A REDCo study: Learners' perspectives on religious education and religious diversity in Catholic schools in South Africa

Abstract

1. BackgroundThe 'REDCo: Religion in Education. A Contribution to Dialogue or a Factor of Conflict in Transforming Societies of European Countries' project was a European comparative research project aimed at establishing young people's views of religion, religious diversity and possibilities for dialogue in education. It was conducted from 2006 to 2009 in eight countries (England, Estonia, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Russia, and Spain), focusing mainly on the 14-16 age group.More specifically, the project's main aim was to establish and compare the potential and limitations of religious education in the educational systems of the selected European countries (Valk et al. 2009). The correlation between low levels of religious education and a willingness to use religion as a criterion of exclusion and confrontation had already been pointed out (Jackson et al. 2007). Instead, the project planned to investigate how theoretical and practical approaches could support openness towards others, mutual respect across religions and strengthen cultural differences in the context of religious education in schools and universities. Historical depth and analytical clarity were obtained by comparing different approaches to addressing the core questions of dialogue and conflict in Europe and the search for ways to stimulate a process of supporting the growth of a European identity or identities.In studying religion, the focus was not on abstract belief systems but rather focused on forms of religion and worldviews as presented by the adherents themselves (Jackson et al. 2007). The main theoretical stimulus for the project is the interpretative approach (Jackson 1997) with key concepts of representation, interpretation and reflexivity. With reference to E. Levinas, attention was directed to 'neighbor-religions' (Weisse 2003); the views of the neighbours in the classroom. This project planned to look into how theoretical and practical approaches could support openness towards others and mutual respect across religious.One of the important overall research questions of the project was: 'what role can religion in education play concerning the way pupils perceive religious diversity?' (Friederici in Valk et al. 2009). To answer the research questions, a mixed method was used. First, an analysis was carried out of the developments, debates and contexts of religion and education in the eight participating countries (Jackson et al. 2007). This formed the foundation for empirical research, in which a large-scale qualitative study of teenagers' views on religion in schools was conducted (Knauth et al. 2008). Students were asked about their experience with religion, and also about their attitudes to the social dimension of religion in wider society, as well as in school. The qualitative study was used as a basis for the development of a set of hypotheses and a grounded questionnaire for a quantitative survey of young people's views (Valk et al. 2009) aimed at generalising the qualitative findings to much larger samples. In addition, studies of classroom interaction (Avest et al. 2009) and a study of teacher-strategies (van der Want et al. 2009) were included in the research.After the REDCo project had been concluded, researchers decided to continue their cooperation as the REDCO NETWORK as a way of continuing their research exchange. In 2012 REDCo II, a quantitative followup study was established involving a variety of European countries (England, Estonia, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Finland, and Ukraine) and a global perspective (South Africa and Mexico) with the aim of learning from different contexts (Bertram Troost et al. 2014:18).Both REDCo studies aimed to study the role of religion in education, and specifically to establish how school pupils perceived and dealt with religious diversity (Bertram Troost et al. 2014:19). REDCo II aimed to establish if the views of students had changed as compared to those in the REDCo I study in 2008. …