Scotland and Wales compared: how curriculum choices shape religious

A new study has compared religious education in state-funded schools across Britain for the first time, focusing on Scotland and Wales and how curriculum reforms shape the subject. Published in the Journal of Religious Education, the research contrasts Scotland’s Religious and Moral Education within Curriculum for Excellence with Wales’s Religion, Values and Ethics under Curriculum for Wales. Using a framework that treats curriculum-making as layered—from supranational to micro levels—the authors, Stephen C. Scholes and Jennifer Harding-Richards, draw on legislation, guidance, official reports, and academic literature. Both systems are purpose-driven, but differ structurally: Scotland places the subject among eight curriculum areas, while Wales embeds it within the Humanities area alongside geography and history.