The contribution of Social Pedagogy and Religious Education to the management of modern conditions of globalization, population movement and multiculturalism

Abstract

The present study examines the synergy of Social Pedagogy and Religious Education (RE)in Education.The aim of the research is the study of the personal and collective change that Religious Education can cause, and its preventive operation in the management of the new global conditions.It is a blended research. It took place during the school year 2017-18 in a Gymnasium and a Lyceum of Attica with the methodology of critical ethnography. The analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data shows that religious knowledge, developed in Education and aiming religious literacy, as defined in the context of Greek / European cultural identity and multiculturalism, can operate preventively and intrusively, on a personal and collective level in the management of modern conditions of globalization, population movement and multiculturalism, when it is understood as experience and is meaningful with the concepts of understanding, reflection and action. The transformative dynamics of religious knowledge trigger the young person to make small and big changes. This learning procedure strongly influences the person who seems to challenge his environment, his parents. This is done without sacrificing the religious content of the subject, which is not delivered by another subject at school. With this, in fact, it can achieve to a high degree the cultural recognition and acceptance of religious diversity and to a certain extent the change of attitudes towards the foreigner, the immigrant, the refugee. Above all, however, it turns out that it contributes to the development of acquaintance and communication of team members, recognition and to a degree of acceptance of otherness and certainly to the development of relationships, in cases that did not exist before.