Religious education after conflicts: promoting social cohesion or entrenching existing cleavages?

Abstract

This article considers initiatives to reform religious education after violent identity-based conflicts in Lebanon, Northern Ireland and Macedonia. The Taif Agreement, Belfast Agreement and Ohrid Agreement mapped extensive education reforms and established consociational power-sharing in the three jurisdictions, altering state identity and inter-communal hierarchies. The existing literature generates two hypotheses on the political function of religious education after violent conflicts: (a) religious education tends to entrench existing ethnic, national and political cleavages; or (b) religious education helps further mutual knowledge, integration and social cohesion after violent conflicts. This comparative research employs original interviews and documents to evaluate initiatives to reform religious education (as a curricular subject) in post-conflict Lebanon, Northern Ireland and Macedonia. It suggests that the first hypothesis reflects more accurately the political function of education: religious education helps entrench existing cleavages in these deeply divided societies, but this does not necessarily hamper short-term peace and political stability. in Education, Skopje: UNICEF.

The politicisation and securitisation of religious education in Greek–Cypriot schools

“…Fontana (2016) identifies two hypotheses on the political function of RE in conflict-affected societies. The first one is that RE tends to entrench existing ethnic, national and political cleavages; according to this hypothesis, the RE curriculum should be designed to nurture children’s sense of belonging to a particular ethnic, national and political community.…”

“…In general, the role of education in conflict-affected societies and its effectiveness in helping furthering peaceful coexistence are mediated by several factors such as the nature of conflict, the political environment, the educational approach followed and so on (Bar-Tal and Rosen, 2009). For example, the specific intertwining of ethnic, national, religious, or political identities within a conflict-affected society influences the political direction of RE, especially when a confessional approach is followed (Fontana, 2016). 2 Fontana thus suggests that if the political environment along with local and historical factors are not conducive to the development of mutual understanding, integration and peaceful coexistence in schools, then there is no doubt that there will be negative consequences such as the reiteration of sectarianism or the perpetuation of conflict.…”

“…Applying these ideas to pedagogical practices, the questions are if, how, and when (or when not) teachers engage students with issues of peace in the context of RE. As Fontana points out, RE ‘may contribute to peace and stability in more complex and indirect ways’ (Fontana, 2016: 827) than assumed or imagined, therefore, it is important to unravel the contextual factors that have implications for a deeper understanding of the contribution of RE to peace. The politicisation and securitisation of a sensitive subject such as RE, then, seems inevitable in conflict-affected societies; what needs to be explored empirically is how schools and teachers engage with (or not) peace and security issues and with what implications.…”

“…On the one hand, it is argued that by addressing peace and security issues, RE can make an important contribution towards challenging existing ethnic, national and political cleavages, especially when there is evidence that RE traditionally tends to entrench these cleavages such as in conflict-affected societies (Fontana, 2016). This argument suggests that the politicised and securitised framing of RE is rather inevitable (Jackson, 2015a, 2015b).…”

“…As shown in recent studies (Loukaidis and Zembylas, 2017; Fontana, 2016), the political function of RE in conflict-affected societies is unquestionable, as politics and religion are very much entangled in public and school life, whether one is willing to admit this or not. What is less clear though from research in this area is how the pedagogical and the political are aligned in RE, namely, how the intertwining of biographical, religious, historical and political factors within a conflict-affected society constitute a pedagogical and political imperative for RE to address issues of peace and security in the first place or to deliberately choose to avoid them.…”