An interdisciplinary guide to the theory and practice of using visual sources to teach history and religion. 

In response to the increasingly vital role of visual culture in our everyday lives, 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. 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 religious education 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.