2010 Plenary & Symposium Abstracts

PLENARY PAPER PRESENTERS Click on the name to go to the abstract below.

Tuesday 27th July: Kath Engebretson - Whose Freedom? Flexing the Boundaries of Religious Freedom in the Religiously Affiliated Educational Institution

Wednesday 28th July: Liam Gearon - The Role of Religion as a Freedom of Expression Campaign Issue in the History of English PEN
(Poets, Essayists, Novelists), 1923-2008

Thursday 29th July: Dzintra Iliško - The Quandary of Religious Freedom in a New Democracy in Latvia

Friday 30th July: Wolfram Weisse - Religious Education in Europe. Comparative Analysis on the Positions of Teenagers
with Regard to Religious Freedom and Interreligious Dialogue

SYMPOSIUM PAPER PRESENTERS Click on the name to go to the abstract below.

SYMPOSIUM No. 1 - Hidden Religiosity

SYMPOSIUM No. 2 - Holocaust Education

Reinhold Boschki - Education after Auschwitz in Israel, Germany and Switzerland : a comparative study

Zehavit Gross - Holocaust education in Jewish schools in Israel: Goals, dilemmas, challenges and ramifications

PLENARY PAPER ABSTRACTS Click on Top after any abstract to go back to the LIST OF PRESENTERS.

Religious Education policy is one of the most heavily contested areas of education in the UK. Despite its compulsory nature in all schools it is regularly traduced in the media as neither fit-for-purpose or relevant to the needs of a liberal democratic polity. With the challenge to the secularisation thesis posed by the resurgence in religious feeling, perhaps heightened but certainly not precipitated by the events of Sept 11th 2001, there is much interest in political circles as to the evolution and shape of a public liberal democratic response to religion. Can religious education mitigate the growth of sectarianism? Can it promote the development of good citizenship in a plural liberal democracy? What kind of purpose does it serve in a modern educational firmament? In 2006 the Economic and Social Science and Arts and Humanities Research Councils in the United Kingdom responded to the interesting challenges of the place of religion in the liberal democratic polity and decided to fund a new research programme on 'Religion and Society'. One major project led by Faculty at the University of Glasgow was established and funded to ask the question, 'Does religious education work?'

This paper will present some of the preliminary findings of this major research project the intention of which is to test the effectiveness of religious education as a social, cultural and pedagogical practice in three of the educational jurisdictions of the U.K. (i.e. England, Scotland and N. Ireland). As we suggest, religious education has, for the post-War period, enjoyed a privileged position in British education as a consequence of the belief that it offered an important source of moral and cultural cohesion-even as ties to traditional religious forms and practices loosened and as British society assumed simultaneously a more secular and a more multi-religious/cultural character.

James Conroy is Professor of Religious and Philosophical Education, and Dean of the Faculty of Education, University of Glasgow, Scotland.
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Kath Engebretson - Whose Freedom? Flexing the Boundaries of Religious Freedom in the Religiously Affiliated Educational Institution

In 2008 Australia’s Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) released a discussion paper entitled Freedom of Religion and Belief in the Twenty-first Century. It dealt with a range of issues related to religious freedom, and looked towards the potential development of an Australian Charter of Human Rights, in which the right to religious freedom would be formalized and protected.

In January 2009 the Catholic Bishops of Australia put a submission to the HREOC in which they argued that such a charter may in fact limit rather than enhance religious freedom. In stating their own principles of religious freedom law the Bishops asked: “Does the law comprehensibly protect the right of the Catholic Church, its institutions and agencies such as schools…..to employ their staff by reference to religious affiliation, and commitment to such intrinsically religious purposes as religious instruction, formation and pastoral care, but more widely for the purpose of supporting and promoting the relevant entity’s Catholic mission and identity?”.

The concerns of the Bishops raise interesting issues for the interplay between the right of all to religious freedom and the rights of the religiously affiliated educational institution. This paper explores the complexities of this interplay, not only in relation to the religious freedom of the institution itself, but also to those who work within it, those who seek to work within it, and those to whom its educational work is directed, children, young people and their families.

Kath Engebretson is an Associate Professor in the Australian Catholic University, St Patrick’s Campus, Victoria.
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Liam Gearon - The Role of Religion as a Freedom of Expression Campaign Issue in the History of English PEN (Poets, Essayists, Novelists), 1923-2008

If the European Enlightenment marginalized the political role of religion, current evidence shows a wide, persistent and renewed importance for religion in public life, with increased academic interest in political theology.

The events of 11 September 2001 have further heightened an often negatively perceived role of religion in world governance. Recent freedom of expression controversies have reinforced in public imagination religion’s, and specifically Islam's, role in the repression of freedom of expression, for example:
• 'Danish cartoons' in Jyllands-Posten
• Protests over Rushdie's knighthood
• 20th anniversary – fatwa against Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses
• Pope Benedict XVI's University of Regensburg address

Such perceptions highlight how little comparative work has been done to examine the range of religious responses across a wider variety of traditions to issues of freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief, and how little systematic focus upon the specific historic and contemporary role of religion in controversies over freedom of expression.

The plenary paper, reporting on British Academy funded research, examines the Role of Religion as a Freedom of Expression Campaign Issue in English PEN, 1923-2008, whose past presidents include John Galsworthy and H.G. Wells. Thus taking one leading non-government organization concerned with freedom of expression – English PEN (Poets, Essayists, Novelists) – the research develops our knowledge and understanding of the nature and extent of religion’s role in freedom of expression controversies across a significant period in modern history.

Based on interviews with two recent English PEN presidents and with literary archival work at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the research presents new knowledge on the role of religion in freedom of expression controversies across nearly nine decades of critical world history, from post-Revolutionary Russia and the rise of Nazism in Europe to the Cold War and up to the post-9/11 present.

Liam Gearon is Professor of Lifelong Learning and Participative Pedagogy, University of Plymouth, England.
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Dzintra Iliško - The Quandary of Religious Freedom in a New Democracy in Latvia

Society in Latvia has undergone tremendous changes in the past two decades. Latvia has changed from the monolitic Soviet worldview to a state of religious diversity. Similar to the other Eastern European countries, the transition into post-soviet Latvia is defined by the social disorder of the ideological reorientation to the West and the emergence of various global trends. The rapid disintegration of society and the particularization of identities led to a growing entropy in the social system of meaning and symbols. This article highlights the major tendencies in post-soviet Latvian society. The transition from atheistic ideology to renewed interest in religion, which shows a renewed interest in morality, norms and values. Later, this transition also contributed towards the decline of religious practice and the emergence of secularism over traditional religious metaphysics as a metanarrative.

The author shows the new role of religion that operates within the framework of diversity, coexisting with various narratives on a relatively equal footing. The article reveals some metaphors of rapid and stridant qualitative transformations occuring in Latvia, yet to be defined. The change from an atheist ideology to a relative religious freedom has changed the public perception of religion not only in a quantitative but also in a qualitative manner. The author describes the main trends and patterns of religious revival in post-soviet Latvia since 1991 and their impact on RE in schools in Latvia.

Wolfram Weisse - Religious Education in Europe. Comparative Analysis on the Positions of Teenagers with Regard to Religious Freedom and Interreligious Dialogue

In this lecture the focus is directed towards the question, how teenagers in Europe see the role of religion and belief in both, their personal life and the multicultural societies they are living in. Results of qualitative as well as quantitative European studies will be presented in a comparative analysis. One of the leading questions will be, how the youngsters themselves evaluate the importance of religion for the dialogue between people of different religions and cultures.

The main background for this lecture are the results of the international research project REDCo (Religion in Education. A Contribution to Dialogue of a factor of Conflict in transforming societies of European countries). This project addressed the question, how religions and values can contribute to dialogue or tension in Europe. REDCo was funded by the European commission for the period from March 2006 till March 2009. 8 European countries have been involved: Estonia, Russia, Norway, Germany, The Netherlands, France, England and Spain. Researchers from the humanities and the social sciences in these countries cooperated in a thematic and methodological approach in order to gain better insight into how European citizens of different religious, cultural and political backgrounds can live together and enter into dialogue of mutual respect and understanding. Empirical studies, targeting students in the 14-16-year age group, looked into their own perceptions of dialogue or conflict within the different national contexts.

The paper will combine the comparative analysis of the views of teenagers in Europe with an analysis of the REDCo-policy recommendations.

Wolfram Weisse is Professor of Religious Education and Ecumenical Theology, University of Hamburg, Germany.
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SYMPOSIUM PAPER ABSTRACTS Click on Top after any abstract to go back to the LIST OF PRESENTERS

SYMPOSIUM No. 1 - Hidden Religiosity

In his Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough Ludwig Wittgenstein sought to overturn the ‘modern’ conception of magic/religion as mistaken science. He claims that magico-religious practices do not have an instrumental rational character. But, instead of what we find in most neo-Wittgensteinian interpretations, neither does he state that magic/religion is about expressing one’s emotions. We propose that Wittgenstein is trying to think that humans are ‘ceremonial animals’ and that their lives, magic and/or religion are structured by ‘symbolic practices’. He therefore places known rites, traditional ones like baptism and more exotic ones like burning in effigy, alongside familiar actions which we ourselves might perform (kissing the name of your beloved, tearing to pieces the letters your former lover wrote to you) and he claims that al these actions are ‘primitive’, instinctive behaviour. There is no reasoning in it (‘We just act that way’): that is just the way our language-games are rooted and these are the ways our symbolic actions work.

These concepts are our starting points when searching for ‘hidden religiosity’. Here we find rites which are (all too) human, performative utterances which are both known and, in a way, beyond traditional religiosity. The recognition (of the structure of these actions) makes it possible to detect, and maybe value, forms of religiosity that exist outside the traditionally adhered concept of religiosity. Our proposition is that finding ‘hidden religiosity’ – in everyday life – also brings about the opportunity to take a new look (or perhaps an older, forgotten view) at known forms of religiosity.
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'Hidden in Music' denotes the idea that popular music, and in particular pop festivals as 'total social facts' (Marcel Mauss) may be considered as phenomena where expressions of new kinds of religiosity may be discovered (see Sylvan 2002). In my research I will start from current discussions about transformations of religion, however focus of the research will be conceptualizations and ideas as developed in the world of popular music (the so-called 'local narratives'). This implies fieldwork: 'participant observation' but also 'listening', discourse analysis, attempting to understand this world 'from the inside'. In this way I will try to put in perspective the emphasis on social change implied by theories of 'transformed religion', because this perspective forces the researcher 'to look back' (what religion was and how it changed).

In my approach this perspective remains important, however, focus will not be on 'how the past changed' but on creativity in the world of pop music. In this way I hope to be better prepared for 'the unexpected', stressed by Sylvan. To be able to pay attention to unconventional forms, not to be expected when starting from 'how it was' and 'how what was has been changed'. This approach will require particular attention to be paid to narrating the results, that is: to forms of ethnography. Recent developments in ethnographic experiments will be a main source of inspiration. Indeed, if there is religiosity hidden in popular music, it will be necessary to explore ways to transcend the conventional in research procedures, as well as in perspective and ways of writing.
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The Dutch weekly magazine Zin has held an essay competition on the subject Keeping or disposing. People in the age group of 55 and up were invited to send in a short essay on this topic. The maximum number of words was established at 1500 and the deadline for entering one’s contribution was set for July 1st 2009. The proclamation of the winner will take place somewhere in the middle of coming October.

After the conclusion of the competition these (the expectancy is +/- 1500) essays will be handed over to me for research purposes. I intend to analyze these documents on the use of religious language, formulating my research question as: In what kind of language is religiosity expressed?

I am interested in the manner in which people put their desire for transcendence into words, and I will probably find traces of change in the use of religious language within various age groups. I will test this hypothesis by comparing the reading of these essays with a set of interviews taken from 20 – 35 year old people. The focus of the entire project is religion and the course of life and hopefully I will be able to point out similarities or differences that exist between the participants in the essay competition as well as in the interviews.
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We will analyze ‘examples of good practice’ written by principals and young (mostly female) teachers working at the primary level, in an effort to distill the ‘hidden religiosity’ present in these writings. We see these ‘examples of good practice’ as exemplifying and constituting the school’s identity at the same time. In our contribution we analyze semi-structured interviews of principals (so called dialogical interviews), and written texts of teachers about ‘examples of good practice’ with regard to their school’s identity. The principals and teachers work at Christian primary schools in neglected areas, within a metropolitan Dutch context. Zooming in on the last decade (a decade including the 9/11 attacks, the murder of Theo van Gogh and, currently, the actions of Dutch right wing politician Geert Wilders) we explore to what extent principals and teachers allow themselves freedom of action in transforming religion as an update of the Christian tradition, a tradition the school formally adheres to. What kind of narratives do principals and teachers favor to present to their pupils, knowing the current context in which the pupil is either socialized in a secular Christian family context, or in a context imbued with Islam.

In the interviews of the principals as well as in the teachers’ texts, the encounter with another person - a colleague, a pupil or sometimes a parent - appears to be the central issue. We propose that in our days tradere of the Christian heritage has changed from telling biblical stories (knowing tradition) into the ‘practical wisdom’ of encountering another person (living tradition). Is this ‘hidden religiosity’, or should this ‘practical wisdom’ be interpreted as the new ‘religion’ of ‘whatever-ism’? How can we conceptualize tradere of religion in these days? And what is the impact on the future of religious education in primary schools in the Netherlands.
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In the Western so called post modern society secularization can be described as the disappearance of institutionalized forms of religion. The church seems not anymore ‘the place to be’ or the space where young people learn tradition in a meaningful way - according to their own perception. This seems to be true for the weekly Sunday meetings as well as for the catechetical praxis. At the same time we notice in the cultural expressions of youngsters an upheaval of use of traditional religious symbols as well as newly invented rituals that point to a kind of religiousness (in Dutch coined as ‘ietsisme’ – ‘whateverism’), for example in song texts, in theatre and last but not least in movies. New ‘religious literacy’ develops in an inductive way from everyday situations of immanent transcendency.

The permeation of these developments on the meaning of religious pedagogy as a science that attributes to the formation of students as citizens participating in the public domain forms the core of our presentation. We would therefore like to extent Grimmitt’s philosophy (learning in, about, from) with the concept of learning for religiosity. This means we believe that the starting point of learning is not substantiated in traditional religion, but rather in the symbolic praxis of humans, which not only precedes, but also is the actual foundation of every religious experience; at times hidden, at times visible for all to see. The contours of such an educational approach will be outlined.
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The context of the matter is based on the western, North-European situation in general, and on the Dutch situation in particular, the theoretical point being that developments within different contexts can be applied to this model as well. The focus will lie on the tension between secularization and post-modernity, and is applied to the disappearing of institutionalized forms of religion on the one hand, and the interest that exists for the transformation of religion on the other. In particular we look for those places where religion is not explicitly at stake, where it is hidden behind the curtains of popular culture, i.e. the modern media like Internet, where virtual communities like Facebook and Hyves replace church and mosk, where games like World of Warcraft give participants the feeling of creating a new universe; the world of the movies where god-like redeemers named Frodo, Neo and Luke Skywalker fight against evil; the world of popular music with his ‘saints’ named Jim Morrison, Madonna and Michael Jackson; the pop concerts (since Woodstock) and dance-events which replace the traditional rituals of pilgrimage and Holy Mass etc.

We will approach the term religion in these contexts from the vocabulary through which it is expressed; a vocabulary that at times is explicitly religious and takes words of ancient traditions and puts these in a new context. But it is also a vocabulary that encompasses a new form of language, one that is not explicitly religious, however, when placed in context, does take on religious meaning.
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SYMPOSIUM No. 2 - Holocaust Education

Reinhold Boschki - Education after Auschwitz in Israel, Germany and Switzerland : a comparative study

The paper provides an overview on Holocaust education in Germany in theory and practice as well as exemplary insights in special fields and problems.

Overview of current research status: Theodor W. Adorno’s famous 1966 radio speech “Education after Auschwitz” may be seen as a watershed in Holocaust education in Germany. His statement that every education today must be an education after Auschwitz has stimulated a vast amount of empirical research activities, particularly so since the 1970s.

Best practice in Holocaust education: This part focuses on successful activities of education after and about Auschwitz in different fields: classroom, outdoor projects in search of clues, educational programmes of memorial sites (e.g. former concentration or death camps).

Reasons for failure of Holocaust education: There are many examples of failed Holocaust education. Some of the reasons for this are found in the lack of preparation of learners, or in obstacles that are caused by individual or family biographies. Many young Germans show signs of feeling fed up with information on the Holocaust, clearly stating: “I can’t hear it any more!” – This part describes the findings of several empirical studies with young Germans.

The final part will show perspectives on Holocaust Education in future and relate the results with Holocaust Education in other countries.Top

Zehavit Gross - Holocaust education in Jewish schools in Israel: Goals, dilemmas, challenges and ramifications

Research has shown that the holocaust was the major component of Jewish identity (Herman, 1977; Farrago, 1989; Gross, 1999; Levi, 1987). Levy, Levinson and Katz (2004) posit that three main components determine an ethnic group identity: national-historical, religious-cultural and biological (p. 274). The holocaust is perceived as one of the most important components contributing to Israelis’ feelings of being Israeli and part of the Jewish people as well as to feelings of Jewish identity. Though the holocaust is considered a central event in Jewish history and holocaust education is mandatory in the state education system in Israel, relatively little research has been conducted to investigate the impact of this education (Golan, 1993; Fuhrer, 1989; Romi & Lev, 2006) and the field lacks systematic conceptualization.

This article attempts to organize existing knowledge through a meta-analysis of the foundations and basic premises of holocaust education in Israel based on the major literature in the area. I will first suggest a conceptual framework to organize the periodization of the attitudes toward the holocaust in general and toward holocaust education in particular. Next, I will describe holocaust education as it has taken place in Israel over the years, and finally, analyze the goals of holocaust education, its major dilemmas and main challenges.
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The main questions of the paper are: in what sense are young people currently informed and taught about the history and background of the Holocaust in Swiss schools, and what influence might this have on their understanding of Human rights? It is necessary to understand that there is neither a common curriculum for the whole of Switzerland but only very different cantonal programs of education, nor a school subject “political education”. Nevertheless the Holocaust is an issue in history, German and religious education lessons and a main object of Swiss state institutions and private foundations.

In an empirical study young pupils at secondary schools were asked about their knowledge of the Holocaust and the Third Reich, their understanding of Human rights as well as their disposition to engage in the struggle against the violation of Human rights, anti-semitism and rightwing extremism. These results are also connected to their understanding of national identity and their perception of the recent European history and the current challenges of Human rights and migration.

The background of the Swiss educational policies on Holocaust and Human rights education as well as the results of this empirical study, interpretations and perspectives for further research will be presented.
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This page last updated: 25/06/10 (Plenary session dates)