Religion and Worldviews in Education
The New Watershed
Edited by Liam Gearon, Arniika Kuusisto, Saila Poulter, Auli Toom and Martin Ubani
VESA ÅHS AND MARJAANA KAVONIUS
15 Teaching Climate Issues in Finnish Upper Secondary School Science Subjects
JARI LAVONEN AND KALLE JUUTI
16 Religion, Worldviews, and Integrated Instruction: How Do Finnish Class Teachers Define the Purpose of Religious Education and Ethics?
KAISA VIINIKKA, TUULI LIPIÄINEN, AND MARTIN UBANI
17 Watershed Revisited
MARTIN UBANI, AULI TOOM, SAILA POULTER, ARNIIKA KUUSISTO, AND LIAM GEARON
with D. Jean Clandinin, Prof. Husu has edited The SAGE Handbook of Research on Teacher Education (2017).
Kalle Juuti is Professor of Digital Learning at schools at the University of Helsinki. He is Director of the Doctoral Programme of School, Education, Society and Culture (SEDUCE). He is a member of the University of Helsinki Teachers’ academy. He teaches general and adult education study track courses on learning and instruction. His research interests focus on digital aspects of teaching and learning, engagement in learning, science and sustainability education and professional learning.
Marjaana Kavonius (PhD, ThM) works as a university lecturer and teacher trainer in the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests include worldview education, pupils’ experiences of education, diversity in educational contexts and teachers’ awareness of religions and other worldviews.
Arniika Kuusisto (PhD, Docent) is Professor of Early Childhood Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Helsinki, and Professor of Child and Youth Studies at the Department of Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm University, as well as Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Education, University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the agentic construction of values and worldviews along individual life trajectories. At present, she is the PI for the Academy of Finland funded (2018–2023; grant 315860) ‘Growing up radical? The role of educational institutions in guiding young people’s worldview construction’ research project.
Elina Kuusisto is a University Lecturer (diversity and inclusive education) at the Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, Finland. She holds the title of Docent (Associate Professor) at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She worked as Associate Professor at the University of Humanistic Studies, The Netherlands during 2018–2019 and she was Coordinator of EARLI (European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction) Special Interest Group 19 Religions and Worldviews in Education from 2015 to 2019. Her academic writings deal with teachers’ professional ethics and school pedagogy, with a special interest in purpose in life, moral sensitivities and a growth mindset.
Jari Lavonen, PhD, is Professor of Physics and Chemistry Education at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He is currently Director of the National Teacher Education Forum and Chair of the Finnish Matriculation Examination Board. He has been researching both science and technology and teacher education for the last 34 years. His publications include 160 refereed scientific papers in journals and books and 160 books on education for science teachers and science education.
Tuuli Lipiäinen, Med, is Lecturer at The Normal Lyceum of Helsinki and Doctoral Researcher at the University of Helsinki in the Faculty of
Contributors xiii
Educational Sciences. Her research interests include worldviews, and religious and worldview education.
Anette Mansikka-aho is a doctoral researcher (MEd) in the Faculty of Education and Culture at Tampere University, Finland. Her main research interests are in the field of environmental education, especially in climate education. Currently she researches young people’s climate agency in the European project CCC-CATAPULT.
Sami Pihlström is Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He is also the President of the Philosophical Society of Finland and Vice-President of Institut International de Philosophie. His recent monographs include Pragmatist Truth in the Post-Truth Age: Sincerity, Normativity, and Humanism (2021), Toward a Pragmatist Philosophy of the Humanities (2022) and Humanism, Antitheodicism, and the Critique of Meaning in Pragmatist Philosophy of Religion (forthcoming 2023).
Saila Poulter, PhD, is Senior University Lecturer in Religious Education at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki. She has the title of Docent in Education at the University of Jyväskylä. Her research interests concern religious and worldview education, teacher professionalism and citizenship education. Poulter’s current research is on diversity of worldviews in early childhood education and care, children’s grief in institutional contexts and performative religious education.
Inkeri Rissanen is Lecturer of Multicultural Education at Tampere University, Faculty of Education and Culture, and a docent of school pedagogy at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests in the areas of intercultural and worldview education include intercultural professionalism of teachers, religion in public education and growth mindset pedagogy. Currently Rissanen leads a Finnish sub-project on a European Consortium CCC-CATAPULT (Challenging the Climate Crisis: Children’s Agency to Tackle Policy Underpinned by Learning for Transformation) researching young people, climate agency and climate education.
Friedrich Schweitzer holds a doctorate in education/social science and an honorary doctorate in theology. He held professorships in Protestant religious education and practical theology at the universities of Mainz and Tübingen where he now works as a senior professor. His current research projects refer to kindergartens as well as to schools and RE in school, but he has also conducted major projects on non-formal religious education (confirmation work in different European countries). Interreligious education has been one of his main interests for many years as well. At present, this interest has taken the form of cooperation with the new Tübingen Center of Islamic Theology. He has also been interested in questions of methodology. One of his latest publications is on international knowledge transfer in religious education (2021).
Series Editor Foreword
The opening years of the 21st century brought increased attention to religion as an important dimension of culture and politics. The dramatic multipronged attacks of September 11, 2001, came as a jolting reminder of the potential for violent action that can have bases in religious motivations. Over the same period, we came to see an increase in religiously motivated activity in politics. In the United States, we see this in the evolution from the Moral Majority movement that emerged as a force in the late 1970s as the beginning of the New Religious Right. On further reflection, however, we can see the involvement of religion extending much further back as a fundamental part of our social organization rather than a new or emerging phenomenon. We need only recall the religious wars of early modern Europe through to the contentious development of US church and state relations as evidence of the longstanding role religion has played as a source of competing values and beliefs.
There has been a significant upturn in research and scholarship across many disciplines relative to the study of religion in recent decades. This is particularly the case in the area of the interplay of education and religion. While religious education – study toward formation in a particular faith tradition – has been with us for millennia, religion education – study about religion as an academic subject apart from theology – is more recent.
Whereas theology departments proceeded from religious assumptions aiming to promulgate a faith tradition, the religious studies field emerged as a discipline that sought to bring a more objective social scientific approach to the study of religion. The origins of this approach date back to the European research centres that influenced US scholars beginning in the 18th century. The formalization of this trend, however, is a fairly recent phenomenon as illustrated by the 1949 formation of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion with its scholarly journal and the creation of religious studies departments across the United States in the wake of the US Supreme Court decision in 1963 that allowed, even encouraged, teaching about religion (rather than for) in public education institutions. That same year, the American Academy of Religion was born out of a group of scholars that had since 1909 been meeting under the various names related to biblical study.
It is out of this relatively recent increase in scholarly attention to religion and education that this book series arose. Routledge Publishers have long been an important presence in the respective fields of religion and of education. It seemed like a natural step to introduce a book series focused particularly on Research in Religion and Education. My appreciation extends to Max Novick for guiding this series into being in 2011 and now to Alice Salt and Sophie Ganesh for continuing Routledge’s oversight.
In this 26th volume in this series, editors Liam Gearon, Arniika Kuusisto, Sailia Poulter, Auli Toom and Martin Ubani bring us Religion and Worldviews in Education: The New Watershed. In three parts and 17 chapters from a range of scholars, they make the case for recognizing a New Watershed in education regarding belief and non-belief that incorporates and transcends the study of religious education.
The secularization thesis introduced in 1967 by sociologist Peter Berger in The Sacred Canopy – that modernity would displace religion – had been, by the turn of the 21st century, disputed and pronounced dead by many including Rodney Stark and later even Berger himself. Charles Taylor’s 2007 magisterial tome, A Secular Age, recognized an emerging landscape of belief and non-belief in which Christianity and religion generally no longer enjoyed a privileged position but were ideologies now on equal footing with others. It is in this context that the authors lay out their arguments for the watershed and its implications that extend beyond RE to social policy on a global scale.
The book takes an international view and draws upon years of work by the United Nations, particularly UNESCO, to underpin the need for and importance of employing a worldview approach. The authors also take as a more recent point of departure the Final Report of UK’s 2018 Commission on Religious Education, Religion and Worldviews: The Way Forward. The report defines worldview as a “translation of the German Weltanschauung, which literally means ‘a view of the world:’
A worldview is a person’s way of understanding, experiencing and responding to the world. It can be described as a philosophy of life or an approach to life. This includes how a person understands the nature of reality and their own place in the world. A person’s worldview is likely to influence and be influenced by their beliefs, values, behaviors, experiences, identities and commitments. We use the term ‘institutional worldview’ to describe organized worldviews shared among particular groups and sometimes embedded in institutions. These include\what we describe as religions as well as non-religious worldviews such as Humanism, Secularism or Atheism. We use the term ‘personal worldview’ for an individual’s own way of understanding and living in the world, which may or may not draw from one, or many, institutional worldviews. (CoRE, 2018)
Preface
We are living in a world full of complexities, inequalities and tremendous challenges, particularly climate change and the loss of biodiversity. Deepening social inequalities between people, violence, wars and hate are making the world unsafe and even dangerous. UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) requires everyone to work for a better world. UNESCO also places education in a special role and sees education as a cornerstone for change. Many scientific and societal efforts are needed to solve problems, but education lays the foundation for these activities. UNESCO released the report Reimaging Our Futures Together in late 2021 and demanded high-quality education for all children to make the future more equal and provide the competencies needed for a better future. However, education is not only about learning specific content and subject matter. Education should evolve from a common vision of a joint future and have a strong value basis. UNESCO calls for respect for human rights and believes that pedagogy in schools should be organized around the principles of cooperation and collaboration. The urgent task of schools is to foster the intellectual, social and moral capacities of students to work together and transform the world with empathy and compassion. Unlearning must also be done, including the unlearning of bias, prejudice and divisiveness. Additionally, the spread of misinformation should be countered through scientific, digital and humanistic literacies that develop the ability to distinguish falsehoods from truth. In educational content, methods and policy, we should promote active citizenship and democratic participation. The same message UNESCO (2006, 2015) has set for intercultural education that is framed within a human rights perspective as expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948): education shall be directed to the full development of human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial and religious groups and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
The new book Religion and Worldviews in Education: The New Watershed is dedicated in honour of Professor Arto Kallioniemi. He has extensive expertise in developing religious education and worldview education in schools. Professor Kallioniemi’s perspective is wide and inclusive. His aim is to provide
students with a comprehensive picture of what happens in our global world and to lead them with the knowledge and values of social justice, democracy and active citizenship. Human rights are core in all his research, teaching and societal contributions. Professor Kallioniemi was appointed 2018–2021 UNESCO Chair on Values, Dialogue, and Human Rights, and this status was renewed for 2022–2026. As the Chair, Professor Kallioniemi has promoted a culture of peace by teaching and researching intercultural and worldview dialogue and encouraging young people and students to build communities that share values and practices of mutual respect and tolerance, while seeking peace, non-violence, and reconciliation in society. Professor Kallioniemi is also vice dean of international affairs at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, promoting societal interaction and equality. The new book’s theme fits extremely well with Professor Kallioniemi’s interest areas in which worldview education has been a central theme in his latest projects, discussions and studies with his colleagues, doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers.
Global discussions surrounding religious and worldview education are actively ongoing. What kind of role do they play in future schools? How does religion and worldview education prepare a new generation for a world that urgently needs solidarity and interconnectedness? Does religious and worldview education connect or divide people? How can young people have religious, cultural and philosophical literacies that open their eyes to dialogue and solidarity? The new book focuses on the relationships of religions, worldviews and society and what role they play in education policy and curriculum design. The work also reflects on worldview education from philosophical and practical perspectives, focusing on what kind of pedagogy and practice is needed in worldview education.
I congratulate the editors and authors for a valuable and comprehensive book on worldview education. I also sincerely congratulate Professor Kallioniemi, my dear student, on his 60th birthday. The book is dedicated in his honor.
In Helsinki. November 7, 2022
Hannele Niemi
PhD, Professor UNESCO Chair on Educational Ecosystems for Equity and Quality of Learning Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki
References
UNESCO (2006). UNESCO guidelines on intercultural education. Paris: the United Nations Educational.
UNESCO (2015). Rethinking education. Towards a global common good? Paris: the United Nations Educational.
UNESCO (2021). Reimagining our futures together. A new social contract for education. Report from the International Commission on the Futures of Education. Paris: the United Nations Educational.
Weltansicht; the former more conceptual, ideological, philosophical, and the latter being defined more geo-spatially as a linguistic entity of cultural identity shared by national communities of native speakers and multiple attempted historical-philosophical syntheses (Makkreel & Rodi, 1989).
Abstract as this lineage is, it has become – conceptually, methodologically and theoretically – indispensable for contemporary religious education, and the critical elements in all of this are the increasing applications of the notion of worldview to the study of religion itself. Taliaferro (2019) shows how this inclusion of worldview marks a new inclusiveness in the philosophy of religion: ‘Philosophy of religion also includes the investigation and assessment of worldviews (such as secular naturalism) that are alternatives to religious worldviews’. Evidence of this worldview shift, of similar relevance, is demonstrated by Droogers and van Harskamp’s (2019) edited collection, From Religious Studies to Worldview Studies. Itself part of an importantly innovative series, Methods for the Study of Religious Change, the editors fashion an approach which no longer sees pertinence in using ‘Christianity as its measure, still frames the world through the model of five world religions, still largely avoids analysis of key issues around power, poverty, violence, pollution, science, and social conflict, and still looks to highlight differences rather than commonalities’ (Droogers & van Harskamp, 2019). Methods for the Study of Religious Change, by contrast, ‘aims to redefine the study of religion as the study of worldviews, of ideas which are active in shaping the world’, arguing ‘that the study of religion should focus on people’s worldview-making capacities and should contribute to the critical analysis of global problems and the promotion of cultural and spiritual respect across religions’ (Droogers & van Harskamp, 2019).
In sum, as per Mascolo’s (2014) definition of ‘worldview’: ‘A worldview consists of a comprehensive set of philosophical presuppositions, beliefs, and values about the nature of physical and social world’. Here,
A worldview consists of a generic set of presuppositions and about the fundamental nature of the physical and social world. At its most basic level, a worldview serves as a kind of organizing structure. The concept of worldview is founded on the epistemological principle that observation of the physical and social world is a mediated rather than direct process. From this view, understanding does not occur by fixing the spotlight of attention onto a pre-structured reality. Instead, observation proceeds as the active process of interpreting and organizing the world in terms of some sort of already existing system or conceptual framework. Without such existing frameworks, observation is simply unintelligible.
(Mascolo, 2014)
Such inclusivity is mirrored in the contemporary interface of psychology and the study of religion. Taves, Asprem and Ihm’s (2018) ‘Psychology, Meaning Making and the Study of Worldviews: Beyond Religion and
Non-Religion’ aims to ‘get beyond the solely negative identities signalled by atheism and agnosticism’ by conceptualising ‘an object of study that includes religions and non-religions’. They ‘advocate a shift from “religions” to “worldviews” and define worldviews in terms of the human ability to ask and reflect on “big questions” (… e.g., what exists? how should we live?)’. Here, from a ‘worldview’ perspective, ‘atheism, agnosticism, and theism are competing claims about one feature of reality and can be combined with various answers to the BQs [Big Questions] to generate a wide range of worldviews’. The intention of the authors is here to ‘lay a foundation for the multidisciplinary study of worldviews that includes psychology and other sciences’ grounded in human beings’ ‘evolved world-making capacities’.
Taves et al.’s (2018) naturalistic premises are self-evident in their argument that ‘the language of enacted and articulated worldviews (for humans) and worldmaking and ways of life (for humans and other animals) is appropriate at the level of persons or organisms and the language of sense making, schemas, and meaning frameworks is appropriate at the cognitive level (for humans and other animals)’. With all the marking of what has come to be called a ‘posthuman’ philosophy (here, just as the Enlightenment shifted worldview from God to humanity, posthumanism oriented human beings as one element of the natural world): ‘Viewing the meaning making processes that enable humans to generate worldviews from an evolutionary perspective allows us to raise new questions for psychology with particular relevance for the study of nonreligious worldviews’ (Taves et al., 2018). All this, as they write, ‘presupposes a critical realist ontology, which embeds constructivism within a naturalistic perspective, and enables a variety of accounts of why things are the way they are that can be grounded (at least distally) in evolutionary theory’ (Taves, 2018). Taves’ (2018) ‘From religious studies to worldview studies’ elaborates these matters further for the study of religion to redefine the latter as a form of ‘goal directed action’, one ‘defined in terms of big questions, in order to offer an even-handed basis for comparing religious and nonreligious worldviews’. Perhaps ironically, this move cannot be attained without some form of epistemological power shift, one which relegates religion to a subservient position in the pantheon of worldviews, in disciplinary terms a shift which ‘locates Religious Studies as a subset of Worldview Studies’.
Gadamer’s (2004) distinction between the regulatory laws characteristic of the natural sciences and the messier assemblage of knowledge in the human sciences: ‘… the specific problem that the human sciences present to thought is that one has not rightly grasped their nature if one measures them by the yardstick of a progressive knowledge of regularity’ (Gadamer, 2004, p. 4). Here, for Gadamer, the ‘sociohistorical world’ shares the same physical environment, the physical world of the natural sciences, but its methodological approach and interpretive frames are of necessity different, forwarding an ideal ‘to understand the phenomenon itself in its unique and historical concreteness’ (Gadamer, 2004, p. 4). Gadamer’s Truth and Method is important, too, here in elaborating how for such reasons the social sciences bear as much if
significance of this policy move to religion and worldviews – what we define as a ‘new watershed’.
The volume hereafter is divided into three main sections.
Part I contextualises core frameworks for understanding the issues at hand under the heading ‘Religions, Worldviews and Societal Landscapes: Origins and Ends, Rights and Obligations’
Here, Liam Gearon’s ‘Freedom of “Religion or Belief”: The Origins of ‘Worldview’ Policy in the United Nations’ delineates the philosophical and political background to the contemporary scene where we see religion and worldviews at close pedagogical quarters. This chapter details the specific geopolitical origins of the notion of ‘worldview’ in the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, passed on November 25, 1981. Here, if this foundationally outlined human rights regarding the freedom of religion, its usage of the simple two words ‘or belief’ was the landmark acknowledgement (during the late Cold War) of the importance of secular as well as religious belief. The chapter shows that the geopolitical significance of this divide is as critical today as it was during the Cold War.
In ‘Losing (One’s) Religion? Pragmatist reflections on pluralism, secularism, and worldview education’, Sami Pihlström provides an intellectually powerful assessment of broad political-philosophical and societal context. The chapter examines the philosophical significance of the loss of religious faith using a number of distinctions. Through the pragmatist philosophy of religion, these reasons of loss can be identified as something that need to be taken seriously also in religious and worldview education. The chapter is fundamentally opposed to apologetics of any kind, whether pro-religious or anti-religious. Rather, in a pluralistic spirit, the author hopes to defend a pragmatist way of examining both religious faith and the loss of religious faith as personal traits of one’s individual existence that need to be analysed from a standpoint incorporating epistemic or intellectual as well as ethical and – possibly – irreducibly religious or theological dimensions.
Friedrich Schweitzer’s ‘Education on religions and worldviews: Perspectives to child’s right to religion’ explores, with his renowned expertise in this area, the issues around religion and human rights with a specific focus on the politically now designated rights of the child. Thus, continuing the geopolitical and educational interrelated theme, this chapter elaborates on the significance within the United Nations system of the UN’s landmark (1989) Convention on the Rights of the Child. Schweitzer’s long experience of research and notable track record of international publications on children’s rights in education provides an important foundation to the spheres of politics and pedagogy in unifying differences within the classroom and beyond.
Henrik Simojoki’s chapter ‘Globalised religion(s) and worldviews in education’ describes the interplay of globalisation and religion through the perspectives offered by the complementary theories by Roland Robertson and Peter Beyer. In the chapter, Simojoki distinguishes between three interdependent
tasks of religious education: (a) telic education in the context of a globalised world, (b) ecumenical education in the context of globalised Christianity and (c) interreligious education in the context of globalised religions. According to Simojoki, each of these tasks corresponds with a specific contextual dimension of globalised religion in contemporary world society. The chapter ends with a discussion on the potential of postcolonial approaches for an appropriate representation of global religion, both in religious education pedagogy and education more generally.
Geir Skeie’s ‘Global education policy on religion and education: UNESCO’ is written from the perspective of a UNESCO Chair. He notes that the ‘challenge from the editors of this volume was to address and discuss some aspects of religion in education that are relevant in the light of “global education policy”, with a particular interest in the role of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’. Skeie has here approached this by focusing on two overarching questions, also encompassing some aspects of the ongoing debate about worldviews in education. Namely, ‘How can we understand the place of religion and worldviews in the global education policy of UNESCO?’ and ‘Which challenges and opportunities does this raise for the discussion about religion and worldviews among educators on a national level?’
Skeie’s chapter marks a useful transition point from the first section of the volume into the second. Part II explores national and international perspectives through a political-pedagogical lens under the heading ‘Thinking through Religion and Worldviews Policy in Education: Philosophical and Practical Problematics’
Here, looking at the British context, Philip Barnes’s ‘A conundrum for religious educators: personal worldviews or hermeneutics’ provides a trenchant critique of the notion of worldview as a ‘paradigm’. Passionately engaged, his chapter opens with a challenge: ‘Much has been written on CoRE’s proposed worldview paradigm, both “for” and “against”—one of the most serious issues is that the worldview approach is not grounded in a research project or can claim empirical research to support its conclusions. Criticisms are already well focused in a growing body of scholarly literature and there isn’t any need to rehearse them here … What has been overlooked by critics, however, is the interpretation of the post-confessional history of English religious education offered by Cooling and set out in the publications of the Worldview Project.’ His chapter takes the reader through these complexities. Since each national educational history has its own contours, Barnes here offers all educators much on which to reflect far beyond the United Kingdom. For, as he argues, ‘A new paradigm presupposes an old paradigm that needs to be replaced; Cooling and supporters of CoRE refer to this as “the world religions paradigm”, which is believed to have dominated English religious education for the last 50 years … Is this a credible reading of the history of religious education in England? What is the nature of the “world religions paradigm” that is to be replaced and what is the evidence that it dominated theory and practice for the last 50 years?’
necessity to promote worldview transformation in the heart of educational policy and practice. The authors argue that the pressing problems of humanity push educators to recognize and re-evaluate the roots and ideals of liberal educational neutrality and the ideals of impartiality. Basing their views on empirical research, the authors hold that the implicit beliefs regarding the changeable, historical and cultural nature of values and worldviews are the key enablers of individuals’ worldview transformation. That is a challenging but urgent call for holistic climate change education.
Jari Lavonen and Kalle Juuti, with the chapter entitled ‘Teaching climate issues in Finnish upper secondary school science subjects’, argue for the necessity of climate issues to be discussed in the broader framework of worldviews and education. In their chapter, Lavonen and Juuti present an analysis of the Finnish upper secondary education curriculum and present the ways in which climate issues are elaborated there. The authors show how climate change and its mitigation are also emphasised as a part of students’ transversal competence descriptions in the upper secondary curriculum. Lavonen and Juuti concretise the pedagogical challenges regarding teaching climate issues and present project-based learning as one possible pedagogical solution.
Kaisa Viinikka, Tuuli Lipiäinen and Martin Ubani’s ‘Religion, worldviews and integrated instruction: How do Finnish class teachers define the purpose of religious education and ethics?’ is an empirical chapter. The chapter describes a study of 20 Finnish class teachers and their perceptions on the purpose of religious education and ethics instruction in public education. These perceptions are then discussed in the light of a timely discussion related to the Finnish basic education: integrated instruction. The results illustrate that what the teachers highlight as the main purposes of religious education and ethics instruction are: 1) moral and/or ethical education, 2) general knowledge education and 3) instrumental education. Integrated teaching was lauded for promoting dialogue, tolerance and peace. Integrated and hybrid instruction was considered suitable for learning about moral and ethical issues, increasing general knowledge and preventing radicalisation. However, the chapter also shows that class teachers do not perceive learning about one’s own religion as a purpose of religious education. The chapter concludes with suggestions for teacher education.
The topic ‘Religion and Worldviews in Education: The New Watershed’ finds its context in the the complexities, fluidities and uncertainties of the twenty-first century we are currently witnessing and living. The context of education is society and human life, and the vision of education is hope: if education is to be relevant, it has to be rooted in the present realities and concerns of our lives. Furthermore, if it aims to produce a change for the better, it needs to be embedded in a belief in that such change is possible, that our actions matter, and that the change is worth our effort. Furthermore, there needs to be a willingness and commitment to ‘good’ that permeates not just educational efforts but its supportive structures, involving policies and professionals alike.
This volume is dedicated to, with wishes to commemorate the life of 60 years and the academic career, Professor Arto Kallioniemi, the UNESCO Chair of Values, Dialogue and Human Rights at the University of Helsinki. With the volume, colleagues and scholars from various universities and countries, many of whom have collaborated with professor Kallioniemi already for decades, want to congratulate professor Kallioniemi. The volume celebrates Kallioniemi’s work through bringing together the authors’ expertise and research perspectives into discussing the themes that have been at the heart of Professor Kallioniemi’s work throughout his career. It is our hope that these very themes are also integral today, globally and locally, in developing better and increasingly sustainable learning conditions for children, youth and adults of today and tomorrow – learning conditions that are rooted in reality, that are committed to “good” – and with a vision of hope.
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CoRE (2018). Religion and worldviews. London: Commission on Religious Education. Retrieved from https://www.commissiononre.org.uk/final-report-religion-andworldviews-the-way-forward-a-national-plan-for-re/
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Gearon, L. (2010). ‘The totalitarian imagination: Religion, politics and Education’. In M. De Souza, G. Durka, K. Engebretson, & L Gearon (Eds.), International handbook of inter-religious education (pp. 933–947). New York, NY: Springer.
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Gearon, L. (2013). ‘The Counter Terrorist Classroom: Religion, Education, and Security’. Religious Education, 108(2), 129–147.
Gearon, L. (2015). On holy ground: The theory and practice of religious education. London and New York: Routledge.
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Gearon, L. (2019). ‘The politicisation and securitisation of religion in education: A response to a rejoinder’. In M. L. Pirner, J. Lahnemann, W. Haussmann, & S. Schwarz (Eds.), Public theology perspectives on religion and education (pp. 211–227). New York, NY: Routledge.
