Religious education after conflicts: promoting social cohesion or entrenching existing cleavages?

This article considers initiatives to reform religious education after violent identity-based conflicts in Lebanon, Northern Ireland and Macedonia. The Taif Agreement, the Belfast Agreement and the Ohrid Agreement mapped extensive education reforms and established consociational power-sharing in the...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inCompare Vol. 46; no. 5; pp. 811 - 831
Main Author Fontana, Giuditta
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Routledge 02.09.2016
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Agreements
Case Studies
Comparative Education
Conflict
Conflicts
Education reform
Educational Change
Ethnic identity
Foreign Countries
Hypothesis Testing
International Education
Lebanon
Macedonia
Northern Ireland
Peace
Politics of Education
power-sharing
Qualitative Research
Religious Education
Semi Structured Interviews
Social cohesion
Social Integration
Stability
Violence
Lebanon
United Kingdom (Northern Ireland)
Macedonia
United Kingdom > UK
Northern Ireland
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:This article considers initiatives to reform religious education after violent identity-based conflicts in Lebanon, Northern Ireland and Macedonia. The Taif Agreement, the Belfast Agreement and the Ohrid Agreement mapped extensive education reforms and established consociational power-sharing in the three jurisdictions, altering state identity and inter-communal hierarchies. The existing literature generates two hypotheses on the political function of religious education after violent conflicts: (1) religious education tends to entrench existing ethnic, national and political cleavages or (2) religious education helps further mutual knowledge, integration and social cohesion after violent conflicts. This comparative research employs original interviews and documents to evaluate initiatives to reform religious education (as a curricular subject) in post-conflict Lebanon, Northern Ireland and Macedonia. It suggests that the first hypothesis reflects more accurately the political function of education: religious education helps entrench existing cleavages in these deeply divided societies, but this does not necessarily hamper short-term peace and political stability.
ISSN:0305-7925
1469-3623
DOI:10.1080/03057925.2015.1099422