Learning about religions and non-religious worldviews : European research findings and ongoing policy development in the Council of Europe

One shift in the publicly funded education systems of many Western countries in recent years is the increased acceptance of studies of religious diversity, whether through forms of religious education, wider fields such as citizenship or intercultural education, or as a cross curricular theme. This development relates closely to the debate about religion in the public sphere. The events of 9/11 in the USA were a catalyst for bringing discussion of religion into public space (Jackson 2007). Even in France, with its firm separation of religion and state, traditional understandings of laïcité are being challenged by scholars and politicians (Willaime 2007) and, as recent research shows, by young people in schools who express a new understanding of laïcité including advocating the study of religions and beliefs in schools as an aid to "living together" (Massignon 2011, 2012)