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Religious pluralism in school curriculum: A dangerous idea or a necessity?

Few topics raise into relief the tensions and contradictions that haunt liberal democracies more than religious pluralism. For instance, the ironies of how core liberal values, like freedom of expression, run into conflict with commitments to religious pluralism were evident in the aftermath of the recent attacks on the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices. The killings of 12 staff members at the Parisian satirical publication drew widespread condemnation by defenders of free speech, while also fueling Islamophobia and another wave of repression on Muslim communities across Europe. Yet, thinking seriously about religion is important not only because of the gruesome violence being perpetrated in the name of or against religion, but also because a sizeable portion of the public has active religious practices and strong religious identifications. In recent years, this has become evident in the growing support for religion within public schools. In the United States, for example, schools in places like Ohio are eligible to receive public funds for a mentoring program on the condition that they connect with a faith-based organization (Governor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, 2014). In Turkey, the education council has recently proposed that religious education, which is already compulsory from age nine, be extended to include children as young as six (Anger at plans to boost religious teaching, 2014). Such moves toward including more religious teaching in public education, of course, have many critics. While some critics are somewhat sympathetic to some form of religious education, they raise concerns about the process by which some religions become the focus of attention over others and about how resources are distributed to support different kinds of religious education. For others, the entire idea of religious education within public schools undermines the kind of secularism required for liberal democracy and the espoused separation between church and state; and the problem of choosing which religions to teach or not to teach is itself a considerable threat. The greatest danger, they suspect, is that “without some basic agreement religiously, the entrance of religion into the public arena would seem to be a formula for open-ended conflict and possible anarchy” (Neuhaus, 2010, p. 79). Yet, as Neuhaus goes on to argue, a “democratically legitimate” public ethic cannot be established without engaging religion (p. 80), because religion is a primary source of values for many members of any society. As such, it follows that any defensible notion of public education in democratic societies must address how students’ religious beliefs and backgrounds should be incorporated into the curriculum, without fearing that doing so “might be interpreted as legitimating religious belief” (Dillon, 2003, p. 7). Dillon (2003) identifies three key reasons for paying attention to