Abstract
Religious Education (hereinafter RE) has a strong potential for promoting human rights. Consequently, it is essential to consider the human rights perspective when pondering the aims, content, and practical organisation of RE. Additionally, the issue of human rights is vital in considerations related to the place of religion in the public sphere, such as the various contexts of institutional education: kindergartens, preschools and schools. Moreover, it is important from the perspective of religious minorities in particular to consider the negotiations and clashes of values encountered by children and young people whose family socialisation differs significantly from the dominant value hegemony in the social context of schools (Kuusisto 2010, 2011a). Different interpretations of religious freedom and the right to religious education are important considerations for RE. However, the complex interplay of ‘public’ and ‘private’ must be reconsidered when analysing human rights issues related to religion. Furthermore, the framework of a child’s right to religion versus that of parents’ right to education according to worldview must be scrutinised.
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Proclaimed by General Assembly Resolution 1386(XIV) of 20 November 1959. This was the basis of the Convention of the Rights of the Child adopted by the UN General Assembly, 30 years later on 20 November 1989. The Convention on the Rights of the Child entered into force on 2 September 1990.
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The Toledo Guiding Principles were issued by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2007. They were developed by an inter-disciplinary team that comprised international human rights lawyers, educators and academics. The Toledo Guiding Principles is a handbook that offers guidance on preparing curricula for teaching about religions and beliefs, and it is based on human rights and in particular the right to freedom of conscience. (Santoro 2008, 83).
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Religion in Education. A contribution to Dialogue or a factor of Conflict in transforming societies of European Countries (REDCo). See: Weisse, W. (2010). REDCo: A European Research Project on Religion in Education. Religion & Education, 37 (3), 187–202. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15507394.2010.513937
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Poulter, S., Kuusisto, A., Malama, M., Kallioniemi, A. (2017). Examining Religious Education in Finland from a Human Rights Perspective. In: Sjöborg, A., Ziebertz, HG. (eds) Religion, Education and Human Rights. Religion and Human Rights, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54069-6_4
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