As our mission is to create a more tolerant society, we invest great effort and resources into public education and outreach. Our research projects are conducted with outreach in mind, which means our researchers are also working with local communities, schools and organisations to disseminate their research findings.
Get in touch to find out how we can work together:enquiries@woolf.cam.ac.uk
- Gender and Religion Today - Schools Material
Findings from the project Religious Sisterhood: Encounters of Gender, Religion and Belonging Today have informed the development of a new Woolf Institute online course Gender and Religion Today (see here) and related age-appropriate materials for teachers searching for new, accessible materials to support classroom teaching across UK national curriculum. They centre on a new series of 5-minute videos, offering a fresh way to teach and consider religion through the lens of gender.
The videos will be available to view here.With thanks to the generous support of Dangoor Education at the Exilarch's Foundation and the Randeree Charitable Trust.
- Interfaith Workshop in Schools
The Living in Harmony project at the Woolf Institute explores the cultural and social implications of musical encounters between Muslim, Jewish and Christian neighbours in historical Iraq and Syria. It examines how the role of music and musical performance created a sense of communal belonging in the past and may continue to create a sense of commonality among the various faith communities in diaspora. Guided by melodies and maqams heard in mosques, churches and synagogues across the Middle East, the sessions offer students a unique way to engage with Middle Eastern culture, religion and history. In doing so, we hope to provide students with creative tools for making connections and building bridges of understanding between diverse faith communities.
Contact Dunya Habash (dh599@cam.ac.uk) to discuss running a workshop at your school.
- Publication: RE-Framing Education about Beliefs and Practices in Schools
The Woolf Institute's transatlantic project, Teaching Our Own and Other Faiths in schools: International Issues in Religious Education, was organised in conjunction with the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education. This project aimed to identify and share international best practice in teaching RE with a view to providing high quality professional development for schools and teachers in the UK and US. The particular sample of schools chosen to participate are secondary schools, largely with a Muslim, Jewish or Christian faith foundation - and a few state secularist schools in the UK.
Through an international Symposium and Conference this project identified principles for teaching and learning about other faiths, in both countries, which are both culturally sensitive and theologically aware. These principles were then disseminated across schools in the US and UK via a written report and toolkit, RE-Framing Education about Beliefs and Practices in Schools. Download a copy of the publication here.