Peace Education and Religious Plurality


Book Description

Does religion bring peace or war? In order to discuss this fundamental question, it is essential to reflect upon religious education that shapes the views of religion among young generations. This book has developed from the special panel on "Religious Education and Peace" for the 19th World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR), the largest international organization in religious studies, which took place in Tokyo in March 2005. Its international contributors discuss the kinds of religious education used for peace education that is attempted or needed, in their respective societies faced with tensions and conflicts, not only between different religions but also between religion and secularism. This is the first book in the field that includes both Asian and Western writers (from Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Israel, Germany, Spain, UK and USA). It is an innovative attempt to build a bridge between the study of religion/religious education and peace education. This book was previously published as a special issue of British Journal of Religious Education




Peace Education and Religion: Perspectives, Pedagogy, Policies


Book Description

Whether formally incorporated into curriculum and teacher training or informally integrated in contexts such as state or NGO initiatives dealing with resolving social, ethnic, and religious conflicts, peace education is increasingly recognized as a critical component in addressing violence in contemporary plural societies. Peace education can constructively undertake a reframing of historical narratives while inspiring practical community activities. An important, but insufficiently studied and theorized aspect of peace education is the role of religion. The challenge to peace education in today’s globalized, diverse, mobile, and religiously pluralistic world is to be able to take both complex global and distinctive local situations into account. The contributions to this integrative collection of essays provide exactly these local and global perspectives on the state of peace education and its relationship to religion across pedagogy and curriculum, state policies, and activism within societies on the front lines of resolving internal conflicts, whether historical or recent, that often reflect aspects of religious identities.




Spirituality, Religion, and Peace Education


Book Description

Spirituality, Religion, and Peace Education attempts to deeply explore the universal and particular dimensions of education for inner and communal peace. This co-edited book contains fifteen chapters on world spiritual traditions, religions, and their connections and relevance to peacebuilding and peacemaking. This book examines the teachings and practices of Confucius, of Judaism, Islamic Sufism, Christianity, Quakerism, Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, and of Indigenous spirituality. Secondly, it explores teaching and learning processes rooted in self discovery, skill development, and contemplative practices for peace. Topics in various chapters include: the Buddhist practice of tonglen; an indigenous Hawaiian practice of Ho’oponopono for forgiveness and conflict resolution; pilgrimage and labyrinth walking for right action; Twelve Step Programs for peace; teaching from a religious/spiritual perspective; narrative inquiry, Daoism, and peace curriculum; Gandhi, deep ecology, and multicultural peace education in teacher education; peacemaking and spirituality in undergraduate courses; and wisdom-based learning in teacher education. Peace education practices stemming from wisdom traditions can promote stillness as well as enliven, awaken, and urge reconciliation, connection, wisdom cultivation, and transformation and change in both teachers and students in diverse educational contexts. In various chapters of this book, a critique of competition, consumerism, and materialism undergird the analysis. More than just a critique, some chapters provide both conceptual and practical clarity for deeper engagement in peaceful action and change in society. Cultural awareness and understanding are fostered through a focus on the positive aspects of wisdom traditions rather than the negative aspects and historical complexities of violence and conflict as result of religious hegemony.




Religious Education Research through a Community of Practice. Action Research and the Interpretive Approach


Book Description

This book brings together a group of teachers and teacher educators who have researched their own students’ learning in schools and universities as part of the EC funded REDCo Project. Combining the methods of action and practitioner research with the key concepts of Robert Jackson’s interpretive approach, the book illustrates the collaborative research of a group of professionals working together as a community of practice. • Part one sets out the key ideas of the interpretive approach and action research. • Part two reports case studies from individual researchers’ projects carried out in diverse though related settings: different schools, teacher education and local authority teacher training. • Part three traces the ideas of the ‘interpretive approach’, ‘action research’ and ‘community of practice’ across the individual studies. • Part four connects the research with wider themes and findings from the European Commission REDCo Project on religion, education, dialogue and conflict. The book is highly relevant to the work of teachers and teacher trainers in the field of religions and education, to researchers in this field, and to all interested in action research, practitioner research and communities of practice.




Which Religion, What Ideology?


Book Description

The book deals with the relationship of religion, ideology, violence and peace. The authors discuss these topics and related phenomena-such as religious (in)tolerance, religious pluralism, political terror and post-secular culture from different aspects (education, marriage, culture of memory, business ethics)-in different concrete societal contexts, including Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Taiwan, and more. Against this background of different academic disciplines, philosophy, theology, science of religion, sociology, intellectual history, psychology, science of education and legal science, this book offers an integral and inter-disciplinary insight into the nature, origins, function and connections of religion, ideology, violence, and peace. (Series: Theology East-West / Theologie Ost-West, Vol. 19) [Subject: Religious Studies, Sociology, Peace Studies]







Religion, Diversity and Conflict


Book Description

While religion can be a source of healing, peace, and reconciliation, it can also be a trigger, if not an underlying cause, for conflict between peoples of varying beliefs. With that awareness, the International Academy of Practical Theology convened its 2007 meeting around the theme of "Religion, Diversity, and Conflict." From the multiple seminars, lectures, and studies presented at that meeting, a selection was chosen for this book. Representing contributions from four continents, and drawing upon perspectives from African traditional religions, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, the book offers a rich introduction to the problems and promises of religion in dialogue with 21st-century diversity. Religion, Diversity and Conflict will serve as a veritable primer on the field of practical theology. (Series: International Practical Theology - Vol. 15)




Religious Education and the Challenge of Pluralism


Book Description

The essays in this volume offer a groundbreaking comparative analysis of religious education, and state policies towards religious education in seven different countries and in the European Union as a whole. They pose a crucial question: can religious education contribute to a shared public sphere and foster solidarity across different ethnic and religious communities? In many traditional societies and even in what are largely secular European societies, our place in creation, the meaning of good and evil, and the definition of the good life, virtue, and moral action, are all primarily addressed in religious terms. It is in fact hard to come to grips with these issues without recourse to religious language, traditions, and frames of reference. Yet, religious languages and identities divide as much as unite, and provide a site of contestation and strife as much as a sense of peace and belonging Not surprisingly, different countries approach religious education in dramatically different ways. Religious Education and the Challenge of Pluralism addresses a pervasive problem: how can religious education provide a framework of meaning, replete with its language of inclusion and community, without at the same time drawing borders and so excluding certain individuals and communities from its terms of collective membership and belonging? The authors offer in-depth analysis of such pluralistic countries as Bulgaria, Israel, Malaysia, and Turkey, as well as Cyprus - a country split along lines of ethno-religious difference. They also examine the connection between religious education and the terms of citizenship in the EU, France, and the USA, illuminating the challenges of educating our citizenry in an age of religious resurgence and global politics.




Public Theology, Religious Diversity, and Interreligious Learning


Book Description

This book describes the relationship of Christian Public Theology to other religions and their ways of contributing to the common good. It also promotes mutual learning processes in public education to strengthen the public role and responsibility of religions in pluralistic societies. This volume brings together not only public education and public theology, but also scholars from a variety of disciplines such as philosophy, cultural studies, and sociology, and from different parts of the world. By doing so, the book intends to widen the horizon and provide fresh impulses for public theology as well as the discourse on public religious education.




Interreligious Curriculum for Peace Education in Nigeria


Book Description

Nigeria, a country under a military regime for several years, transitioned to a civilian regime in May 1999. Since this change, violent conflicts between Christians and Muslims have continued to erupt. They constitute one of the gravest dangers facing Nigeria, a country with a population of 189 million people. What have Nigerian religious leaders done about this situation, especially in educational circles? Have they received formal educational training to understand the causes of this violence and especially how to provide alternatives for more peaceful relations within Nigeria? Does the current educational system in Nigeria provide the main ingredients for the promotion of a culture of peace? The absence and neglect of interreligious peace education as part of a peace education core program and the lack of an interreligious curriculum for peace education in the training of religious leaders are the two problems contributing towards the lack of effectiveness of religious leaders in promoting less violent and more peaceful living. The solution to the problem is proposed in this book entitled Interreligious Curriculum for Peace Education in Nigeria. The book develops a one-year curriculum, building on Yoruba, Islamic & Christian conceptions of peace, and teaches how to create safe, caring, spiritual, peaceful and successful interfaith relationships between all Nigerian religious communities. In the long term, the book helps to educate religious leaders to contribute, in themselves and with the help of their respective religious communities, to reducing the growing religious violence in Nigeria.