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As Britain's population has changed, so have the requirements within the religious education curriculum. The diversified nature of British citizens places a huge responsibility on the government to ensure that each individual is treated equally. The population reflects a rich diversity of culture, tradition, ethnic origin, and also religion and beliefs. Diversity of religion within the education system plays a major role in cultivating an appreciation, understanding and acceptance of differences, and also encourages young people to participate in inter-faith dialogue. In 2004 the government introduced a non-statutory National Framework Agreement for Religious Education (NFRE). The main aims of the NFRE are to ensure that a pluralistic perspective is introduced into the curriculum so that different faiths are represented, to promote the value of community cohesion, and to standardise the curriculum content and assessment practices across England and Wales. The thesis originally set out to explore specifically the response of a sample of faithbased and community schools to the NFRE. However, I discovered early within the study that the sample schools did not use the NFRE at all as curriculum guidance for religious studies. Therefore, the theoretical aspirations of the NFRE are examined against the practical application of religious education within the schools. This thesis presents a commentary on religious education (RE) within a sample of faith-based and community schools in Lancashire. The study seeks to assess if the sample schools have aligned their RE curriculum to that proposed within the NFRE or not, and if not why not. There is an evaluation of how and why the NFRE policy has been developed at national level and how the information has been disseminated to regional level and understood at local level. Saunders (1986a) 'staircase' model has been employed to analyse this communication from national to regional to local level. The study shows a complete lack of communication in the case of the schools in the sample. However, interview responses from participants in all three schools demonstrate that the principles of the NFRE were being applied even in the absence of explicit knowledge of the document's existence. Although the faith-based schools in the study were not bound by the NFRE requirements, it was clear that they were at least as compliant as, if not more compliant than, the community school with the demands of the policy.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, philanthropists in Britain created a large number of clubs for young people. Whilst many of these were connected with churches, British Jewry founded a number of their own clubs for young Jewish men and women. These clubs were run in the East End of London and other urban centres with high numbers of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe such as Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow and Liverpool. The club managers were established Jews who lived in wealthier areas of the cities who sought to pass on positive British attributes to the immigrant population. In addition to secular activities such as sports, the clubs used religion as a way to encourage young immigrants to adapt to religious life in England, a neglected aspect of their work. This thesis explores the inclusion of a religious element within these clubs, examining the period from the beginning of the clubs existence in the 1880s, responding to the influx of Eastern European immigrants arriving in the UK, until the outbreak of the Second World War when the focus of Anglo-Jewish philanthropy shifted from domestic concerns to those within Europe and on combating anti-Semitism. This thesis explores how religion promoted an ideal of national identity, specifically designed for working class immigrant Jews, as well as the ways in which religion promoted gender identities which were designed to aid integration into British society. The first two chapters analyse Orthodox Jewish boys’ and girls’ clubs. As the majority of clubs fall into these categories these chapters will look at these groups as providing normative experiences. The third chapter will look at uniformed groups and explore the extent to which these groups provided a ‘uniformed’ experience not only in relation to outward appearance but also in terms of gendered religion. The final chapter will examine Liberal Jewish clubs, the major alternative to the other organisations explored. These were attacked by those within the Orthodox mainstream due to their religious affiliation and this thesis will discuss the ways in which this criticism was heightened in response to deviations from gender norms. This thesis therefore demonstrates the centrality of gender norms in religious programming for young people.