Christianity as culture and religions as religions. An analysis of the core curriculum as framework for Norwegian RE

Abstract

Religious education (RE) in Norwegian public schools has attracted much attention as a result of criticism from the UN’s Human Rights Committee in 2004 and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2007. Due to the statement from the UN and the conviction in the ECHR, revisions have been made in the Education Act and the curriculum for RE. However, the core curriculum for primary and secondary schools and adult education introduced in 1993 has not been revised. The scope of the article is to analyse the core curriculum and show how this document constructs Christianity as culture and national heritage, leaving other religions as something ‘other’ in Norwegian society. The main argument is thus that the core curriculum provides a qualitative bias towards Christianity in the Norwegian educational system in general, and especially in RE.