This article investigates the normative logic and orientation of civic and religious education in seven countries in northern Europe. One main underlying argument is that public schooling must be generically regarded as a heavy functional contributor to the "soft" normative reproduction and validation of certain ethical and cultural…

Structural modelling offers an overall pattern of relationships; this paper looks at differences in students' attitude structures between England and Estonia. Where different coherent sets of beliefs exist in a national sample, factor analysis, which focuses on sets of responses which differ between groups, should be able to separate them out.…

This contribution shows how the author's interpretive approach to religious education was used as a theoretical and pedagogical stimulus and an empirical research tool by researchers in the European Commission Framework 6 REDCo (religion, education, dialogue, conflict) project. The origins and development of the interpretive approach, from its…

This paper focuses on teachers of secondary level religious education in England, Estonia, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Norway. It presents a study of the teachers' perceptions of and responses to the diversity within their classes, in relation to their professional role and their personal and professional biographies. The study employed…

The REDCo project addressed the question of how study of religions and values in schools could contribute to either dialogue or tension in Europe. Researchers in the humanities and social sciences co-operated in order to gain better insight into how European citizens of different religious, cultural and political backgrounds could enter into…

This paper discusses the limitations and potentials for dialogue in religious education (RE) classes on the basis of observations of Estonian RE lessons. I investigated how the way of asking questions contributes to the dialogue in the classroom. Additionally I investigated how students' readiness to engage in dialogue is influenced by others'…