Teaching with Art for History and Religious Education

Seeing, knowing, feeling

Tom Haward (Author), Alexis Stones (Author)

In an age where our emerging global society is increasingly visual, Teaching with Art for History and Religious Education invites a fresh approach to the use of artwork and other visual materials when teaching about religion, history and the stories of art. Visual sources can be illuminating, paradoxical, subversive and disruptive; they can stimulate new ways of thinking about how we understand the past, faith and belief, and what this means for us in the present.

Drawing on new research and practice in schools, museums, galleries and public spaces, the book explores generative ways that visual sources are experienced by young people and educators, as routes for investigating contested pasts, truth claims and traditions, or as provocations and protest. Running through the book is an exploration of theory and practice for using art in education and its potential for prompting interdisciplinary approaches to both RE and History. A ‘manifesto for using art in the curriculum’ offers principles for how art can act as a key pivot for student learning, and a section on the ethics of teaching with images guides teachers through tricky conversations. Ultimately, the book invites educators to use visual sources with young people not as mere adjuncts to text, but as unique, rich, complex, engaging and distinct forms of knowledge in their own right.

List of figures
List of tables
Acronyms

Introduction

Part I: Foundations

1 Visual disruption: a manifesto for using art in the curriculum
2 Thinking through art: theory for practice

Part II: Building the power of art for teaching History and Religious Education

3 The Art of Seeing, the Seeing of Art: Encouraging deeper looking
4 Power and Persuasion: How images work
5 Interpretations: Making meaning with art
6 ‘It makes it more real’: Images, narrative and truth
7 Intertextuality: Pictures in conversation
8 Art in public: Curating the space
9 Materiality and Technology: Choices, histories and the ineffable
10 Images as Provocation: Controversies, sensitivities, protest

Contributing authors and artists
Picture credits
Index

DOI: 10.14324/111.9781806551538

Number of illustrations: 50

Publication date: 01 October 2026

EPUB ISBN: 9781806551545

Tom Haward (Author)

Tom Haward is Associate Professor in History and Holocaust Education at the Institute of Education, University College London. As well as being based in the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education he also works on the MA Education (History) and PGCE History programmes. He leads the UCL Centre’s MA module ‘The Holocaust in the Curriculum.’ His most recent research and publications explore the fields of visual learning, the construction of national narratives of the past, the role of assessment in Holocaust Education, and researching own practice.

Alexis Stones (Author)

Alexis Stones is a lecturer, researcher and Subject Lead for the Religious Education (RE) PGCE at the Institute of Education, University College London. She also works with young people, teachers and the general public as a museum educator for the National Gallery and Wallace Collection in London where her work focuses on teacher education and sacred art in collections. Her research activities and publications are in science and religion, epistemic literacy as an aim for RE, worldview and lived citizenship, global learning, Forum Theatre, sacred art and museum education.