The Religious Dimension Of Intercultural Education

This book explores the religious dimension in intercultural education and states that religion plays a key role in value conflicts and worldview differences in schools in pluralistic societies. Religion is considered having a double role, both as the reason for deep differences in mental mapping and worldviews and as a contributor to intercultural understanding and dialogue. The book discusses the role religion has in education both at an institutional level, in the whole school society, and in Religious Education as a specific school subject. Underlying Western worldviews in subject curricula and subject didactics need to be revealed and contested to increase the benefit of education for all students. It argues for the need of a contextual understanding to help teaching and learning address religious diversity in schools.

Based on the assumption that understanding, tolerance and peace are achieved through knowledge of others, including their religious identity. This conference focused on two main themes: the first looked at questions relating to the application of a religious dimension to intercultural education, the second examined the role and responsibility of decision makers and practitioners.

This reference book is intended to help teachers, teacher administrators, policy makers and others deal with the important issue of religious diversity in Europe's schools. The religious dimension of intercultural education is an issue that affects all schools, whether they are religiously diverse or not, because their pupils live and will work in increasingly diverse societies. The book is the main outcome of the project 1The Challenge of intercultural education today: religious diversity and dialogue in Europe', developed by the Council of Europe between 2002 and 2005. It is in four parts: theoretical and conceptual basis for religious diversity and intercultural education; educational conditions and methodological approaches; religious diversity in schools in different settings; examples of current practice in some member states of the Council of Europe.

Discusses the theory and practice

This policy recommendation defines the perspective from which religions and non-religious convictions are to be taken into account in a framework of intercultural education, while setting out a number of principles, objectives and teaching and learning methods. It was adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on December 10, 2008 as the final outcome of the project carried out by the Steering Committee for Education on the New Challenge of Intercultural Education: Religious Diversity and Dialogue in Europe (2002-2005). It can be used as a reference by policy makers, curricula designers, trainers and teachers in their everyday work to develop competences for intercultural dialogue and to remove obstacles that prevent appropriate treatment of the diversity of religions and non-religious convictions in school settings.--Publisher's description.

This book examines Religious Education (RE) in over ten countries, including Australia, Indonesia, Mali, Russia, UK, Ireland, USA, and Canada. Investigating RE from a global and multi-interdisciplinary perspective, it presents research on the diverse past, present, and possible future forms of RE. In doing so, it enhances public and professional understanding of the complex issues and debates surrounding RE in the wider world. The volume emphasizes a student-centred approach, viewing any kind of ‘RE’, or its absence, as a formative lived experience for pupils. It stresses a bottom-up, sociological and ethnographic/anthropological research-based approach to the study of RE, rather than the ‘top down’ approaches which often start from prescriptive legal, ideological or religious standpoints. The twelve chapters in this volume regard RE as an entity that has multiple and contested meanings and interpretations that are constantly negotiated. For some, ‘RE’ means religious nurturing, either tailored to parental views or meant to inculcate a uniform religiosity. For others, RE means learning about the many religious and non-religious world-views and secular ethics that exist, not promoting one religion or another. Some seek to avoid the ambiguous term ‘religious education’, replacing it with terms such as ‘education about religions and beliefs’ or ‘the religious dimension of intercultural education’.

How can the study of religions and non-religious world views contribute to intercultural education in schools in Europe? An important recommendation from the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (Recommendation CM/Rec(2008)12 on the dimension of religions and non-religious convictions within intercultural education) aimed to explain the nature and objectives of this form of education. Signposts goes much further by providing advice to policy makers, schools (including teachers, senior managers and governors) and teacher trainers on tackling issues arising from the recommendation. Taking careful account of feedback from education officials, teachers and teacher trainers in Council of Europe member states, Signposts gives advice, for example, on clarifying the terms used in this form of education; developing competences for teaching and learning, and working with different didactical approaches; creating “safe space” for moderated student-to-student dialogue in the classroom; helping students to analyse media representations of religions; discussing non-religious world views alongside religious perspectives; handling human rights issues relating to religion and belief; and linking schools (including schools of different types) to one another and to wider communities and organisations. Signposts is not a curriculum or a policy statement. It aims to give policy makers, schools and teacher trainers in the Council of Europe member states, as well as others who wish to use it, the tools to work through the issues arising from interpretation of the recommendation to meet the needs of individual countries. Signposts results from the work of an international panel of experts convened jointly by the Council of Europe and the European Wergeland Centre, and is written on the group’s behalf by Professor Robert Jackson.

Mutual understanding, tolerance and peace are achieved through a knowledge of others, including their religious identity. That is why an inter-religious and intercultural dimension should feature on every school curriculum.This conference dealt particularly with the way in which schools can contribute to the process of integration and promote inter-religious dialogue.