A Transformative Pedagogy for Classrooms with Pluralistic Worldviews

Abstract

Reading Suzanne Rosenblith and Benjamin Bindewald's relevant and sympathetic contribution and having been part of the large REDCo-project (Religion in Education: A contribution to Dialogue or a factor of Conflict in transforming societies of European Countries) funded by the European Commission and including eight rather different European countries (Russia, Estonia, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, and Spain), 1 I am strongly aware of the contextuality of the debates on common, state, or public schools. Rosenblith and Bindewald are strongly embedded in the U.S. context with its own past and present regarding the political system and the relation of school and religion. Further, the religious context is characterized by particular differences with an eye to the religious communities (liberal, orthodox, and fundamentalist, for example) present in a state, town, or city and their (relative) impacts and uses of power.