Religious Education and the Challenge of Pluralism

"This book offers a comparative analysis of religious education and state policies towards religious education in seven different countries and in the European Union as a whole. Most of the cases studied have not been presented previously in the English speaking world. The comparative contextualization of the different countries studied here, Muslim majority, Orthodox Christian, Jewish and secular (or laic) is also new. The challenge addressed by the book's different studies, is quite simply if religiouseducation can itself be a vehicle for civic enculturation and the creation of ties of belonging and meaningful solidarity across different ethnic and religious communities in the contemporary world. In many of the countries studied, the state and the program of state-making was associated with one religio-ethnic community and then the question remains if religious education that privileges that religious community can provide such shared terms of meaning for members of different communities. This is the challenge faced by such countries at Bulgaria, Israel, Malaysia and in a slightly different way (facing not religious diversity but ethnic difference), Turkey. The case of Cyprus, by contrast, is one of a country actually split along lines of ethno-religious difference. Additional studies of the connection between religious education and the terms of citizenship in the EU, France and the USA provide important contrasts to the challenges facing us as we seek to educate our citizenry in an age of religious resurgence and global politics"--

Adam B. Seligman is Professor of Religion at Boston University and Founding Director of CEDAR - Communities Engaging with Difference and Religion.