Religious Education/Christian Education/Islamic Education Research Opportunities at:
The University of Birmingham

Research Supervision at the MPhil and PhD levels is offered within the School of Education of the University of Birmingham. In order to apply for a place, you must have a good honours degree, which means either a first class or an upper second honours degree, in an appropriate subject such as theology, religious studies, educational studies, Islamic studies, and so on. Your degree must be from an approved university recognised by universities within the United Kingdom. You may also apply if you possess some equivalent qualification, perhaps of a professional kind, or you may have had professional or academic experience which you can submit as evidence of equivalent status. The application form is attached. The minimum period of registration for an international student is one year for the MPhil, and normally three years for the PhD.

It is normal to register candidates for the MPhil during the first year, unless the applicant already has a research degree. At the end of the first year, students may apply to be transferred to the Doctors level. There is also a study mode called the 'sandwich mode', which enables an international student to spend part of the year studying in his or her own home country, with periods of about ten weeks each year spent here in the University of Birmingham. Although this costs you more in transportation, you avoid the cost of residence in England, and the fees are lower. However, the minimum period of registration for an MPhil Ed student on the sandwich mode is twenty months and for a PhD student is forty-two months. Of course, it is far better to study here in Birmingham full-time if you can afford it.

For the MPhil degree, you must write a thesis of forty thousand words, and for the PhD the thesis must be eighty thousand words. The thesis must be based upon your own original research and must show evidence of scholarship. In the case of the PhD, part or all of the thesis must be thought worthy of publication.

How to create your research project
When you complete the application form, you must attach a statement in which you describe your proposed research. This should be between one thousand and fifteen hundred words in length. You should give your project a title, and explain the background of the idea - why you think it is important and interesting to do it. Then you should set out the idea under the following headings:

Aims of the project, the main research questions which will be addressed, the methods of study which will be used, an approximate timetable of the work (what you will have done by the end of the first term and so on), a possible contents page of the final thesis indicating the various chapter headings which you might include, and finally, who will benefit. Under this final heading you should indicate how your research will be of benefit, and to whom.

The purpose of this research project outline is to enable the university to be quite sure that you are embarking upon a realistic and viable enterprise, which is likely to be successful. If you want to, you can email the outline of your research project directly to Professor John M Hull on his own email address J.M.Hull@bham.ac.uk and he will give you some guidance. However, if you feel confidant about what you want to research, you can just attach your project outline to your application form. Please make sure that you name Professor John Hull as your supervisor, and your application form and project outline will come directly from the Admissions Office to him. He will then be able to contact you if your research project needs some improvement.

Possible research topics
Just to give you an idea of the kind of work being done here, here is a list of some of the research theses under way just now or recently completed:

How is supervision arranged?
Your supervisor will normally be Professor John Hull or Dr Michael Grimmitt. In many cases, where in addition to religious and/or theological skills some other aspect is involved in the project, a supervision panel will be created. For example, if your study involves an action research method, your religion supervisor would work with a member of staff who specialised in that method. If your project involved some aspect of psychological research, then a specialist in educational psychology would give assistance. As a full-time student, you will be expected to meet for one hour every other week with your supervisors.

What other support is available?
Every full-time research student is expected to receive a thorough training in research methods. These courses are available in quantitative and qualitative methods, and deal with the main approaches which your educational research will require. In addition, a special programme of methodological seminars is available on a monthly basis and there are support networks which enable students to compare their experiences of doing research. The libraries and computer provisions of the university are first class.

About the School of Education
With its 95 academic staff and its 333 research students the University of Birmingham School of Education is one of the leading centres of educational research in the United Kingdom. In the most recent research assessment exercise carried out by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) the Birmingham School of Education was one of a handful of Schools to receive a 5A grading, being ranked third out of more than one hundred such institutions.

The School takes a leading part in the training in teachers of special education, in various subjects of the curriculum and in the management of schools. Religious education students have opportunities to take part in the classes and seminars on a wide range of educational subjects. The Theology department of the university is also graded as a 5A department, and is one of the largest departments of theology in the United Kingdom. Religious education research students in the School of Education are welcome to attend lectures and seminars in Christian theology, Islamic studies, philosophy and ethics.

Religious education specialists in the School
There are two full-time religious education specialists on the staff of the Birmingham School of Education. Professor John M Hull has been Professor of Religious Education since 1989. An Australian by birth, he holds degrees from the universities of Melbourne, Cambridge and Birmingham, and in 1995 was awarded an honorary D.Theol by the University of Frankfurt in Germany for his contributions to practical theology. In 1992 he was awarded the William Rainey Harper Award of the Religious Education Association of the United States of America and Canada for his outstanding contributions to religious education. He was editor of the British Journal of Religious Education for twenty-five years, is the General Secretary of the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values (a group of more than one hundred researching religious education scholars from twenty-five countries) and is the President of the National Christian Education Council, formerly known as the Sunday School Union. He lost his sight in 1980, and has written extensively about blindness. His writings are translated into many foreign languages. He is frequently invited to lecture internationally, especially in North America and various countries of Europe and the Far East.

Dr Michael Grimmitt is Reader in Religious Education in the School. He is a leading authority on the theory of curriculum development and of pedagogy in religious education. His 1976 book What can I do in RE? and his 1987 Religious Education and Human Development are regarded as classics.

In addition to Professor Hull and Dr Grimmitt, there are a number of part-time and honorary scholars assisting with religious education. Abdullah Sahin is a graduate in Islamic Studies from the University of Ankara in Turkey and was Research Fellow in Islamic Education in the University of Harran. He holds an MEd from the University of Birmingham on the Qu'ranic Philosophy of Education, and is completing his PhD research on the attitudes towards Islam of Muslim young people in Birmingham colleges. The Reverend Dr Peter Hammersley is well known as an adult Christian educator and assists in the supervision in work of this area. Dr Nicola Slee teaches and researches on the religious and spiritual development of women and girls.

University Fees
University fees for an international research student in the session 2000/2001 are in the region of £7,000(subject to annual review). We estimate that international students are likely to need between £6,000 and £6,500 per year to cover the cost of accommodation and all other living expenses but not tuition fees. The School of Education does provide two or three bursaries each year, which contribute towards the cost of university fees. Details of these may be obtained from Helen Joinson, Research Student Office, School of Education, tel: 0121 414 4847, email H.E.Joinson@bham.ac.uk but the School is not able in general to provide financial assistance for applicants.

Links:
University of Birmingham at: http://www.bham.ac.uk/education/
The RE Exchange (RE-XS) http://re-xs.ucsm.ac.uk/schools/