Including or excluding religion and worldviews in schools? Finnish teachers’ and teacher students’ perceptions

ABSTRACT

How schools navigate between the demands presented by secularisation, and the increasing plurality of religious traditions has become a very topical issue in many European countries, including Finland, in recent decades. The question is both practical and philosophical by nature because the ways in which various beliefs and values are represented in school practices and teaching content profoundly concern the educational mission of the schools. However, despite the topicality of the issue, little attention has been given to teachers’ perceptions on whether public schools should, or should not, provide space for various religions and worldviews to become visible within the school life, and how schools should respond in practice to the perceived needs. In order to gain new knowledge on the topic, this study investigated Finnish teachers’ and university students’ (N = 181) perceptions of the representations of religions and worldviews, based on the perspectives of inclusion and exclusion. The statistical analysis revealed three factors titled as ‘Religiously responsive approach’, ‘Secularist approach’ and ‘Equal visibility approach’. According to the main findings, current and future educators show various degrees of inter-religious sensitivity but principally supported the equal visibility of various traditions, rather than favouring strongly inclusivist or exclusivist practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Religions
• worldviews
• secularisation
• teacher education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Finnish Ministry of Culture and Education’s grants for Teacher Education Development Projects 2017.

Notes on contributors

Pia-Maria Niemi

Pia-Maria Niemi, PhD, is a university lecturer and teacher educator in the field of Religious and Worldview Education in the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland. Her research interests focus on developing subject teacher training, intercultural and inter-worldview education and the sense of membership in schools. She also has a subject teacher qualification in the fields of religious education and psychology.

Anuleena Kimanen

Anuleena Kimanen, PhD, is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Helsinki, in the project ‘Developing intercultural and inter-worldview sensitivity in education and counselling’. Her research focuses on religious education, especially from pupils’ perspectives, and interfaith competencies.

Arto Kallioniemi

Arto Kallioniemi, Ph.D. is Professor in the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki. He has specialized in religious and worldview education. Furthermore, he is interested in issues related to inter-worldview dialogue and human rights. He has published several academic articles, books and also textbooks in religious education. Professor Kallioniemi holds the UNESCO Chair on Values, Dialogue and Human Rights.