Non-Indoctrinatory Religious Education in Secular Cultures

Abstract

This article identifies different types of religious education, as different countries and cultures provide different rationales for the appearance or non-appearance of religion in the curriculum of their public schools. It examines the nature of indoctrination and four principal ways in which indoctrination operates. The possibility of secular indoctrination is identified, along with the extent to which one type of religious education might be conceived as an antidote against it. It concludes that education about religion(s), as one type of religious education, is entirely consistent with democratic education in the public square.

Notes

¹Edward VIII's words at the derelict Dowlais Iron and Steel Works, Wales, reported in the Western Mail newspaper, 18 November 1936.