EASR 2011, Budapest
Religions and Multicultural Education for
Teachers: Principles of the CERME Project
Milan Fujda
Department for the Study of Religions
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Outline
● CERME - basic information
● Academic study of Religions and Multicultural education: key questions
● The aim of MCE according to principal curricular documents
● Study of Religions and MCE: Two crucial challenges
● Challenge 1: Religion as a key to understanding culture?
● Challenge 2: Does intellectual understanding promote positive moral
attitudes?
● The solution: Principles of CERME project
● Topics
● Reflections
CERME - basic information
● CERME - Centre for Religions and Multicultural Education
● A project realised by the Department for the Study of Religions,
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
● Cooperation: Museum of Roma Culture, Brno; Jewish Museum
Prague - Education Centre Brno
● The aim: to support ongoing curricular reform of the Czech primary
and secondary education by preparing teachers for teaching the
new „cross-disciplinary theme“ Multicultural Education. Through this
curricular reform MCE becomes the compulsory theme in the
primary and secondary education.
● Funding: European Social Fond, Ministry of Education of the Czech
Republic, South Moravian County
CERME web – home page
Academic study of Religions
and Multicultural education:
key questions
● Usability of secondary school education in
Religions - with reference to cultural
reconciliation - is usually presupposed, but
seldom critically analysed.
● This usability seems to be based on another
presumption: that particular religion is a key
to understand particular culture. This again
seems unjustified.
The aim of MCE according
to principal curricular
documents
● This aim is a basic starting point for the
CERME project.
● The bellow mentioned principal curricular
documents provide basic guidelines through
which Ministry of Education of CR enforces
the above mentioned curricular reform.
● These comprise documents from the
principal strategy of the curricular reform up
to guidelines (Framework Education
Programs) for the creation of School
Education Programs (created by schools
themselves)
National program of the
educational development
Long-term aims concerning
the development of the
system of education
Framework education
programs
School education
programs
Governmentlevel
Schoollevel(autonomy
withindefinedlimits)
The aim of MCE according
to principal curricular
documents
● Desired achievement of MCE according to principal curricular documents: ability to
comprehend cultural differences, attitudes of tolerance towards culturally different
people, prevention of social exclusion of minority groups, prevention of inter-ethnic
conflicts, better understanding of one's own culture and identity.
● Political formulation: securing the social cohesion, which is challenged by
● cultural and ethnic diversity as a result of global migration
● social disintegration caused by transformations of labour market and inequalities
related to labour opportunities
● Key transformation in the desired results of the education process on the level of
individual: from memorised knowledge towards knowledge along with intellectual skills
and "proper" attitudes.
● Key issue with reference to teachers: they know what they should do, but they were
not educated to do so, and they have no aids (textbooks, worksheets, additional
audiovisual material etc.) - CERME tries to partly facilitate this (textbook for teachers,
teaching DVD with additional material, a course for teachers [54 hours of seminars]).
Study of Religions and MCE:
Two crucial challenges
● Principal issue: Can the Academic Study of Religions with
its stock of knowledge - be helpful in promoting the
aims of MCE (as defined above)?
● Challenge 1: Can understanding of religion(s) as keys
to understanding culture(s) in educational process
produce results corresponding to the aims of MCE?
● Challenge 2: Does intellectual understanding of
religion(s)/culture(s) promote results corresponding to
the aims of MCE, i.e. positive moral attitudes?
Challenge 1: Religion as a
key to understanding
culture?
● Related to recent criticism of the concept of religion.
● The concept of religion presupposes the interconnections (even systematically or even
hierarchically organised) between human acts (spontaneous, habits, rituals), moral
attitudes/codes, ontological/metaphysical/sociological beliefs, "sacred texts", church
activities.
● Crucial trouble: these interconnections too often are empirically falsified (if one moves
from analysis of "sacred" texts towards ethnography), in form of systems these seem to
be extremely rare.
● Consequences: United systems of culture based on shared
ontological/metaphysical/sociological beliefs described in particular canonical texts as
an everyday lived reality are the same wishful thinking as the idea of logical relations
between textually based beliefs and attitudes and acts. Then, religion in above
mentioned sense cannot help anyhow to understand culture if culture means the shared
ways people think, act and relate to another people and the things of the world.
● In that case teaching anything like "world religions" is a good way to produce
stereotypes which cannot facilitate understanding of the behaviour and thinking of
culturally different people.
Challenge 2: Intellectual
understanding and positive
moral attitudes?
● Variation on the question by David Hume: Can we conclude from how things are the
statements concerning how things should be?
● For Hume it is logically impossible. From the perspective of the above mentioned lack of
interconnections between beliefs, acts and attitudes it seems socio-logically even more
impossible.
● An example: www.pravdaoislamu.cz, a web page "proving" that "the proper ideology of
Islam based on the Quran and the Sunna is a thread to democracy and freedom", that
terrorism and hatred is an expression of "exact following of the Prophet Muhammad and the
'godly' words of Quran".
● The web is not a result of the lack of knowledge but of the lack of the ability of sensitive
interpretation taking into account that few suras are not Quran, Quran is not Islam, few
commentaries on Sunna are not Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh); that interpretation vary with
the contexts and person, norms are as numerous as exceptions and excuses; that "Quran
may be perfect, but not the man" (Muslim show: Le mois sacré du Ramadan). That "jihad"
can provide justification for religious dialogue as well as merciful acts of Boddhisattvas can
provide justification for killing foes (Löhr 2002).
● Consequence: the trouble is not in the lack of knowledge but in the inability to identify and
neutralise stereotypes.
The solution: Principles of
CERME project
● The best way to neutralise stereotypes is to let them fail in everyday interaction.
● Challenge to this solution: social exclusion on many levels, spacial separation of
people categorised by group labels.
● The solution by CERME project:
● Promotion of integrated education and providing of basic guidelines towards it.
● Teaching about social processes related to identity formation, stereotyping, labelling, social
exclusion and its consequences - all in the context of understanding the state of contemporary
Western societies.
● Explaining these issues through the means of particular case studies: the history of religions
provides more than rich material.
● Providing basic skills for analysis of culture and society leading to ability to reflect the world in
the categories of social sciences - through teaching about negotiation and interaction by
mobilising the shared symbols and traditions, and social processes related to modernisation and
globalisation.
● Providing the historical knowledge concerning the formation of European identities and
explaining the role of Europe in contemporary world.
● Providing thus the skills to reflect on the education process with reference to the issues of equal
opportunities and social exclusion.
Identities in confrontation:
the textbook and the
teaching DVD
Topics
● Religion and culture from the perspective of social sciences
● Religions and cultures of Europe
● Jewish minority in Europe: field trip
● Religions and cultures of Asia (with an emphasis on colonialism
and the Asian European minorities)
● Religion and modern Europe
● Roma culture and the history of Roma people
● Educating the Roma students
● The destiny of Jews and the Roma during the Nazi occupation
● Religion and social identity: Representation and stereotyping
Teaching
DVD – the
chapter on
the Czech
Vietnamese
minority
Teaching DVD - exercises
Reflections
● Problems with reception by teachers.
● Problems with teachers' IT skills.
● Problems with authors and lecturers.
Centre for Religions and
Multicultural Education
Thank you for your attention.
Milan Fujda
milky@mail.muni.cz
www.cerme.cz