Human Rights and Religious Education: Some Postcoioniai Perspectives

Abstract

This paper presents some provisional and outline considerations for religious education of a new ‘human rights culture’ in the UK and globally (in part deriving from the recent implementation of the Human Rights Act in the UK and other international human rights legislation). Principally, it is argued that religious education needs to take more account of the political implications of teaching and learning in the representation of religious traditions. The paper thus balances a Utopian agenda for religious education with the global and often dystopian realities of cultural conflict ‐ especially involving human rights in international context. It urges too that particular account be taken of postcoioniai criticism as a means of clarifying inherent power relations within and between religions and cultures.