From Jesus and God to Muhammad and Allah – and back again Kenyan Christian and Islamic religious education in the slums of Kibera

Abstract

This study focuses on Christian and Islamic religious education and was carried out as a Minor Field Study at a secondary school in the slums of Kibera, Nairobi, during September- December 2010. The overall purpose is to examine and compare how Christian and Islamic religious education is taught at the selected school. The following questions constitute the problem areas: How is the Kenyan curriculum and syllabi in CRE and IRE designed, and what is said about religious education? How are students taught in religious education at the selected school? What are the teachers saying about religious education as a subject? The study has an ethnographic methodological approach, using textual analysis of curriculum and syllabi, classroom observations and qualitative interviews with teachers in order to collect the material. Some of the main findings in this study are that teachers in religious education at the selected school are forced to use lecturing, instead of other preferred teaching methods, to have time enough to cover the syllabus; religious education as a subject is facing an ongoing change towards teaching about religion rather than into religion which is the overall purpose of the subject.