Hopes and Fears: A South African Response to REDCo

Abstract

Identifying with the aims of the REDCo project, this response focuses on the South African context in which similar research might be conducted. Data is distilled from the report of the Pew Research Forum on Religion and Public Life, Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa, to point to four features of South African life—the importance of religion, the persistence of indigenous religion, the enduring divisions of race, and the significance of gender—that would have to be taken into consideration.

KEYWORDS:

• religion education
• religious tolerance
• South Africa

Notes

David Chidester, “Religion Education in South Africa: Teaching and Learning about Religion, Religions, and Religious Diversity,” British Journal of Religious Education, 25(4), (2003), 261–278.; “Global Citizenship, Cultural Citizenship, and World Religions in Religion Education,” in Robert Jackson, Ed., International Perspectives on Citizenship, Education, and Religious Diversity (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 31–50; “Religion Education and the Transformational State in South Africa,” Social Analysis: The International Journal of Cultural and Social Practice, 50(3), (2006), 61–83; “Unity in Diversity: Religion Education and Public Pedagogy in South Africa,” Numen: International Review for the History of Religions, 55, (2008), 272–299.

Department of Education of South Africa. 2003. National Policy on Religion and Education, 12 September 2003. http://www.info.gov.za/gazette/notices/2003/25459.pdf, accessed 18 January 2006.

René Ferguson and Cornelia Roux, “Teacher Participation in Facilitating Beliefs and Values in Life Orientation Programmes: Reflections on a Research Project,” South African Journal of Education, 23(4), (2003), 272–275; “Teaching and Learning about Religions in Schools: Responses from a Participation Action Research Project,” Journal for the Study of Religion, 17(2), (2004), 5–23; Cornelia Roux and Petro du Preez, “Clarifying Students' Perceptions of Different Belief Systems and Values,” South African Journal for Higher Education, 30(2), (2006), 514–531.

Cornelia Roux, Petro du Preez, and René Ferguson, “Understanding Religious Education through Human Rights Values,” in Wilna A. J. Meijer, Siebren Miedema, and Alma Lanser-Van der Velde, eds., Religious Education in a World of Religious Diversity (Münster: Waxmann, 2009): 67–84.

Luis Lugo, et al., Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa (Washington, DC: Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2010), http://features.pewforum.org/africa/, accessed 10 May 2010.

Lugo, Tolerance and Tension, pp. 37, 40, 100, 103.

Lugo, Tolerance and Tension, p. 90.

Lugo, Tolerance and Tension, pp. 11, 285.

Lugo, Tolerance and Tension, pp. 5, 160.

Lugo, Tolerance and Tension, pp. 180, 223.

Robert Jackson, Religious Education: An Interpretive Approach (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1997); Rethinking Religious Education and Plurality (London: Routledge, 2004).

Jan Hofmeyr, SA Reconciliation Barometer 2008: Eighth Round Media Briefing (Cape Town, Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, 2008), pp. 14–15, http://www.ijr.org.za/politicalanalysis/reconcbar/sarb-media-report-final.pdf, accessed 12 May 2010.

See, for example, Oduntan Jawoniyi, “Rethinking the Religious Education Curricula in Nigerian Schools,” Journal for the Study of Religion, 22(2), (2009), 63–86; Yonah Hisbon Matemba, “Multi-faith Religious Education in Botswana,” Religious Education, 100(4), (2005), 404–424; Matemba, “Religious Education in the Context of Sub-Saharan Africa: The Malawian Example,” British Journal of Religious Education, 31(1), (2009), 41–51; Lovemore Ndlovu, Religious Education in Zimbabwe Secondary Schools: The Quest for a Multi-Faith Approach (Master of Education Thesis, University of South Africa, 2004).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Chidester

At the University of Cape Town, David Chidester is Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Institute for Comparative Religion in Southern Africa.

Federico G. Settler

Federico G. Settler is a postdoctoral fellow, specializing in religion education and postcolonial studies of religion in the Institute for Comparative Religion in Southern Africa.