Educación para la ciudadanía y objeción de conciencia

Abstract

After a brief analysis of the development of religious education under the Spanish constitutional period, this article focuses on the new subject para la Ciudadania y los Derechos Fundamentales (Citizen and Fundamental Rights Learning) set by the Ley Organica de Educacion (Organic Statute on Education) (LOE). Particularly, it concentrates on the tension between the principal of neutrality assumed by the Secular State model set forth in the Spanish Constitution and the values indoctrination explicitly assumed by this subject itself as a result of its legal design. The second part of the article is devoted to the study of conscientious objection and its far-reaching consequences for our legal system under the changing precedents sought by the Spanish Constitutional Court and, most recently, by the Spanish Supreme Court ''Tribunal Supremo.