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Sacred or Profane? Human Rights in Religious Education in Poland

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Religion, Education and Human Rights

Part of the book series: Religion and Human Rights ((REHU,volume 1))

Abstract

Religious education, understood as education about religion and seen as part of the general educational system, is perceived as a viable vehicle for promoting democratic values via spreading knowledge on religions and promoting mutual understanding, strengthening respect for religious freedom and diversity or civic values and norms. Does confessional religious education fulfil similar functions? This will be explored in the following, especially regarding confessional religious education in Poland. An analysis of the way human rights are understood and used in selected handbooks for religious education of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Pentecostal Churches sheds light on this topic.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In most European states, RE forms a part of the secondary school curriculum, with exemptions provided from religion classes or alternatives provided (Valutytė and Gailiūtė 2013: 48).

  2. 2.

    A full list of all registered churches and religious organisations is available on the website of the Ministry of Administration and Digitisation of Poland, at https://mac.gov.pl/en/projekty/fundusz-koscielny/relacje-panstwa-z-kosciolami-przydatne-informacje

  3. 3.

    A full list of analysed textbooks is available at the end of the text.

  4. 4.

    The analysed textbooks are marked by the acronyms referring in particular each set of textbooks to the particular church, being an institutional author: RC – Roman Catholic, OC – Orthodox, PC – Pentecostal. The number used with each acronym indicates the year of high school education (e.g. OC2 means that the analysis relates to the Orthodox textbook used in the second year of high school), while the number after the colon relates to the cited paragraph as it appears in our maxQDA2 data archive.

  5. 5.

    The author juxtaposes this position with the stance of liberation theology, of which he is critical, where political correctness was not present.

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  • RC1. (2002). Jestem świadkiem Chrystusa w Kościele. Podręcznik do religii dla I klasy liceum i technikum. ed. by Marek Z. WAM.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to wholeheartedly thank Ben Koschalka for the language editing of our text.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Sociology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

    Katarzyna Zielińska

  2. Institute of Political Science, Jesuit University Ignatianum, Kraków, Poland

    Marcin K. Zwierżdżyński

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  1. Katarzyna Zielińska
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Correspondence to Katarzyna Zielińska .

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  1. Department of Theology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Anders Sjöborg

  2. Institute of Practical Theology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Bayern, Germany

    Hans-Georg Ziebertz

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Zielińska, K., Zwierżdżyński, M.K. (2017). Sacred or Profane? Human Rights in Religious Education in Poland. 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_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54069-6_2

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