Education and Religion

Global Pressures, Local Responses

Keith Watson, William I. Ozanne

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135753399
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In most countries, whether secular or otherwise, education and religion are closely interlinked and no matter how hard the state tries, it can be very difficult to remove the ties between them. This book investigates the links between education, religion and politics.

The dominant feature in creating a common culture between peoples, each of which has its own distinct heritage and practices, is religion. Globalisation is leading to a redefinition of the state, community and local identity, this latter often perceived as resistance against the forces of unity, whether through culture, economic activity or language. Recent world events have focused attention on the interplay between education, religion and politics like never before. Even more pertinent is the fact that the involvement of politics in decisions about religion and education is often central and impossible to disentangle.

Education and Religion covers all the major religious traditions – Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh – and cites global examples throughout the world. It aims to understand the underlying complexities in the struggle to reconcile education, religion and politics in an informative and sensitive way.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Comparative Education.

Education, religion and politics: can they ever be disentangled?

Viewed from the perspective of Europe the answer to the question posed above would, until a few years ago, be a resounding ‘Yes’ because the agenda of the European Union has for many years been unashamedly secular, even atheistic. Even the Lisbon Treaty deliberately did not mention the religious heritage of the continent, even though this has been shaped over the centuries by religious rivalry and wars, as alluded to by Brock's paper in this volume. It is even more surprising, given the pleas from the Pope and many of Europe's Roman Catholic bishops, to rethink this position. Many would argue that this reveals that as far as the European enterprise is concerned religion and politics do not mix.

Yet it only goes to show how far Europe has moved away from its religious, especially Christian, heritage. As Tulasiewicz and Brock (1988, 9) observed: ‘The historical role of the Christian church in the development of European nations' political and education systems makes the Christian tradition a powerful agent in shaping cultural and national identity’.

Norman Davies (1997, 9), at the beginning of his masterly history of Europe, states that there can be no true understanding of European civilisation, or of Europe as an entity, without a recognition of, and an acknowledgement of, ‘the centrality of the Christian tradition, which subsumes within itself the legacy of Greece and Rome, and of Israel’. In support of this claim he draws upon a statement of T.S. Eliot (1948, 122–124):

The dominant feature in creating a common culture between peoples, each of which has its own distinct culture, is religion. …I am talking about the common tradition of Christianity which has made Europe what it is. … It is in Christianity that our arts have developed; it is in Christianity that the laws of Europe – until recently – have been rooted. It is against a background of Christianity that all our thought has significance. … I do not believe that the culture of Europe could survive the complete disappearance of the Christian Faith.

Many would think that the last sentence was very prescient because of the decline in morality and the confusion that lies at the heart of European politics.

Since the events of September 11 2001 in New York, however, it has become clear that politics, religion and education cannot be separated. Guven's paper highlights how political Islam has used, and is using, the issue of girls' and women's rights to wear the Islamic head dress/veil in schools and universities to challenge western values and societies. Most European countries with a sizeable Muslim minority can no longer ignore either the educational ramifications, or the political implications, of this movement. The sad thing is the lack of a historical understanding of Europe's engagement with Islam in the past, which is seen most dramatically in Serbia and Kosovo even now.

It is not only Europe and North America that has had a wake-up call, however. Since 2001 a spotlight has been turned on what is being taught in schools and madrassas in Islamic societies, particularly in Pakistan (McClure 2009) and the Middle East, as well as in the mosques in European countries (Rizvi 2004), because there is a recognition that Islam draws no distinction between religion, the state, politics or the community: they are all intertwined. It is not only Islam that has become the focus of attention. In India the role of a renewed strident and political Hindu nationalism has led to attacks on both Christians and Muslims. In the USA, Australia and the UK there has been a growth in Christian schools that have opted out of the state sector. There has also been a growth in the numbers of parents who have chosen to home-school their children for religious reasons. In the United Kingdom, especially, there has been a renewed interest in the role played by Church and faith-based schools because of their superiority in national examination results but also because of their supposedly better discipline and all-round development of their pupils (MacKenzie 1994; Green 2009a, 2009b). The place of religion in education, and the political ramifications of this, is, therefore, very much back on the agenda.

Even in the international aid agency community there is now a growing realisation that too much attention has been placed on economic development and targets with scant regard for local cultural and religious traditions (Belshaw, Calderisi and Sugden 2001; DfID 2002; Marshall and Keogh 2007). There is also a belated recognition that ‘a one model fits all’ approach is simply not sustainable and that greater use should be made of faith-based organisations working at the grassroots in many low-income developing countries. This is rightly highlighted by Marshall's introductory paper in this volume.

Moreover, the forces of globalisation are leading to a redefinition of both community and local identities, often seen as a force of resistance against the forces of unity, whether they are in culture, economic activity or language. Into this mix come different religious traditions, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, etc. The fundamentals of all the main world religions may be known but how these are interpreted in different countries, especially in the classroom, is often quite different and very much depends on the local contexts. Thus what is taught in Islamic education in Saudi Arabia or Egypt is very different from what is taught in Indonesia or Malaysia, for example, even though they are all predominantly Sunni Muslim countries. Similarly what is taught in the Catholic countries of Europe is somewhat different from what is taught in the Latin American countries. It was for these different reasons that the idea for this issue of Comparative Education came about.

In most of the world's countries, whether secular or not, education and religion are closely interlinked. Even in communist countries such as China and North Korea, where the national ideology is taught as a kind of religion, this contention still holds true.

From earliest times religious leaders were responsible for teaching religious beliefs to the people, and especially to the children. In early biblical times Moses was told to ‘Teach the people the decrees and laws [of God], and show them the way to live and the duties they are to perform’ (Exod. 18: 20) and in Deut. 4: 9 the Israelites were told to teach God's laws ‘to your children and to their children after them’. This was informal and non-formal education at first but we do know that the Jews were the first people to develop formal schooling for both boys and girls (Castle 1961). Similarly, in ancient India the Brahmin priests taught the people the Vedas and the exploits of the Hindu gods. Gradually schools attached to Hindu temples developed. A similar situation developed in the Buddhist countries such as Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma [Myanmar], and Cambodia, where not only reading, writing and memorisation were the order of the day but crafts such as carpentry, pottery, and silver and bronze moulding were taught (Watson 1973). In ancient China Confucianism permeated every aspect of society and led to the tradition of literacy which helped to unite the country since the civil servants, law-makers and provincial governors all had to pass a written examination that persisted until the early twentieth century. In fact learning was seen as the only means to develop and perfect an individual's morality and serve as the basis of an ideal and just society. As Smith (1991, 9) has observed:

So ingrained in the psychology of the Chinese is the value of education that it is often characterised as the true religion of the people…In the West, the foundation of civilisation, at least since the early Middle Ages, has been religion. In China, education has played this part in the people's moral and ethical lives and has continuously been the ballast for social evolution.

In China education and politics were never too far separated. In the Islamic world education largely consisted of an imam teaching a group of boys the Koran by memorisation. There might have been some writing taught but what was most important was that pupils should learn the verses of the Koran. Formal schooling did not appear until relatively recently.

The Greeks and Romans did develop formal schooling (Castle 1961) but it was not until the Romans embraced Christianity and as that faith spread across the Roman Empire that religion, education and politics gradually became entwined. Cathedral choir schools not only were created to produce good choristers and clergy but they were expected to teach literacy and numeracy for the public servants of the empire. The church was the founder of most formal education throughout Europe and later, via the missionary movement, in most of Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia. It was more than this, though, as Marshall points out in her paper. If the Millennium Development Goals are to be achieved in the developing world then religious leaders need to be involved at the different political levels, largely because they have the experience and knowledge of working with the poor in both rural and urban settings. These experiences are simply not available either to aid agency personnel or to government officials and politicians. In her thoughtful overview, from her position as a World Bank official adviser and as an academic, Katherine Marshall makes a powerful argument for closer involvement with faith leaders, not necessarily because of their religious beliefs but because of their positions and influence at the grass roots level. If they do become more involved in decision-making they will inevitably be entering the political arena.

Colin Brock gives an unusual slant on how the church, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, acquired political influence and how the siting of their religious and political centres was based on both geography and economics. It was from these centres that education spread throughout Europe. Keith Watson's overview of how Christianity has shaped education and is taught in schools in different countries moves on from this theme. He shows how Christianity has influenced education in many parts of the world and how far politicians have used, and misused, religion for their own ends. In the case of the latter it is little wonder, then, that writers such as Richard Dawkins (2006) get so vitriolic about the role played by the Church in education.

A more measured and perceptive approach regarding the role played by religion in the education of a country is taken by Yaakov Katz who, in his analysis of the educational scene in Israel highlights the tightrope that the government of Israel has to walk. Not only are there orthodox Jews demanding their own forms of schooling but there are more secular Jews, as well as Arabs living in Israel, who all need to be educated. The difficulties facing the Israeli government are how to use the education system to help ease ethnic tensions while, at the same time, how to use it to bring about a sense of equality and harmony. As any observer of the situation in Israel and the Middle East knows this is far from being an easy task. Katz's understanding of these underlying complexities is both informative and sensitive.

William Ozanne looks at a little known religious group, but one that has considerable influence economically in many parts of the world – the Sikhs. His analysis of the development of Sikhism as a movement inspired by a founder born a Hindu, his insights into their influence not only on economic development in India and elsewhere but also on social cohesion and community development, are thoughtful and perceptive. Ozanne provides an interesting account of how a religious movement has provided education outside of politics but how at the same time it has influenced politics in several different settings. The latter theme is one developed by Sangeeta Kamat and Biju Mathew. Their critique gives a very thoughtful and disturbing account of how militant Hindu groups in the USA hijacked the multicultural agenda in California to distort one aspect of the school curriculum in their favour. Because the California School Board was unfamiliar with the political undercurrents between the different Hindu factions they adopted what to them was the politically correct answer to how Hinduism should be portrayed in the school curriculum. By way of contrast the government of Kerala adopted a more secularist approach that challenged the religious views of the fundamentalists, whether Hindu or Muslim, to defuse a potentially explosive situation and produce a curriculum that both reflects the real situation in the state and will help children look at those of a different religious persuasion more sensitively and with greater understanding. In both situations the interplay between education, religion and politics was crucial.

A phenomenon that has impacted on all educational levels in Europe in recent years is that of whether or not Muslim girls, and teachers, should be allowed to wear the Islamic veil, in its different forms, in schools and universities. Ismail Guven shows how this development has come about because of aspects of globalisation and how it has become perceived as a challenge to the hegemony of the west. He also analyses in more depth the situation in Turkey, where it is a highly contentious political issue that directly challenges the secular constitutional settlement that has prevailed since Attaturk's reforms of the 1920s.

The final paper is a research note written from an African viewpoint, from a beneficiary of missionary education in Burkina Faso. Philippe Ouedraogo argues that the missionaries not only brought education to West Africa but that their legacy has been beneficial in so far as the education of girls and women is concerned. What is perhaps even more interesting is that, unlike the situation in many post-colonial states, the government of Burkina Faso is encouraging the involvement of the churches in developing education throughout the country, as the only hope of attaining the Millennium Development Goals in that country.

Despite the wide variety of the themes and the ways in which different authors have chosen to interpret their briefs, perhaps what stands out more than anything else in this special issue of Comparative Education is that religion and education is very much a live topic in many parts of the world. Even more pertinent is that in every situation looked at the politics of religion and the involvement of politics in decisions about religion and education are often central. The answer to the question posed at the beginning of this editorial, therefore, is a resounding ‘no’.

Keith Watson and William I. Ozanne
University of Reading Institute of Education
Archdiocese of Birmingham Commission for Inter-religious Dialogue, UK

References

Belshaw, D., R. Calderisi, and C. Sugden, eds. 2001. Faith in development: the World Bank and the Churches of Africa. Oxford: Regnum Publications and the World Bank.

Castle, E.B. 1961. Ancient education and today. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books.

Davies, N. 1997. Europe: A history London: Pimlico.

Dawkins, R. 2006. The God delusion. London: Bantam Press.

Department for International Development (DfID). 2002. The case for aid for the poorest countries. London: DFID Press Office.

Eliot, T.S. 1948. The European culture. In Notes towards the definition of culture. London: Faber and Faber.

Green, E. 2009a. An ethnographic study of a City Technology College with a Bible-based ethos. D.Phil. diss., University of Oxford.

Green, E. 2009b. Mapping the field: A review of the current research evidence on the spiritual impact of schools with a Christian ethos. London: Theos and Stapleford Centre.

Marshall, K., and L. Keogh. 2007. Mind, heart and soul in the fight against poverty. Washington DC: The World Bank.

McClure, K.R. 2009. Madrasas and Pakistan's education agenda: Western media misrepresentation and policy recommendations. International Journal of Educational Development 29, no. 4: 334–341.

MacKenzie, P. 1994. A critical analysis of the Christian School Movement in England and Wales. Ph.D....

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Education, religion and politics: can they ever be disentangled?
• 2. Education for All: where does religion come in?
• 3. Spatial dimensions of Christianity and education in Western European history, with legacies for the present
• 4. Contrasting policies towards (mainly) Christian education in different contexts
• 5. The state approach to Jewish and non-Jewish education in Israel
• 6. Religious identity and governmental education policies: the case of the Sikh community
• 7. Religion, education and the politics of recognition: a critique and a counter-proposal
• 8. Globalisation, Political Islam and the headscarf in education, with special reference to the Turkish educational system
• 9. The legacy of Christianity in West Africa, with special reference to Burkina Faso
• Index