Preparing for the world of diverse worldviews: parental and school stakeholder views on integrative worldview education in a Finnish context

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore integrative worldview education as a platform for learning from worldviews in a diverse cultural context. This is done by examining integrative worldview education in a Finnish secondary school context by examining the views of school stakeholders. The stakeholders examined in this article consist of 174 parents of the pupils and a total of 6 teachers and headteachers from two different secondary schools in Helsinki. We use the concept of learning from worldviews to examine the possibilities of the integrative classroom to facilitate learning from both personal and organized worldviews. The results indicate, that the stakeholders view integrative worldview education as an important tool for widening the worldview of the pupil. Although the stakeholders view the sensitivity of the teacher as paramount in teaching an integrative classroom, integrative worldview education is also seen as important in offering tools for forging mutual understandings in an ever more complex world of worldviews.

The learning trajectory of emerging professionalism: A Finnish student teacher negotiating world-view education and early childhood education and care superdiversity

“…‘World views’ are here understood as both organized ( Weltanschauung ) and private ( Lebensanschauung ) ontological, epistemological and ethical orientations, ascribing meaning to the world but also orienting people in their everyday lives (Van der Kooij et al, 2017; Koirikivi et al, 2019; Poulter et al, 2016; Åhs et al, 2019). World views can be secular, religious or hybrid; in children’s personal world views, spiritual and secular elements are increasingly intertwined (Kuusisto and Kallioniemi, 2016; Åhs et al, 2019).…”

“…World-view superdiversity is here coined with the notion of ‘lived religion’ – that is, the diverse ways in which religions are manifested in the lives of communities, groups and individuals – contrary to essentializing religions as fixed categories and structures (Ammerman, 2016). Åhs et al, (2019), examining personal meaning-making, emphasize heterogeneity in individual interpretations and actuated value choices. The heterogeneity and fluidity of world views challenges prevailing norms and emphasizes ‘new diversity’ (Vertovec, 2015), locality and individual experience.…”

Emplotting a privileged position. The construction of the history of secular humanism in Norwegian religious education textbooks

“…In addition to being a debate about whether nonreligious worldviews should be included (Watson 2010;Aldridge 2015) or excluded (Felderhof 2012;Barnes 2015), the debate has also been concerned with didactical approaches and conceptual and representational challenges of how to best depict such worldviews in RE (Bråten 2018;Everington 2018). An important aspect of this debate relates to equal treatment of different religions and worldviews (Jackson 2014;Åhs, Poulter, and Kallioniemi 2019). In this article, the questions of representation and equal treatment are central concerns.…”

“…In recent years, several empirical studies focussing on the inclusion of non-religious worldviews in RE have appeared. These studies have been concerned with different aspects of the inclusion of non-religious worldviews in RE (Bråten and Everington 2019), the views of different stakeholders (Everington 2018;Åhs, Poulter, and Kallioniemi 2019) and how the concept of worldviews is taught, understood and used in classroom practices (Bråten 2018). Although multiple empirical studies have been conducted on the use of textbooks in RE (Frank 2014;Vestøl 2014Vestøl , 2016Thomas and Rolin 2019), to our knowledge, there have been no empirical studies on secular humanism.…”

Making minority faith (in)visible through religious education: parents’ experiences of the identification of their children’s Orthodox identity in Finnish public schools

“…In Finland, the debate on religion's place in education has, since the beginning of the twenty first century, focused on two questions: why are children of different religious backgrounds taught separately instead of in one RE group, and should RE be included in the curriculum in the first place (Korkeakoski and Ubani 2018;Ubani 2013b, pp. 69-84;Åhs et al 2019)? While isolated schools have acted progressively and put children of different backgrounds into one group, representatives of minority religious groups have expressed their disapproval against any attempts that endanger the current system (Iivonen 2009;Korkeakoski and Ubani 2018;Sakaranaho 2007).…”