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Silent Religious Minorities in Schools in Estonia

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Religion, Education and Human Rights

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

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Abstract

The article discusses how different models of learning religion promote respect for the right to freedom of religion or belief. Three different models of teaching religion are offered in Estonian schools: there are schools with no Religious Education, others have inclusive Religious Education and there are also religiously-oriented schools with a confessional approach to teaching religion. The article draws on data from research done in the framework of the REDCo project (the main project 2006–2009, replicative study in 2012) in Estonia. It studied 14–17-year-old students' views about how they see religion in education. The samples of 1,208 students from 21 schools in 2008 and 573 students from 15 schools in 2012 consist of students from different Estonian regions and with different experiences of learning about religions. Their attitudes towards three questions were studied. First, how do young people evaluate the way schools teach them about religion? Second, how do students differ in their own attitudes about the need to respect a person who is of a different religion? Third, what do young people think about religious freedoms in the school context? The results of the study call for discussion of practising religious freedom in schools and policies about Religious Education and what may best contribute to a tolerant society.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The results of the main study are published in various books (study on classroom interaction in ter Avest et al. 2009; teachers’ strategies for dealing with diversity in van der Want et al., 2009; qualitative study of young people’s views in Knauth et al., 2008; and the quantitative study in Valk et al., 2009; a book with a cross-section of examples from different stages of the project is Jackson, 2012, while Estonian research specifically is reported in Schihalejev, 2010). The results of the replicative quantitative study may be found in the Religious Education Journal of Australia in the various issues published in 2014 (Bertram-Troost et al. 2014).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Olga Schihalejev

  2. Comparative Religion, The Institute of Theology of the EELC, Tallinn, Estonia

    Ringo Ringvee

  3. Estonian Ministry of the Interior, Tallinn, Estonia

    Ringo Ringvee

Authors
  1. Olga Schihalejev
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  2. Ringo Ringvee
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Olga Schihalejev .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  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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Schihalejev, O., Ringvee, R. (2017). Silent Religious Minorities in Schools in Estonia. 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_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54069-6_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-54068-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-54069-6

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