Affirming Diversity
The Challenge Posed by Religious Pluarlism: Responses by Italian Schools
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Carlo Macale
Currently, in Italy, there is a great debate about religious teaching in schools. In recent times the issue has become even more imminent after the increase of the immigration phenomenon in European countries. In the Italian schools the number of students with different cultural and religious backgrounds is increased and this has posed a significant intercultural educational issue within the aims of the Italian education system. In the past the debate around this topic was exclusively focused on the laicity of teaching; now, seen the presence in Italy of religious experiences that are different from Catholicism, the issue has gone from a “secular phase” to a “post-secular phase." The paper aims to describe the current situation of Italian schools about religious pluralism and it is organized in three parts: Brief analysis of European documents about the relation between education and religious pluralism and how Italian Education System has implemented these guidelines in the schools; The specific case of Catholic religious teaching in Italy and the challenge of pluralism religious; Presentation of first outcomes of my postdoctoral research on case study of some school that have addressed the theme of religious pluralism.
Mobilizing "God’s Army": Race, Religion and Cooperative Politics at the National Training School for Women and Girls
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Angela hornsby gutting Dr.
Absent from scholarly accounts of Nannie Helen Burroughs, a black Baptist women’s leader and race activist in the United States, is how she configured the Christian-based National Training School for Women and Girls to educate her students and the black masses about civil engagement, economic justice, and non-violent public agitation, ideals that were emblematic of existing and future Civil Rights Movement strategies. The School’s status as a meta institution--it housed a printing plant and economic cooperative --stretched its pedagogy, as premised on a “discourse of resistance,” beyond the physical borders of the school. Burroughs, who served as corresponding secretary and president of the Woman’s Auxiliary of the National Baptist Convention, utilized her curriculum, religious writings produced at the school, such as The Worker, along with an economic cooperative housed on the campus, to provide African-Americans communal lessons in race ideology and strategy while advocating for an elevated collectivist and feminist race consciousness. A foremother of Womanist theology, Burroughs’s public sector work was informed by revisions to Biblical scripture that empowered women and liberated them from restrictive roles in the church and society. Such theology held that men and women were equal in the eyes of God, and as such should play active roles in foreign, domestic fields and other applicable Baptist terrain. Burroughs’s religious-inspired activism thus demonstrates the nexus, rather than divergence, between her religious activity, educational philosophy/pedagogy, and communally-centered political protests for racial justice.
Identity Politics in India: The Case of Gujarat
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nahid Afrose Kabir
Muslims in India have lived alongside Hindus peacefully for many centuries. Yet in the contemporary period some politicians have orchestrated division for political ends, for example, during the Godhra-Gujarat riots in India in 2002 which caused many Muslim casualties. Critics alleged that the ruling party in Gujarat, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and its leader Chief Minister Narendra Modi (now the Prime Minister of India) were responsible for the Godhra-Gujarat riots. The BJP is influenced by India’s Hinduvta ideology, which demands the assertion of India’s national identity as a Hindu state. It defines Hinduism as a cultural construct rather than a religious one. As such, it demands that India’s minorities including Muslims adopt Hindu values. In the 2017 election in Gujarat, India’s Congress Party, which generally remains secular, embraced Hindu identity politics and won several BJP seats. In the framework of identity politics in India, where religion seems to dominate the social, economic and political spheres, this paper examines the position of Muslims in Gujarat. This paper is based on interviews with Muslims (aged 15 years and over) that I conducted in Ahmedabad, Gujarat in 2012. I will examine the social, economic and political issues that are impacting some Muslims in Gujarat. I conclude that, in the era of identity politics when Muslims form a voiceless minority, national and international policy makers should promulgate policies that would improve the social cohesion and inter-communal understanding of Muslims in India in general, and Gujarat in particular.
