrift · 3 · 2009 · Årgang 110 pp152-166

Ipgrave, J. (2009) ‘The language of friendship and identity: children’s communication choices in an inter faith exchange’ British Journal of Religious Education vol 31 No. 3 pp213-225 ISSN 0141-6200