Abstract
In this article we examine the profiling of human rights and children’s rights in religious education (RE) and its secular alternative in Finland. We use the term ‘worldview education’ to describe the combination of these subjects. We analyse what kinds of human rights and ethical issues are raised in Finnish worldview education. One specific focus is the explicit mention of human rights and children’s rights in the worldview education section of the Finnish national core curriculum (2014). We conclude that the curriculum gives plenty of space to human rights and children’s rights, and that this enables one to conceive of human rights as being an overarching ethical perspective in worldview education. Nevertheless, we indicate that the organisation of worldview education in Finland has some problems when it comes to the realisation of children’s freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.
Highlights
Global and local societal trends, such as the rise of autocratisation, polarisation and populism, have underlined how important it is for schools and teachers to advance knowledge of human rights) and knowledge about important aspects of the constitutional state
We analyse what kinds of human rights and ethical issues are raised in Finnish worldview education
We have analysed how human rights and children’s rights are profiled in the basic curriculum and what kind of human rights and ethical issues are raised in Finnish worldview education
Summary
Global and local societal trends, such as the rise of autocratisation, polarisation and populism, have underlined how important it is for schools and teachers to advance knowledge of human rights) and knowledge about important aspects of the constitutional state. In this article we only use ‘worldview education’ as an umbrella term for our findings concerning human rights and children’s rights in the Finnish national basic education core curriculums of RE and its secular alternative The National Core Curriculum for Basic Education 2014 has marked structural elements that aspire to bridge the gap that might emerge between the general parts of the national curricula and subject-based syllabi These parts contain references to human rights and children’s rights that concentrate on transversal competence, for example: ‘School work systematically promotes the recognition and appreciation of human rights and, in particular, the rights of the child, and actions indicated by these rights’
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