Teaching practices associated with indoctrination, such as an emphasis on lower-order thinking and emotional manipulation, are prevalent in religious instruction curricula used in Australian public primary schools, new research shows.
In a newly published journal article, Dr Jennifer Bleazby, a Senior Lecturer at Monash University’s School of Education, reports her findings from an analysis of five sets of teaching materials used in the Special Religious Education (SRE) program in New South Wales and the Religious Instruction (RI) program in Queensland.
The article, titled ‘Operationalizing the concept of indoctrination: a content analysis of religious curricula taught in public schools’, is currently available to read as an ‘open access’ item in the Journal of Curriculum Studies.
Dr Bleazby found that, across the five curricula, 91.2 per cent of the total learning outcomes reflected lower-order thinking – meaning that the focus is on the basic intake of information, such as through memorisation and comprehension, in contrast to high-order skills such as evaluating and solving problems.
Her analysis of the full lesson plans and student activity books/worksheets also revealed an over-emphasis on lower-order thinking.
Dominating most lesson plans was scripted material for the instructors to read or narrate to students, while any student-centred activities emphasised recalling or re-presenting information already delivered.
This finding was consistent with other previous reviews of SRE materials.
In one example given, a class discussion in the Christian Education Publishing’s Big Questions curriculum was supposed to enable students to “express their own opinions about Jesus’ power and character”. However, those delivering the classes were instructed to “keep this discussion fairly short” and use it to “recall some of [Jesus’] miracles” which children had just learnt through readings and teacher explanations.
Also, many of the workbook activities – such as crosswords, wordsearchers, code-breakers, matching tasks and colouring activities – were found to be “too juvenile” for the targeted 10-12 age cohort.
Dr Bleazby also found that all of the RI programs analysed featured the use of emotional manipulation – another practice long associated with indoctrination — with students taught about various positive rewards for believing and negative consequences for not believing.
In one example identified of negative emotions being used in a manipulative manner, a Christian program required teachers to show children “three or four newspaper headlines that show that everything is not well with the world”, which ‘could be natural disasters’, and then tell them that “the Bible teaches that when people ignore God they may hurt other people or even damage the world that God Created”.
In an example of shame and fear being deployed, a Christian program depicted sin as any failure to obey the word of God and likened it to being diseased before describing the negative consequences of sinning.
In the article, Dr Bleazby says the overemphasis on lower-order thinking was at odds with primary curricula in Australia.
“… higher-order thinking is expected to be taught across all levels of schooling. Critical and creative thinking is one of seven general capabilities on the Australian Curriculum, which must be taught within all subject areas throughout the compulsory years of schooling,” she wrote.
The research makes an important contribution to the field by operationalising a prominent concept of indoctrination in the evaluation of teaching practices.
Dr Bleazby also argues that, in providing concrete examples of the problematic nature of confessional religious education, the research helps to clarify the potential benefits of a worldviews approach to teaching about religion in public schools.
The research was partly supported by a funding grant from the Rationalist Society of Australia that was awarded in 2021. Dr Bleazby has served as a director on the RSA Board since November 2025.
The Rationalist Society of Australia is actively lobbying for secular reform of scripture programs in public schools. Follow our campaign here.
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Si Gladman is Executive Director of the Rationalist Society of Australia. He also hosts ‘The Secular Agenda’ podcast.