Christa Dommel
Gordon Mitchell (eds)
Religion Education
On the Boundaries between Study of Religions, Education and Theologies: Jürgen Lott and the Bremen Approach in International Perspective
2008, 239 p. 5,83 x 8,98 ins, pb.
24,80 € (D) 25,50 € (A) 42,60 SFr (CH) ISBN: 978-3-9811211-6-2
»The task of creating trust, mutual respect and co-operation between people holding many different viewpoints is an ambitious agenda for any society to contemplate but it is one to which RE can make a small but significant contribution. That contribution is dependent upon the quality of the teachers who are attracted to the challenge and to the quality of the training which they receive. In short, their readiness to be involved depends upon their own religious education. If, through this book and others, a greater understanding of this task can be achieved and a collaborative programme of research and development begun to accomplish it, this will be a significant tribute to the legacy that religious educators like Jürgen Lott have contributed so creatively to the field.«
Michael Grimmitt, University of Oxford, in this book
Demographic change influences school life in all sorts of ways, and requires new educational concepts. Religion Education – in German: Religionskunde – is facing this new challenge of Intercultural Education caused by increasing religious diversity in Europe. It is developing educational approaches for children and young people of various religious or non-religious backgrounds about how to communicate and deal with religion and religious difference. On the occasion of the 65th birthday of Jürgen Lott, professor for Religious Education in the Study of Religion faculty and Dean of Cultural Studies at Bremen University, he and some of his international colleagues present recent results of foundational research in this forward-looking field.
The contributions of prominent educationists, researchers in the Study of Religion and theologians, from Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Great Britain, Romania and South Africa gathered here are innovative. The approach of this book focuses on chances and risks of international educational research on religion within education. What is part of normality in a specific national context – religious education solely in one’s own religious tradition or, vice versa, the omission of any theological competence within secular approaches of RE for all children – turns out as anything but a matter of course in international comparison.
The same applies to meta-theoretical epistemologies as, for example, the question: What exactly are we talking about when speaking of religion?
The golden thread running through the book starts from the internationally compatible and integrative "Bremen approach" to RE, and which is based on interdisciplinary cooperation between secular Study of Religion, Education and various Theologies, for the benefit of children’s and young people’s education. It draws on this cooperation without blurring the boundaries between the participating disciplines. The exceptional legal and educational situation of Bremen RE, although in Germany rather marginalized, receives here special attention in the context of international debates.
With a preface by César Birzea, Chair of the Council of Europe Steering Committee of Education.
Christa Dommel >
(Dr. phil.), Religionswissenschaftlerin, Autorin und Herausgeberin.
Schwerpunkte in Forschung und Lehre: Religiöse Pluralität in der frühkindlichen Erziehung im internationalen Vergleich.
Gordon Mitchell >
(Dr. theol.) Professor für Religionspädagogik und internationale Theologie an der Universität Hamburg.
