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In the contemporary world, increasing focus has been placed on cultural and ideological pluralism. Ever since the works of classical social scientists such as Émile Durkheim and Peter Berger, questions have been raised as to what factors hold societies together, given an increased cultural and ideological pluralism (Berger 1969). Due to modernisation and structural differentiation, as well as urbanisation, increased education levels, mediatisation and global streams of migration, today humans face more alternatives than ever when it comes to values and priorities. As for political and educational institutions, this pluralism from time to time is problematised. Policymakers and self-proclaimed guardians of new generations argue for the need for shared values or a critical discussion of what is sometimes framed as fundamental values (such as ‘British values’ in the United Kingdom, ‘värdegrund’ in Sweden, ‘trosopplæring’ reform in Norway or ‘Leitkultur’ in Germany).

One paramount example of this development in the domain of education is the European Toledo Guiding Principles, where educational specialists and policymakers have set up main motivations for the need for education and competence for dealing with an increased cultural and religious diversity in many European societies (OSCE 2007). Parallel to this development, there is also an increasing process of judicialisation in several western societies (Lind et al. 2016). It is not only legislators and policymakers that make use of legal instruments in order to handle many aspects of the above-mentioned cultural and ideological diversity. On the contrary, international and transnational legal instruments are adopted and sometimes intersect with regional and national levels. Poignant examples of this include how the International Convention of the Rights of the Child was ratified early on by countries such as Sweden and Norway, and these countries actively promote these principles in their foreign policies. Another example is how the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is referred to in jurisprudence on national or regional level, not seldom in relation to issues regarding freedom of expression , freedom of religion or protection against discrimination but with regard to several different grounds such as gender, ethnicity, age, language, religion and so on. In recent decades, individuals, organisations and even states have been going to court to settle disputes by means of laws that in one way or another are related to the shared public space in an increasingly cultural pluralist society. Even though a basic foundation for some of these battles is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , it is by no means beyond discussion what such declaration may mean for the realisation of a shared social life in contemporary societies. Not the least in terms of the domain in focus in this volume, namely, religion.

In order to be able to achieve the realisation of human rights, it is, speaking with the declaration from the UN International Conference on Human Rights in Vienna 1993, not only states but also individuals that have a moral responsibility to actively participate in the realisation of these human rights (United Nations 1993: 25). This point is crucial to the ongoing debate on human rights and democracy in culturally plural societies. If we agree that the language of human rights is a useful language for human social life, the legitimacy of these human rights depends on the extent to which the population at large agrees with the rights, inscribed in law, and lends them their support. When people identify with human rights, it is possible that a kind of human rights culture may develop. Spini and Doise (1998) have distinguished between a traditional view that the implementation of human rights principles is mainly the duty of governments. In other words, it is something for the states to bother with, and it is states that are to be blamed if some human rights are not realised. On the other hand, a more modern view finds that implementation of human rights to be a shared responsibility for the government and the individual members of the population. In other words, it is up to individuals, civil society and states to work alongside each other to achieve a human rights culture. For social scientists, theologians and educationalists, the so-called modern view is highly relevant, and they are challenged to support the academic and public discourse with substantial data on the attitudes of people and their practices regarding human rights. How people legitimise human rights is of great significance in order to enhance human rights in society.

Even if there is plenty of research on human rights and education (cf. Gerber 2017) and to some extent an increasing interest in academic work on religion and human rights, the editors of this volume found it worthwhile to bring together scholars with interests in the interrelated fields of education, religion and human rights. Most of the contributions in the present volume are result of an international workshop in Uppsala, Sweden held in March 2014. The theme of the workshop was Human Rights, Religion and Education and aimed to explore further research-based knowledge about the relation between religion, human rights and education, to identify relevant areas for future research and develop meaningful research questions. By bringing together scholars from a range of disciplines and national contexts around the Baltic Sea region, the purpose was to engage in furthering our scientific understanding of religion, human rights and education. Even if many contributions at the workshop, hosted by the Uppsala Religion and Society Research Centre (CRS), and sponsored by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ) dealt with compulsory or secondary school education in different contexts, higher education was also visible as a topic. A common theme was the multiplicity of secularisms in different national contexts. Indeed, providing rich cases, contributors all came with empirical and theoretical perspectives on how international trends of migration and cultural diversity, judicialisation of social and political processes and rapid religious and social changes come into play as societies find their way in an increasingly diverse context.

Throughout this volume, the concept Religious Education (or in brief RE) may connote the confessional Religious Education school subject and the model found in most German federal states or Poland or Finland, as well as the non-confessional Religious Education school subject and the model established in England and Wales as well as in Sweden.

In this volume, scholars study the interconnectedness between religion, education and human rights from an international perspective using an interdisciplinary approach. Some of the chapters in the present volume present case studies of how confessional or non-confessional Religious Education (RE) at schools in different societal contexts relate to the concept of universal human rights . The different cases from Poland, Belarus, Estonia, Norway and Finland display an intriguing array of problems that point to the role of religion in public sphere and show that historical contexts play important and different roles in these five cases. Two contributions deal with higher education, where one questions how the genealogy of human rights as a concept and as discourse is taught in human rights studies in Sweden, and one examines whether it can be claimed to be a human right to withdraw from certain educational activities and healthcare services when in clinical training to become a medical doctor or a midwife on the grounds of conscientious objections . Further, one chapter discerns the construction of the concept of religion in the Swedish Education Act, in relation to the Swedish constitution as well European legislation. In an empirical study comparing data from young people in six different countries in three continents, factors that explain attitudes towards three various kinds of human rights are investigated. It is argued that cultural context is more important than personality factors, which is a new result compared to previous studies.

In the chapter Sacred or Profane? Human Rights in Religious Education in Poland (Chap. 2) by Katarzyna Zielińska (Jagiellonian University in Krakow) and Marcin K Zwierżdżyński (Institute of Political Science, Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow), whether the context of confessional religious education in Poland promotes human rights is studied. Religious education, understood as education about religion and seen as part of the general educational system, is perceived, in their chapter, as a viable vehicle for promoting democratic values via spreading knowledge on religions and promoting mutual understanding, strengthening respect for religious freedom and diversity or civic values and norms. They question if confessional religious education fulfils similar functions, and they offer an analysis of the way human rights are understood and used in selected handbooks for religious education of Roman, Orthodox and Pentecostal Churches .

Olga Breskaya (University of Padova, Italy), in her chapter on Path of Belarusian Secularism: Public Debates on Religious Education (Chap. 3), presents in-depth description of the attempts to implement religious education in secondary schools in Belarus. The study reveals the mode of Belarusian secularism as the practice of civil rights application and historically grounded features of Church-state relationship. The sphere of tensions between realisation of individual civil rights and interests of parents and pupils, along with the legal regulations of secondary school system regarding the religious subjects in school curricula are examined using Alfred Stepan’s concept “twin tolerations ” and in the context of “multiple secularism ” paradigm. The author emphasises that “sufficient space from religion to function” is used by the Belarusian state for separation in one sense (prohibition of religious knowledge transmission) and integration in another (binding religion with state ideology). By prescribing for the Orthodox Church and other religious organisations particular roles in the secondary schools, the state replaces one function by the other and leaves no space for realisation of particular rights of its citizens. The absence of any kind of knowledge about religion in schools protected by the state is viewed as a challenge to the secularism principle per se.

In the chapter Examining Religious Education in Finland from a Human Rights Perspective (Chap. 4), Saila Poulter, Arniika Kuusisto, Mia Matilainen and Arto Kallioniemi (University of Helsinki) argue that Religious Education (RE) has a strong potential for promoting human rights. Consequently, they find it essential to consider the human rights perspective when pondering the aims, content and practical organisation of RE. Human rights are important from the perspective of religious minorities in particular, to consider the negotiations and clashes of values encountered by children and young people whose family socialisation differs significantly from the dominant value hegemony in the school social context. Authors argue that different interpretations of religious freedom and the right to religious education are important considerations for RE. They conclude that the complex interplay between ‘public’ and ‘private’ must be reconsidered when analysing human rights issues related to religion. Furthermore, they also assert that the framework of a child’s right to religion versus that of parents’ right to education, according to worldview must also be taken into consideration.

Olga Schihalejev and Ringo Ringvee (both University of Tartu) discuss how different models of learning religion promote respect for the right to freedom of religion or belief, in their chapter Silent religious minorities in schools of Estonia (Chap. 5). Three different models to teach religion are offered in Estonian schools: there are schools with no Religious Education, others have inclusive Religious Education and there are also religiously-oriented schools with a confessional approach to teaching religion. The article draws on data from research done in the framework of the REDCo project (the main project 2006–2009, replicative study in 2012) in Estonia. It studied 14–17-year-old students’ views about how they see religion in education. The samples of 1208 students from 21 schools in 2008 and 573 students from 15 schools in 2012 consist of students from different Estonian regions and different experiences of learning about religions. Their attitudes towards three questions were studied. First, how do young people evaluate the way schools teach them about religion? Second, how do students differ in their own attitudes about the need to respect a person who is of a different religion? Third, what do young people think about religious freedoms in the school context? The results of the study call for the need for discussions on practicing religious freedom in schools and policies about Religious Education and what may best contribute to a tolerant society.

Pål Ketil Botvar (KIFO, Institute for Church, Religion, and Worldview Research, Oslo) presents cases from Norway. In his chapter titled May children attend church services during school hours? (Chap. 6), he focused on the role of religion in the public sphere . This was done by focusing one of the topics in the media debate on religion, namely, church services for school children during school hours. In Norway, there is a long tradition for school children to attend church services in their local church before Christmas. This debate has flared up in the national newspapers each December in recent years, and can be seen as part of the general debate on public forms of religion. What are the attitudes of the population towards this particular tradition? Does the heated media discourse mirror the situation among the population in general? What factors contribute to explaining differences in attitudes? What role does religiosity and religious affiliation play in this respect? Is the tradition of church services for school children seen as a problem by religious or non-religious groups? Is there a change in how the two groups view the role of religion in school settings? After presenting the Norwegian situation and a local case, Botvar discusses these questions in relation to recently conducted survey data.

In the chapter Religion, Human Rights and Education. Do we need to change our way of teaching the history of human rights? (Chap. 7), Dan-Erik Andersson (Lund University) presents an argument regarding the teaching of the history of human rights. Textbooks on human rights often describe the history of human rights as a linear process where human rights rest on a rather unified history. In this history, the idea of enlightenment is a central component, leading up to the understanding of human rights, as we know them. In this article, it is argued that the general presentation of the history of human rights in some central textbooks is highly problematic, not least on the relation between religion and human rights. Even though a simplified narrative, to some extent, makes it easier to promote human rights, it is argued that instead of repeating this simplified and untruthful history, educators need to present history in its complexity. The chapter concludes that it in the long run it is a more successful way to promote human rights.

Victoria Enkvist (Uppsala University) offers a legal analysis of the regulation of religion in schools in Sweden. In her chapter Religion in school – a judicial perspective (Chap. 8), the point of departure is freedom of religion , a human right that is often described as a fundamental right in a democratic society. Though the actual meaning of this statement is not entirely clear from a legal point of view, it is obvious that religion and questions concerning law and religion and the relation between them sometimes gives rise to conflicts. Consequently, this relation is important to discuss in religious as well as secular societies. One important but complex question is how to define religion in different situations. The subject of the chapter is freedom of religion for pupils in the Swedish context. The point of departure is the Instruction of Government, but also case law from the European Court for Human Rights (ECHtR) , where the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is addressed. The diverging understandings of religion in various legal instruments are scrutinised in Enkvist’s analysis.

In his paper, How young Muslims and Christians structure Human Rights (Chap. 9), Hans-Georg Ziebertz (University of Würzburg) presents empirical findings about Muslim and Christian youth in Germany. He reminds that human rights are understood as universal , i.e. they are aimed to be valid all over the world, in fact not abbreviated and not subject to any particular cultural tradition. Recent history shows that states and religions continue to interpret rights, they evaluate rights and give them more and or less importance. Similar processes happen on the level of the individual. People identify “family resemblances” between some rights, while others are separated. This chapter offers insight how young Muslims and Christians in Germany structure and value human rights. The empirical situation is a challenge for human rights education when it comes to justify and defend the idea that all human rights are to be understood as egalitarian and indivisible.

Using the title The influence of the socio-cultural environment and personality on attitudes towards human rights (Chap. 10), Hans-Georg Ziebertz, Alexander Unser, Susanne Döhnert (all from University of Würzburg) and Anders Sjöborg (Uppsala University) offer an analysis from empirical data among young people on their attitudes towards human rights and religion. Starting out from two different previous studies, factors that explain young peoples’ attitudes towards human rights are examined. While a previous study showed that attitudes towards human rights are dependent on religion, values and the country of residence, another study showed that personality influences people’s attitudes towards human rights. The question about which is of more significance remains unanswered. The analysis reported in this chapter includes both socio-cultural attitudes and personality characteristics using data from six different countries in Europe, Asia and Africa, which made it possible to make a broad comparison of the influence of both socio-cultural contexts and personality. Our empirical findings confirm the hypothesis that, in all measurements, the explanatory relevance of the socio-cultural context is obvious and that the influence of personality is very low as far as a respondent’s attitudes towards human rights is concerned. The result, which is highly relevant to the field of education, is necessary contextualisation of human rights education.

In her chapter Conscientious objections in clinical health care education as a manifestation of religion (Chap. 11), Kavot Zillén (Uppsala University) offers a legal analysis of whether freedom of religion includes a right to conscientious objection or not and under which circumstances, when it concerns higher education and clinical training of future medical doctors, nurses and midwives. A vital part of healthcare students ’ education and medical preparation is to be exposed to variety of health-related clinical settings. The students need the clinical education in order to gain knowledge and clinical reasoning skills to provide effective and safe healthcare services. Consequently, clinical healthcare education is a critical component in delivering a competent and skilled future workforce. However, in some situations, students in their clinical training might refuse to participate in lawful healthcare and services that contradict their religion or beliefs, described here as conscientious objection in clinical healthcare education. While this is lawful under certain circumstances in some countries such as United Kingdom and Norway, this is not regulated in Sweden. In this chapter, the author discusses whether healthcare professionals and students can ‘opt-out’ of participating in certain health related services and educational activities by referring to the protection of freedom of religion in the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. As will be shown in the paper, conscientious objection in healthcare setting can in certain situations constitute a manifestation of religion and belief. Thus, the right to manifest and practice this freedom is not an absolute right and can be subject to limitations in accordance with international law . For that reason, it is concluded that the answer to the question whether students should be permitted to ‘opt out’ of educational requirements based on religious grounds depends upon the manner in which the conscientious objection affects the interest of others, such as patients, caregivers and other staff members. In this regard, educational healthcare institutions need to balance the right of conscientious objection, not only with the interests in having future healthcare professionals with proper educational training and required skills, but also with the legal and ethical responsibilities of the profession.

The contributions in this volume raise a number of questions for further reflection and research. Undoubtedly, the development of a human rights culture needs support from many sources in society. Among them, education is one of the most important sources. Public education is based on a well reflected curriculum and makes young people systematically familiar with basic values of a modern democratic society. Many people enjoy freedoms every day as naturally as they breathe. Unfortunately, these rights are not guaranteed. Throughout history, people have had to fight bitterly for certain rights before they gained general validity. The present world shows that this struggle must be fought again. Even in European societies that have long been understood as guardians of human rights, certain human rights are under pressure. Education in human rights always means to make young people familiar with the modern history of freedom, which has experienced ups and downs. The freedoms guaranteed by human rights needs the full support of the population. This includes, on the one hand, a substantial knowledge of rights and the realisation that rights do not serve individual interests but are valid for all people. This includes the motivation to stand up for human rights and the sensitivity to perceive violations of human rights. Human rights are based on values such as dignity , equality, liberty and justice, but at the same time human rights are positivised rights, expressed in the language of law. It is important to clarify in education that the rights are based on values but that they go beyond. It is the human rights law that guarantees that certain values are valid and can be protected by courts. Rights are more than wishful orientations; with rights, the modern liberal state guarantees the validity of core values for individuals.

The importance of an explicit concept of human rights education is reflected in the paper Good Practice in Human Rights Education in Schools: Giving Effect to Article 29 of the CRC (Chap. 12) by Paula Gerber (Monash University, Melbourne). The author reminds to the strong effort that the United Nations and many other international institutions and initiatives made since many years on encouraging nation states to provide human rights education. Despite all these activities, Paula Gerber concludes from empirical research, conducted in Melbourne (Australia) and Boston (US), that there is still a high degree of uncertainty what ‘human rights education’ means and how it should be implemented within schools. This chapter identifies six key elements of effective school-based human rights education.

Human rights are continuously under discussion. Therefore, one might say that the historical development of human rights is still in progress, and many powers take part in promoting or denying certain rights. Among these powers, there are governments, parties, interest groups, economics and religions. This book pays attention to the role of religion. Most religions express today their general agreement with human rights, but there are some exceptions, especially with regard to the equality of men and women, laws regarding discrimination because of sexual orientation, marriage and family law, freedom of expression , etc. Therefore, a religion is not per se a partner in defending human rights. Religions can be a source for the legitimation of rights, but it can also be the opposite. This ambivalence makes it important to avoid an uncritical affirmation of religion. Religions are still powerful institutions in societies, and some authorities think it would be better to neutralise religions in the public sphere and to see religion as a private matter. However, the world reflects that religion is a public issue. Therefore, religious education has to develop programmes that do not cover the ambivalence but develop concepts from the inner heart of the religion, which can work as a religious source for modern liberties. A key concept is the dignity of every person, given by the likeness of God, who determined for people to have freedom and to live in charity with his/her neighbours. The challenge of religious education is to show that religious convictions and universal principles of human rights have much in common. Religious education may neither be used to stabilise a certain religious habit concurrent to human rights, nor may religious education be instrumentalised by the state to stabilise a certain national culture. The challenge for education, including religious education, is to maintain a degree of independence with the aim of utilising all power to educate adolescents to become mature citizens who recognise that and understand why human rights are indispensable and why human rights may not be subordinated to any ideology, be it a religious or nationalistic one. This books draws attention to some areas that call for educational attention.