Deweyan Democracy and Education About Religion

Abstract

Québec's “Ethics and Religious Culture” curriculum shares many similarities with John Dewey's child-centered approach to education. The curriculum suggests how and why Dewey's approach of encouraging students to think critically and engage in sympathetic imagination can be integral to democratic citizenship and essential to the securing of respect for religious freedom in particular. Still, that a Deweyan education about religion is superior to the alternatives does not mean that it is flawless. If the Québec curriculum for the most part highlights the strength of the Deweyan approach, it also suggests that, at least in the case of religion, an education aimed at developing critical and imaginative skills can sometimes also violate democratic norms of religious respect. The article concludes by briefly considering how Québec's curriculum could be altered and supplemented to make its implementation practically feasible in the United States and consistent with widely shared views in the United States on religious freedom.