Abstract
In Canada, education is a matter of provincial and territorial jurisdiction so that, while there is a federal constitutional framework, there is not a national system of education. This has had implications for regulation and protection of religion and religious diversity in and by education systems. This chapter examines the resulting regulatory variety but does so in the context of some of the conceptual ambiguities and creative social tensions inherent in the intersection of religion and education. Readers are encouraged to become critically aware of their own positionality in relationship with issues related to this dynamic and complex area of social engagement. This is an important topic because both education and religion are areas of social practice about which most people have strong opinions and feelings. Education represents huge investments of social and financial capital and regularly appears on political platforms during elections as an important measure of commitment to social equality. Education, in other words, carries a lot of freight and debates about education seem to generate a great deal of energy. This chapter is a contribution to an ongoing social conversation, encouraging readers to reconsider issues about which there is considerable accepted but often unexamined common sense.
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Notes
- 1.
You can also go to the Religion and Diversity website (http://religionanddiversity.ca/) for links to more detailed discussions and debates on issues relating to religion in society and, more specifically, religion and education.
- 2.
“Faith-based schools” refers to those schools for whom religion, such as Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, etc., forms the central tenet of their identity. However, this term is somewhat arbitrary since all schools are “faith-based” in two ways. First, the actual outcomes of any educational process are impossible to predict with certainty, so all schools operate on the basis of “faith” that their educational process will lead to a preferred outcome in terms of a graduate profile. Second, all educational endeavours operate on the basis of a more or less clearly defined set of “first principles” forming the imaginative screen for the social and educational activities that occur within them. There are two further complicating factors. The first is that, although in most jurisdictions, they are an important component in the delivery of education, there is a great deal of regulatory diversity in Canada and around the world for faith-based schools. Second, there is a great deal of diversity among faith-based schools, including within particular categories, so that there are many different kinds of Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Sikh etc. schools. In this chapter, the use of the term “faith-based” is a provisional matter of convenience.
- 3.
See McGuire, M. (2008) on a more detailed examination of “lived religion”. It was interesting to see the teachers use the term without reference to McGuire’s ground-breaking work.
- 4.
Abrahamic traditions include Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions, each of which has its own fascinating diversity.
- 5.
“Indoctrination” in its popular usage is associated with “brainwashing” and the practice of depriving learners of access to information and opinions which challenge the achievement of a particular outcome. It is often associated with religion, as in “religious indoctrination” or with the practices of non-liberal state educational strategies designed to produce unthinking adherents. It is often contrasted with education, identified with the free and critical thought delivered by liberal and secular educational jurisdictions. However, there is a body of literature suggesting that these are constructions for the purposes of privileging some forms of education while marginalizing others.
- 6.
Social capital does not have one definition but refers to social relationships and networks based on trust as an important factor in society. For a quick introduction see “Definitions of Social Capital” by Social Capital Research < http://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/literature/definition.html>
- 7.
Winnifred Sullivan describes “protestantism” in this secularized sense, saying, “Religion –‘true’ religion some would say on this modern protestant reading, came to be understood as being private, voluntary, individual, textual and believed”. In contrast, ‘public, coercive, communal, oral and enacted religion … was seen to be ‘false’ … iconically represented historically in the United States, for the most part by the Roman Catholic Church (and by Islam today) was and perhaps still is, the religion of most of the world” (2005, p.8).
- 8.
The 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee is an iconic example of a conflict which probably did not need to happen. “The Creationists” by R.L. Numbers traces the hardening ideological binary between religion and science, providing evidence that creationism, in an ideological sense, is contested within religious communities. Creationism in the twenty-first century continues to be associated with a kind of “culture war” in which science has become a battleground obscuring more nuanced and productive engagement.
- 9.
Readers could consult a number of sources starting with Science and Religion: Reconcilable Differences <http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/science_religion>; Science and Religion by Albert Einstein <http://www.westminster.edu/staff/nak/courses/Einstein%20Sci%20%26%20Rel.pdf>; What is the Relation between Science and Religion? by William Lane Craig <http://www.reasonablefaith.org/what-is-the-relation-between-science-and-religion>. Each article has further references. These are included in Sect. 7 to give the reader a sense of the diversity of the debates and not because they reflect the opinion of the author.
- 10.
- 11.
Cardus, a Christian research think tank, has done extensive research on issues relating to choice in education. It does not use the term “opting out” but their research sheds light on why people choose educational alternatives and on learning outcomes in an array of educational environments (https://www.cardus.ca/research/education/). See also Arai, B. (2000).
- 12.
“Opting out” as a way of dealing with offensive classroom practices was rejected by courts in Zylberberg (1988) and Elgin County (1990) in decisions which declared school prayers and religious instruction in Ontario public schools to be a violation of students ss 2 and 15 rights and a source of social and psychological harm. However, opting out has continued to be protected in Ontario and in other provinces. The right to opt out has been a theme in challenges to Quebec’s implementation of the ERC.
- 13.
- 14.
- 15.
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Van Arragon, L. (2018). Religion and Education: The Story of a Conflicted Canadian Partnership. In: Holtmann, C. (eds) Exploring Religion and Diversity in Canada. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78232-4_5
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