Abstract

This work addresses the theme of Japanese religions in order to rethink theories and practices pertaining to the field of Religious Education. Through an interdisciplinary framework that combines the study of religions, didactics and intercultural education, this book puts the case study of Religious Education in England in front of two ‘challenges’ in order to reveal hidden spots, tackle unquestioned assumptions and highlight problematic areas. These ‘challenges’, while focusing primarily on Japanese religions, are addressed within the wider contexts of other East Asian traditions and of the modern historical exchanges with the Euro-American societies. As result, a model for teaching Japanese and other East Asian religions is discussed and proposed in order to fruitfully engage issues such as orientalism, occidentalism, interculturality and critical thinking.

This chapter discusses the theoretical framework governing this work, built upon two disciplines: the Study of Religion\s and Education. The former is discussed by considering, on one hand, deconstructive approaches which criticize ‘religion’ for being a concept too tied to modern, Euro-centric contexts, on the other, approaches which acknowledge this criticism but nonetheless still consider ‘religion’ as a viable concept. The second discipline considered, Education, is discussed primarily in terms of how knowledge is translated into teaching and learning (Disciplinary Didactics and Didactic Transposition). In addition, Intercultural and Citizenship Education is proposed as the pedagogical horizon of reference of this work.

This chapter introduces the research questions of this work by defining in what terms the topic of Religious Education (RE) is approached, and why it is engaged through the study of religions, especially those of Japan and other East Asian regions. Briefly, this work discusses how the topic of Japanese and East Asian religions can help to critically rethink non-confessional Religious Education. The theoretical tools that will be applied are outlined and a synopsis of the chapters is offered.

This chapter aims to show and discuss how, through the topic of Japanese and East Asian religions, we can spot modern, Euro-centric and Christian-centric bias and blind spots in allegedly non-confessional Religious Education. The case-study is English RE, which is analyzed through close reading of the works of six authors who represent three main theoretical and methodological trends in English RE.