Religious Education in Finland

Tuula Sakaranaho

doi:10.33356/temenos.9547

Abstract

In recent decades, the Finnish state has developed multicultural policies that aim at fostering the cultural identity of people coming to Finland from different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. This aim has had clear practical consequences in the Finnish state-supported schools, where, along with the Finnish and Swedish languages, pupils with different linguistic backgrounds now have the right to learn their native tongue within the frame of the school curriculum. In similar fashion, the state favours a multiple solution as regards religious education, so that pupils belonging to different religious communities have the right to “education in accordance with their own religion”. In addition, Ethics is taught to those pupils who are not members of any religious community. Consequently, several religions are today taught in Finnish schools, as well as secular Ethics. Nevertheless, the current system of religious education in Finland is ridden with contradictions. This article first offers an overview of the most recent developments, legal provisions and contents of religious education in state-supported schools in Finland. Next, it identifies some of the sore issues in the current system, and, finally, it reflects on the possible role of the Study of Religions in the field of religious education.

Highlights

In recent decades, the Finnish state has developed multicultural policies that aim at fostering the cultural identity of people coming to Finland from different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds
Religious education is an illuminating example of how complicated the issues involved in the negotiations of different interests are with regard to education
For pupils who do not attend any of the above-mentioned forms of religious or ethics education, the schools need to organise some other activity. (See Perusopetuslain muutoksen vaikutukset uskonnon ja elämänkatsomustiedon opetukseen sekä koulun toimintaan 2006.) in cases where a pupil is a member of more than one registered religious community, it is the parents who decide what kind of religious education the pupil will attend (Basic Education Act 1998, 13: 4)

Summary

Development of Religious Education in Finland

The history of Finland, located on the divide between Eastern and Western Christianity, has moulded the relations between church and state, 6 which in turn has had an impact on religious education in school. (Heininen & Heikkilä 2002, 199–202; Seppo 2003, 44.) The Finnish state recognised not one but two distinct national churches, a fact reflected in the provisions concerning religious education in school. In addition to the right to practice religion in public and private, the law granted, for the first time in Finland, the right not to belong to any religious community This right was acknowledged with respect to religious education in Finnish schools. Already by the 1920s the Finnish state acknowledged the right of pupils in state-supported schools to religious education, both for the religious majority and for minorities, alongside education in (secular) ethics From the start, it promoted a system of ‘separative religious education’ (Alberts 2007). These same principles are, with some modifications, still in force in Finland today

The Current Legal Framework

Religious Education Curricula

Teacher Education

Findings

Concluding Remarks