Plurality and Pluralism in Religious Education

Abstract

A recent comparison of religious education in Germany and United States in the twentieth century shows that a preoccupation with modernity was central to many religious educators at the beginning of the century (Osmer & Schweitzer, 2003). Later, this liberal and optimistic view of culture and society met with criticism, and gradually the focus shifted towards the religious content of religious education. In the last half of the century, attention returned to the social and cultural context, and issues of secularisation became higher on the agenda in Western countries. There was also a concern about young people’s ‘drift’ away from traditional values, their decline in religious commitment and their lack of interest in organised religion (Skeie, 2002a). Much religious education came to focus on how to teach religion to the children and young people living in secularised societies. This resulted in new pedagogical approaches, as well as curriculum changes, in many countries. Researchers became more interested in the life-world and spirituality of children, partly with a developmental perspective, and partly with a growing interest in the content of children’s own philosophy of life as well as the socio-cultural context of their reflection process (Hartman, 1986; Hyde, 1990; Jackson & Nesbitt, 1993). In earlier social science, secularisation was often seen as a necessary result of modernisation, but by the 1960s this view had become debateable. Today both the concept and the theories about secularisation are contested, partly because many researchers employ a more global perspective. The tendency seems to be more towards investigating a process of ‘oscillation between secularisation and sacralisation’, and discussing ‘conceptions of religion and spirituality’ (Beckford, 2003, pp. 71–72). Parallel to this, religious education gradually discovered that young people were interested in religious questions, in spirituality and in ethical