From Multiculturalism to Interculturalism in Education Policy: Which Role for Religion?

Interculturalism has emerged within the Council of Europe works as an alternative to both assimilationism and multiculturalism. While multiculturalism is blamed for emphasizing the cultural identity of social groups, somehow crystallizing their characteristics, interculturalism is based on a different understanding: it favors mutual dialogue and it assumes that the cultural identity of an individual cannot be equate to that of the social/cultural group to which he/she is assumed to belong. In the education field, according to the CoE, interculturalism policy implies a favour for a teaching about religion, i.e., a teaching focused on a cognitivist/non-denominational approach to the religious fact rather than on confessional aspects of a given religion, and citizenship/civic education.

This paradigm shift entails a series of questions that the seminar, organised within the activities of UNITE (UNIversal design for education: legal perspective for a new conception of inTErcultural education) PRIN 2022 research project, aims to address: is intercultural education policy a tool for promoting the right to cultural difference or, rather, social cohesion? How does the cognitivist approach towards religious teaching impact on existing national religious education models? How is relevant in this framework the public or mixed nature of the national school system offer? Should religious communities’ exponents be involved in the definition and teaching of the cognitivist religious curriculum? Should atheist and rational movements be involved as well? Or should impartiality in the teaching impose a neutral form of religious teaching? If so, would this neutral approach grant an effective and deep understanding of the religious dimension of the human being? What type of relation can it be envisaged between the spreading of civic/citizenship education in the education systems and the cognitivist approach towards religious education? Are they converging in their goals or can they be conflictual?

9:00 am Welcome and Preliminary Remarks

Davide Strazzari (University of Trento)

9 a.m./9.15 am -  First session

Chair: Rossella Bottoni (University of Trento)

Religious Education in Public Schools: Problems, Trends and Perspectives in EU Countries

• Silvio Ferrari (University of Milan)

Civic Education and Common Values: Meanings, Criticisms, Reflections

• Roberta Medda-Windischer (Eurac Research - Bolzano/Bozen)

Teaching into and about Religions: Current Trends in Belgium and in the Netherlands

• Leni Franken (University of Antwerp)

Coffee Break

11.30 a.m. - Second session

Chair: Matteo Nicolini (University of Verona)

Religious Diversity Governance and Education in Modern Britain: the Model, its Impact and Limitations

• Kyriaki Topidi (European Centre for Minority Issues – Flensburg Germany)

Teaching about Religions and Education for Citizenship in Spain: a Long Confrontational Issue

• Eugenia Relaño Pastor (University Complutense - Madrid)

Lunch break

14.15 a.m. - Third session

Chair: Cinzia Piciocchi (University of Trento)

Confessionally Christian for Political Purposes? The Danish Cases of Right-wing Political Co-option of Teaching on Religion for Anti-Islamic Purposes

• Niels Valdemar Vinding (University of Copenhagen)

Religious Instruction, Moral and Civic Education, Teaching on Religions: Historical and Legal Milestones of the French Complexity

• Blandine Chelini-Pont (University of Aix-Marseille)

The Pedagogic Politics of Neutrality: A Sociological Perspective on Teaching About Religion in French Education

• Guillaume Silhol (University of Bologna)

Laiklik and Religious education in public schools: the compulsory teaching of 'Religious Culture and Ethics' in Türkiye

• Anna Parrilli (University of Trento)

Debate

Final Remarks

Roberto Toniatti (University of Trento)

The event is funded by the Next Generation EU program within the PRIN 2022 project UNIversal design for education: legal perspective for a new conception of inTErcultural education. ACRONYM: UNITE” (2022JMJWY5) – CUP E53D23006740006