Empirical report of research on religious education in Italian Catholic schools (2017)

Abstract

The fourth national survey on the teaching of the Catholic religion in Italy (2015–16) was not limited to state schools, but as in the previous (2004–05) also involved Catholic equivalent schools. This study will focus on the results of the latter, even if the data will be examined in relation to the state subsystem. In summary, it can be said that in Italy the situation of the teaching of the Catholic religion is overall good, although the best trends are observed in the state school compared to the Catholic one that, however, has an undoubted improvement over time.

Keywords:

• Religious education in Italy
• religious education in Catholic schools
• religious education in state schools

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Guglielmo Malizia, a priest of the Salesian Congregation of Don Bosco, is an Emeritus Professor of sociology of education in the Faculty of Education of the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome. He was head of the Sociology of Education department, Dean of the Faculty of Education and Director of the Study Centre for Catholic Education of the Italian Bishops’ Conference.

Vittorio Pieroni, Researcher at the Salesian Association of Centres for Vocational Education.

Notes

1 Legge 27-5-1929, n. 810, art. 36.

2 Legge 25-3-1985, n. 121, art. 9.2.

3 Decreto legislativo 16-4-1994, n. 297, art. 1.2.

4 The OSReT (Osservatorio Socio-Religioso Triveneto) has selected among the 226 Italian Dioceses a sample of 22 more densely populated and urbanized (Battistella, Castegnaro, and Olivieri 2009, 63–69).

5 Code of Canon Law, Canon 804.

6 The answers of the teachers of the grade I secondary Schools are missing because of a mistake.