Religious education in French private schools: Categories, conflations, and inequities

ABSTRACT

France’s secular political culture, Catholic heritage, and tumultuous relationship with Islam have had a significant impact on 21st-century interpretations, perceptions, and politicisations of religious education in French society. Since religious education is relegated to the French private school system, it is decentralised, complex, and vastly plural – especially compared to France’s hyper-centralised public education. Religious education’s plurality and decentralisation have deepened with the recent expansion of Muslim and independent schooling. This article offers a comparative analysis of the variety of interpretations and manifestations of religious education across France’s private education system. Drawing upon extensive ethnographic fieldwork carried out in more than fifteen French private Muslim, Catholic, and secular schools intermittently from 2012 to 2020, I illustrate how Catholic school actors and supposedly ‘secular’ school actors imparting Christian culture can operate with significantly more freedom than their Muslim school counterparts. Despite significant variation in approaches to religious education across the system, religious education in Muslim schools is quite parallel to other schooling communities. Nonetheless, Muslim school actors face disproportionate barriers to equitable treatment. This discrimination is facilitated by the complexities and ambiguities of RE and is representative of efforts to restrict the imparting of Muslim culture(s) to youth in French schools.

KEYWORDS:

• Religious education
• Muslim schools
• France
• secularism
• private schooling
• education policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. For more on the contradictions of secularism in the French context see (Fernando 2014), and more broadly, see (Mahmood 2015).

2. There is a notable exception to this restriction on teaching religion in Alsace-Moselle, wherein the state has a legal obligation to provide religious education in public schools for the four officially recognized religions in the department: Catholicism, Lutheranism, Reformed Protestantism, and Judaism.

3. Estimate according to the Fédération nationale de l’enseignement privé musulman (FNEM; Le Monde, 21 October 2021).

4. Pseudonym.

5. Pseudonym.

6. Education into religion is often dedicated to one faith or tradition, is taught by people of that faith or tradition, and ‘often has the objective of enabling pupils to come to believe in the religion, or to strengthen their commitment to it’ (Jackson 2007, 29). Education from religion is a notion meant to inspire students to compare various ‘responses to religious and moral issues, so that they may develop their own views in a reflective way’ (Jackson 2007, 29).

7. Communautarisme literally translates to communitarianism or ‘communalism,’ but loosely connotes sectarianism.

8. Pseudonym.

9. Both organisations were created by Anne Coffinier, known for her ties to Traditionalist Catholicism.

10. See independent schooling site Ecoles-libres.fr.

11. Pseudonym.

12. Pseudonym.

13. Pseudonym.

14. Pseudonym.

15. Pseudonym.

16. Pseudonym.

17. I also visited one school under the purview of Christ the King, which contributed to my conclusions.

18. Exceptions can be made with the approval of local school authorities.

19. This school is now called ‘Avicenne’ but organised under the ‘School Group Al-Badr’.

20. I had been invited to and planned to visit this school in the Spring of 2020 but could not due to the Covid-19 global health pandemic.

21. See ‘Présentation du projet de loi confortant les principes républicains’ at www.gouvernement.fr.

22. See also ‘Muslim Schools Are Allies in France’s Fight against Radicalisation – Not the Cause,’ The Conversation, 29 December 2020.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation;Fulbright Association;Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame;

Notes on contributors

Carol Ferrara

Carol Ferrara is an anthropologist and assistant professor in the Marketing Communication Department at Emerson College. Her interdisciplinary work aims to improve our knowledge and understanding of the nexus between religious and cultural diversity, education, identity, and pluralism. Carol holds a PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from Boston University and a dual MA in Middle East, Islamic Studies and International Affairs from the American University in Paris.