Religion and Public Schools: International Perspectives Unit
Teaching Religion for the Future(s)
Teaching religion plays a key role in fostering knowledge about the place and role of religions throughout history and in contemporary contexts. As such, it can shape future societal scenarios on multiple levels. This raises critical questions about the ways in which teaching religion can help students to interpret the present, engage with uncertainty, and imagine alternative future(s) in informed and responsible ways. How can future thinking – or futuring – become a meaningful component of scholarship and pedagogy in religious education (RE), fostering critical thinking and religious literacy in the present moment?
This session invites papers that explore how RE is addressed in public schools, with particular attention to the contribution of specific methodological and theoretical approaches to building more aware and inclusive societies. Contributions may examine theoretical frameworks, pedagogical practices, or empirical case studies from different national and educational contexts, highlighting how future-oriented thinking is integrated into curricula, teaching practices, and scholarly approaches within RE.
This Program Unit promotes the global and comparative study of "religion education" in public schools around the world. By encouraging interdisciplinary research on the ethical, legal, political, pedagogical, and theological issues that arise with the study of religion in elementary and secondary schools, we seek to deepen our understanding of alternative approaches to religion as an academic subject. We also hope to find new ways of responding to the increasing religious diversity in schools and societies and to study the relationship between religious education and citizenship education in pluralistic democratic societies.