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To cite this article: Wanda Alberts (2010) The academic study of religions and integrative
religious education in Europe, British Journal of Religious Education, 32:3, 275-290, DOI:
10.1080/01416200.2010.498621
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British Journal of Religious Education
Vol. 32, No. 3, September 2010, 275–290
British
10.1080/01416200.2010.498621
0141-6200
Original
Taylor
302010
32
wanda.alberts@ahkr.uib.no
WandaAlberts
000002010
&
Journal
Article
Francis
(print)/1740-7931
of Religious Education
(online)
*Email: wanda.alberts@ahkr.uib.no
ISSN 0141-6200 print/ISSN 1740-7931 online
© 2010 Christian Education
DOI: 10.1080/01416200.2010.498621
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276 W. Alberts
religion in 1994, when the subject was made fully compulsory, without any
possibility of opting out. Whereas in Sweden, where the National Agency of
Education (Skolverket) is responsible for the syllabuses, the responsibility for
the syllabuses in England has been with local education authorities, resulting
in a greater variety of concepts and more gradual changes up to the reform of
1988 (Education Reform Act, see UK Parliament 1988), the model syllabuses
of 1994 (SCAA 1994a, 1994b) and the non-statutory national framework for
RE of 2004 (QCA 2004). In the English context, co-operation between reli-
gious and educational institutions is institutionalised, be it at the level of the
agreed syllabus conferences or the Standing Advisory Councils for Religious
Education (SACREs), or at the national level, where representatives of various
religious communities were consulted during the processes in which the
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Aims of integrative RE
In England and Sweden, the integrative approach to teaching about religions,
in contrast to the separative approach, is regarded as an important element of
education, because it provides a common arena where children with different
cultural and religious backgrounds learn together and thereby also learn to live
with each other, despite the different worldviews they may have. In Sweden,
knowledge about different religions and worldviews is regarded as a prerequi-
site for forming one’s own worldview, be it religious or non-religious. School
education in general is regarded as a means of assisting children in becoming
well-informed and responsible individuals, respecting their own and others’
rights as citizens in a plural democracy. In line with this, the approach to RE
is emancipatory, encouraging pupils to form their own views about religions
and worldviews. The general plural framework makes room for the study of
different religious and non-religious interpretations of life, with a focus on
ethical questions.
In England, the aims of integrative RE have always been contested. Three
major approaches can be identified: (1) knowledge and understanding of
different religious traditions; (2) mutual respect and harmony in a multicul-
tural society; and (3) personal, moral and spiritual development of the pupils
(Everington 2000). In different approaches to RE, each of these aims is given
different emphasis. In contrast to the Swedish model, the emphasis on ‘spiri-
tual development’ in a number of English approaches is interesting. It may be
asked whether the concepts of religion and spirituality can be separated so
that this aim does not prioritise religious worldviews over secular ones,
ascribing to spirituality an inherent value that the secular world lacks (see
Alberts 2007, 294).
Even though there is some broad consensus that the approach to
integrative RE cannot be the approach of any particular religion, not all
English approaches assert that the aims of RE cannot be religious aims. Most
British Journal of Religious Education 279
some other recent approaches to RE. In the interpretive approach, the three
layer model individual, membership group and wider religious tradition is
used (Jackson 1997, 65f) in order to find a more flexible approach to religion
and RE, taking account of religion in different social contexts. In the narrative
approach, post-modern criticism is used for a radical reassessment of the
‘subject matter’ of RE and its now often implicitly religious overall frame-
work. Clive Erricker criticises the notion of ‘tradition’ as a prominent feature
of English RE, asking why RE ought to reproduce the grand narratives of reli-
gions, thereby also reproducing existent power relations and orthodoxy,
silencing the small narratives of the children (Erricker 2000; see also Erricker
and Erricker 2000).
In Sweden, the concept livsåskådning (view of life) has helped to find a
broad secular concept of religion for RE. It widens the horizon so that tradi-
tions that are not commonly regarded as ‘religion’ are included in the subject
religionskunskap, for example, the scientific worldview, socialism and exis-
tentialism (see, e.g., Thulin and Elm 1995, 132–3). At the same time,
livsåskådning serves as a hermeneutical key for the study of different religious
or non-religious phenomena (cf. Almén 2000, 67–71). For integrative RE, it
seems to be impossible to define the subject matter on the base of a distinction
between religious and secular views of life (where the former would be
included and the latter excluded), without falling back into essentialist notions
of religion. If livsåskådning is regarded as a superordinate concept which
includes religious and secular views of life, it can provide a valuable starting
point for integrative RE.
The notion of religion on which concepts for integrative RE are based, is
directly related to the representation of religion. In Sweden, the focus shifted
from livsfrågor (questions of life) as a starting point for the study and repre-
sentation of religions to livsåskådning (view of life).7 This somewhat broader
concept made possible an approach to religions focusing especially on
concepts, ethics and contemporary religion. Important debates about the repre-
sentation of religion in Swedish RE relate, for example, to the question of
whether the focus should be on elite religion or local empirical religion, for
British Journal of Religious Education 281
example, in a Hindu context (cf. Almén 2000, 80). Another important issue is
the representation of religions in textbooks for RE (cf., e.g., Härenstam 1993,
which was the Swedish contribution to the European project on Islam in text-
books; see also Falaturi 1990). Kjell Härenstam, for example, bases the devel-
opment of his own concept for teaching Buddhism in RE on a close analysis
of the representation of Tibetan Buddhism in Swedish textbooks for RE in the
second half of the twentieth century (Härenstam 2000).
The question of whether religions should be studied ‘thematically’
(comparatively) or ‘systematically’ (separatively, one after another) gained
some popularity in the English debate about RE. In this debate, a generic
concept of religion, which regards religions as essentially similar, was
frequently linked to the thematic approach, which in the tradition of the
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of religions and the concept of education, in more detail. However, I hope that
my proposal will not be misunderstood as contributing to the recent rhetoric
about standardisation and comparability in European education systems.
Rather than prescribing certain topics and expected levels of attainment for
children of different age groups, my intention is to outline some general
features of a framework for integrative RE, leaving the responsibility for the
selection of topics and individual approaches to educators in the different
contexts. This approach to a framework presupposes that educators themselves
have a sound professional background in the study of religions and education,
enabling them to take the relevant decisions about the actual content and
methods themselves.
There is no ‘middle way’ between a secular and a religious approach to RE.
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Bremen, which had education as one of its main conference areas (confer-
ence theme: ‘Plurality and representation: Religion in education, culture and
society’). This working group intends to encourage research cooperation in
the field of RE from a study-of-religions perspective, while keeping a
broader perspective on issues related to religion, education and society. It
held its first workshop on the education of teachers in departments for the
study of religions at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense in
March 2009. Furthermore, the EASR Working Group on Religion in Public
Education has regular panel sessions at the annual conferences of the EASR
(cf. EASR 2008).
At the international level, two recent conferences with a focus on RE may
be mentioned in this context. In 2004, the International Association for the
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Notes
1. Exceptions being Brandenburg, Bremen and Hamburg, which have to some extent
integrative models (see Alberts 2007, 332–43), and Berlin, where confessional RE
is purely optional and can be offered by various religious communities. Berlin has,
in addition, an obligatory subject ‘ethics’ in the 7th to the 10th class, which also
includes some study of religions (see Berlin 2006).
2. In 1965, the name of the subject for the gymnasieskola (upper secondary school)
was changed to religionskunskap; in 1969, the subject in the grundskola
(primary and lower secondary school) received the same name (cf. Hartmann
2000, 220).
3. Cf. Alberts (2007), 219–25. For a comprehensive account of the history of
Swedish RE (in Swedish), see Hartmann (2000).
British Journal of Religious Education 287
4. For organisational issues in RE in England, see Jackson (2000). For the groups
consulted in the processes when the syllabuses and guidelines for RE were written,
see the respective documents (e.g. QCA 2004).
5. If education about religion is a compulsory subject in state schools, it needs to be
in line with the general pedagogical principles of school education. In some coun-
tries, the value base for school education in general has been made explicit (see,
e.g., Zackari and Modigh 2003 for the Swedish school system). The European
Court of Human Rights has in its judgements also defined standards for compul-
sory education in different subjects relating to the European Convention of Human
Rights. It finds, for example, that the subject matter should be presented in an
‘objective, critical and pluralistic’ manner (ECHR 1976, § 53). This is directly
related to compulsory education about religions in two recent judgements against
Norway and Turkey (ECHR 2007a, 2007b). In the recent case against Turkey, the
European Court of Human Rights finds that ‘in a democratic society, only plural-
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ism in education can enable pupils to develop a critical mind with regard to reli-
gious matters in the context of freedom of thought, conscience and religion’, and
emphasises that ‘(…) it should be noted that, as the Court has held on numerous
occasions, this freedom, in its religious dimension, is one of the most vital
elements that go to make up the identity of believers and their conception of life,
but it is also a precious asset for atheists, agnostics, sceptics and the unconcerned
(…)’ (ECHR 2007b, §69).
6. See, for example, my account of implications of the history of the academic
study of religions (Alberts 2007, 14–20). With respect to the English RE
context, see also Jackson’s account of the phenomenology of religion (Jackson
1997, 7–29).
7. For problems with the livsfråga approach, see Hartmann (2000, 222).
8. The secular approach is often related to the notion of ‘methodological agnosti-
cism’ (see, e.g., Cush 1999, 384).
9. A concept, which is not unproblematic in itself, as it implies the reproduction of
internal power structures of the groups represented as well as a focus on elite
religion rather than actual empirical religion.
10. For a problematisation of these conflicting concepts of education with respect to
integrative RE, see Alberts (2007, 360–6, 388–9).
Notes on contributor
Wanda Alberts is associate professor for the Study of Religions at the University of
Bergen in Norway. She is responsible for the teacher training programme for the
school subjects Religion, livssyn og etikk (lower secondary school) and Religion og
etikk (upper secondary school) at the University of Bergen.
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