In the Flow to Maximal Interreligious Citizenship Education

Overview & Synopsis

In the secular age religious education and citizenship education could and should be fruitfully combined. That is the present authors' view on current developments in schools aiming at the strengthening and the flourishing of students' personal religious identity. Presupposition is that religious identity needs to be interpreted as an integral part of the concept "personal identity development." A full conception of citizenship education may imply that religious education and development is part and parcel of citizenship education, and that it should form a structural and necessary element of citizenship education in all schools. This is combinable with a plea for a maximal interpretation of citizenship education. That view is fully compatible with interreligious education, too, with the aim of enabling students to develop their own point of view on matters of religion/worldview in the context of plurality via encounter and dialogue. An example of a good practice of the co-operation of schools with a different religious and/or worldview profile in the Netherlands might also be inspirational for forms of maximal interreligious citizenship education elsewhere in the world.