Education

The Subarea “Education” is an international and interdisciplinary context for exploration of various aspects of religion and education. Each partner approaches this large sphere from a specific angle and offers unique expertise:

DE: (1) Focus on the Program for International Student Assessment in CEE educational system. We suppose that the organic relationships and cohesion among religious students can cause higher effectivity and reduce the students’ inequalities in cultural capital. This research is useful for non-religious students in school community too. (2) Focus on the new appearance of church owned (non-public, religious) HE which fulfills the educational and social tasks not fulfilled by public (state owned) HE. The aim of the project is to reveal new social functions of the church-owned (religious, non-public) HE in the CEE countries after the political transition. (3) Focus on the role of church organized courses in adult education in the frames of functional analysis. The CEE region serves as a gap-filler: It provides vocational training for those, who have instable employee status, offers competences necessary for everyday conflict- and self-management and strengthens local communities’ self supportive activities through the development of social capital.

IDIZ: Focus on the challenges of Religious Education in Compulsory School System. Confessional religious education has been introduced in primary and secondary schools in 1990, as an obligatory optional subject after changes taking place in transitional period in Croatia. It is attended by a majority of pupils. This paper will analyze curriculum of Catholic religious education for compulsory school focusing on 1) development of competencies of knowledge, skills and values, 2) development of intercultural competences and competencies for life in civic society, and 3) relation between educational, catechetic and pastoral goals. Comparison of the results (Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, and some Western European countries).

SZTE: Focus on the values taught by the Hungarian educational system. The artificial crush of the traditional Christian values before 1945 resulted in a serious crisis of values in the families and schools. The same process happened after the fall of the Communist Regime in 1989. Albeit the fake and artificial values of the time between 1945 and 1989 officially peterd out, several generations drifted into a crisis of values again. Naturally this rutted in the Hungarian public education, because large number of teachers were trained in the moral of the socialistic ideology. Religious schools are expections, as in these institutes continuous and firm based teaching values went on the mentioned decades. The schools basic functions are to teach values. The major question is, how does the social and political stucture of a given period frames and changes the values passed on by schools? Are there any fundamental values which are taught in every era? Is there any values system today which is being taught both in religious and public schools? If yes, which are these values? If no, what kind of deflection can be shown between the two types of teaching values in the two schools?

UV: Focus on the cultural and religious diversity as the central feature of the European identity.  We are interested to explore the possibilities that religious diversity opens up for individuals and society and in the context of school. What kind of awareness do the schools have in facing religious and cultural diversity? While a corresponding research already exists in the Western Europe, the proposed paper intends to develop an analogous research in the region of CEE. Starting from the premises, that plurality and difference contain in themselves a potential for development, one has to uncover this potential and, in order to do so, one has to take plurality and differences honestly and consider them not an obstacle, but as a value.

ULJ: Comparison of different ways of religious education in different European states, especially with Croatia. Religious education has been introduced in public schools in the most of Eastern and Central European countries. In Slovenia we still have no religious education in the public schools, and we do not have any private catholic schools at this level of education. We will analyze the political and pedagogical contexts which causes them and the consequences of no religious education in compulsory school system. After the analysis of the political and the pedagogical context of compulsory school education regarding religious dimension of life, in this paper we plan to analyze curriculum of catholic religious education for the secondary school regarding some relevant issues important for good class community and for democratic society: 1. Development of competencies of knowledge, skills and values, 2) Challenges in religious education of youth, 3) Development of intercultural competences; 4) Development of competencies for life in civic society, for peace and tolerance.

Ankica Marinović Bobinac, Institute for Social Research of Zagreb (IDIZ), Croatia

Anikó Zsolnai, University of Szeged, Hungary

Márta Lesznyák, University of Szeged, Hungary

Klára Tarkó, University of Szeged

Gabriella Pusztai and her research group (DE)

Martin Jäggle, Institute of Practical Theology (UV)

Stanko Gerjolg, University of Ljubljana, (ULJ)