Adapting to the Requirments of the Individual in the R.E. Classroom

Abstract

While this chapter is being written, Spain is experiencing a raging controversy over the role and importance Religious Education should have in State funded schools. After making Religious Education optional, the Spanish government is now proposing to exclude the subject from the scholastic grading system. The proposed law is being opposed by the Catholic Parents Association, the Catholic Church and the conservative Popular Party. The change occurring in Spain is not an isolated case. This last decade has witnessed a number of changes in the model, content and role of Religious Education in various Western countries, mainly on the old continent. The reasons behind this scenario are different. In the first place, acceptance of Religion is changing. For instance, Thomas (1997) reports that, while in the beginning of the 20th century declared atheists and those not adhering to a religion were only 0.2%, by the mid90s this percentage rose to 18.5%. On a similar note, trust in religious institutions in the European Union dropped from 50% in Spring 2001 to 41% in Spring 2004 (European Commission, 2001; European Commission, 2004). Church attendance is in decline in most countries in the Western world with figures as low as 5% in France, and 4% in both Britain and Denmark, while, in less than a decade, the Swiss church has experienced a decline of 18% of the congregation’s monthly attendance (Inglehart and Baker 2000, Norris and Inglehart, 2004). Secondly, the post 9/11 world has become more conscious and, maybe, more afraid of diversity. Thus we notice that policy-makers and researchers in the area have pushed the issues of pluralism, tolerance and social cohesion to the top of the agenda. While state curricula are increasingly expressing the need for spiritual and moral formation there is also an increasing concern for the utilitarian need of a knowledge that helps one understand the other. A clear case in point is the