"Spiritual and Moral Education" in Russian Public Schools: Constructing a Neo-traditionalist Identity

Abstract

The article examines the problems of teaching religion in post-Soviet Russia public schools which has become an important part of the national educational politics since the 2000s. Teaching religion is implemented in a number of compulsory and optional school subjects united under the name of spiritual and moral education and based on the so called national traditional values , such as patriotism , traditional religions , family and so on. I analyze spiritual and moral education as conducive to creating a very specific state ideology, which can be characterized as neotraditionalist, the main components of which are great-power ambitions, ethno-nationalism and Russian Orthodoxy. I draw special attention to the problem of patriarchy, family, and gender roles as important components of the ideology of neotraditionalism. The objective of the article is to show how the ideological principles of neotraditionalism are embodied in methodological materials and textbooks used in the religion-related courses and what types of identities – civic, religious, and gender – they construct.