Religious Education and the Challenges of Intercultural Communication

Abstract

In the province of Quebec, as in many western countries, the responsibility of the school system for preparing the future generation to face the difficult problems of adjustment to rapid technological changes has been at the centre of many discussions in the last few years. The virage technologique has become a catchword for many people in the educational field. However, there is another problem of our time which appears to have attracted much less attention until now: the adjustment to the growing cultural and ideological plurality of our societies. The virage interculturel has not yet become a catchword for educators but I believe that it needs to be taken much more seriously than it has been in the past.

In this paper, I would like to explain briefly some of the implications for religious education of what is now being called ‘intercultural education’. After having presented a definition of this concept, I will focus on one of the basic problems which will have to be clarified if religious education is to get seriously involved in the development of intercultural understanding and communication: the ‘problem of relativism’.

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Notes on contributors

Fernand Ouellet

Professor Fernand Ouellet teaches philosophy and sociology of religions at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Sherbrooke. His previous contribution to the BJRE appeared in our issue for Autumn 1983, and the present article was first delivered as a paper to the Fourth Session of the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values which met in Kemptville, Ontario, 26th June to 1st July 1984.