Religious literacy in the curriculum in compulsory education in Austria, Scotland and Sweden - a three-country policy comparison

Abstract

This article presents analyses of curricula in religious education (RE) for public schools in Austria, Scotland, and Sweden. A curricula is the plan that outlines the goals, content and outcomes in education. A critical discourse analysis approach (CDA) is used to explore how each national RE curricula constructs (a) the aims, status and purpose of state-maintained RE (b) the teaching and learning objectives, and contents, and (c) what skills and attitudes the processes of learning aim to develop; together, these can be considered to construct students' religious literacy in the curricula. Theoretical frameworks are from curriculum studies, as well as from literacy studies, with the aim of deepening the knowledge on RE, as well as the discussion on religious literacies from various national curriculum contexts. The analysis shows that although the curricula focus on the same topic, namely RE, they rely on different conceptions of curriculum, as well as on various forms of religious literacy.

Intra- and Interreligious Dialogue in Flemish (Belgian) Secondary Education as a Tool to Prevent Radicalisation

“…In the socio-cultural and multireligious context of today, a need for interconvictional education is formulated by the Flemish Minister of Education, and the agreements are recorded in an Engagement Statement (28 January 2016), which can be seen as one of the derived European objectives (European Commission 2007. In line with European recommendations, contemporary education experts underline the importance of investing in pupils' religious literacy, understood as 'the ability to discern and analyse the fundamental intersections of religion and social, political, cultural life through multiple lenses' (Moore 2007;Subbiondo 2012;Jackson 2014;Lafrarchi 2017a;Dinham and Shaw 2017;Sahin 2017a;Kuusisto and Gearon 2019;von Brömssen et al 2020;Rissanen et al 2020;Parker 2020). Ter Avest and Bakker (2009) argue that a solid education in life orientation combined with an authentic curiosity about the 'Other' is pre-conditional for innovation in RE, which, as an integral part of education, prepares students for a future they themselves will have to build.…”

Islamophobia beyond Explicit Hate Speech: Analyzing the Coverage of Muslims in Slovenia’s Public Broadcasting

“…4 Studies have shown that education can be a very important factor in making pupils religiously literate (Bishop and Nash 2007;Enstedt 2022), even though the exact ways of fostering religious literacy through public curriculum are hotly debated (Dinham and Shaw 2017). Hence, there is no clear-cut form of fostering religious literacy in public education-even though the need for it is uniformly recognized within scientific literature (Von Brömssen et al 2020). Some educators have been arguing that public education may be "our society's best arena for encouraging religious literacy that is essential to active citizenry" (Rosenblith and Bailey 2007, p. 109), referring to a lack of religious education as a "gross act of miseducation" (Ibid.,p.…”

Fra vitenskapelig forskning til utforsking i skolefag

“…Økende bruk av «literacy» om den kunnskap skolefagene representerer, innebaerer at utforskende metoder knyttes til et bredere samfunnsperspektiv (Skaftun, 2015(Skaftun, , 2020 og til den rolle som tekst og kommunikasjon spiller i alle fag (Aukland, 2021;Draper, 2010;Kjørven, 2014;Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008;Unstad & Fjørtoft, 2020). Literacy, tekst og tekstkultur er begreper som også har vaert brukt til å diskutere fagenes arbeidsmåter og mål (Brömssen, 2013;Brömssen, Ivkovits, & Nixon, 2020;Roberts & Bybee, 2007).…”