Religious+Relationships+in+schools

Doctoral research project Faculty of Theology Doctoral Programme in Theology || ||  || Project number: Duration of the project: Onderzoek met eigen middelen [|Nederlands]   ||
 * || **Person in charge of the project: ** ||
 * [|POLLEFEYT DIDIER], member of research team [|Research Unit Pastoral Theology] ||
 * **Title: ** ||
 * Relgious (In)Tolerance and Religious Education in Nigeria: A Call for a Paradigm Shift ||
 * **Project summary: ** ||
 * Background of the Project In the last two decades Nigeria experienced events of tensions, violence and killings between Christians and Muslims. It is not unconnected with the complex nature of their interreligious and intercultural relationships, which have been that of religious fundamentalism and religious riots. This is partly because of either lack of understanding or misinterpretation of each other#s religious faith. Added to this is the fact that the dominant model of religious learning ordered by major Nigerian religions have been faith oriented and overwhelmed by religious indoctrination and dogma. Religious education was used to get people to embrace Christianity or Islam, rather, than being a process or formation for religious tolerance and dialogue. Consequently, most children and youths are educated within this framework and thus inclined to a blind faith. Religious intolerance is thus to a great extent the outcome of the way in which religious education is taught. It is therefore not surprising when we see children growing up very intolerant, exclusive, with lack of openness to dialogue. The February 2003 clash between Muslim and Christian students in some secondary schools in Oyo State over the wearing of the hijab Islamic veil could be cited as one example of the cases of intolerance in Nigeria. Hence, the two major religions in Nigeria (Christianity and Islam) have maintained their dominant influence on both the society and schools, allowing neither the room for dialogue, respect for religious diversity, interreligious learning, nor co-existence and collaboration. The Objectives of the Project The motivation of this project is drawn from the fact that religious education in Nigeria has been corrupted and complicated by religious indoctrination. For that reason, the aim of this project, therefore, is to address the crisis of religious intolerance by calling for a paradigm shift in religious education. Hence, for the convenience of discussion, we propose to adopt the hermeneutic-communicative model in religious education as the paradigm shift. This is because its method of religious learning not only denounces indoctrination and fundamentalism, but also opens a perspective through which different religious traditions, Christians and Muslims, and even members of African Religious Traditions, can meet, appreciate, relate, dialogue, understand, co-exist and cooperate with one another, without denying their own identity and particularity. Considering interreligious and intercultural schools, a hermeneutic communicative model can enable major religions in Nigeria to coexist with others with more openness and dialogical interactions. The hermeneutic-communicative model involves being continually bent on a sort of in-depth reading of reality, being attentive to the surrounding reality wherein religious or ideological questions, challenges and perceptions present themselves and are found. Once students are made religiously and ideologically aware of the questions and different interpretations that break open their implicit world-view, openness is created to illuminate and interpret these experiences of reality from their own or other religious or ideological frameworks. It consist in a rediscovering of religious education as a cross fertilization of knowledge by way of conversation, dialogue and even interaction by various religious communities with the hope, amidst others, of deepening one#s knowledge of her or his religion, and that of others, without necessarily aiming at conversion. For example, hermeneutical-communicative model approaches the Christian tradition as an open tradition, that is, not as a tradition that has been once and for all sealedoff but one in which one actively participates and learns to write out oneself. This paradigm shift we hope will embrace a more open model in religious learning in Nigeria, a model that will foster academic freedom, tolerance, respect for religious diversity, interreligious learning and dialogue. The hermeneutical-communicative model is popularly defended by the Leuven School. And for a more adequate adaptation to Nigerian experience of religious tradition relations, we have chosen to enrich our project with works of authors like Jacques Dupuis, H.-G. Ziebertz, Didier Pollefeyt, among others. This research aims at calling for a paradigm shift in religious education, in order to enable Nigerians to strive for a culture of tolerance and peace. It will therefore, clarify, describe and analyse the tensions in religious education between different religions in Nigerian schools. In the same way, the concept of tolerance will be analysed. On the basis of the analysis, it will challenge Nigerians schools to examine their dominant model of religious teaching as part of their failure to tolerate one another. The challenges vary from the understanding in matters of faith and beliefs between members of different religions in Nigeria, responses to pluralism, multi-cultural and multi-religious prospects and perspectives. We shall also examine the psychology of fundamentalism and its impact on religious intolerance. Our project also is destined to draw some materials from the Second Vatican Council Declaration on the Church#s Relation to non-Christian Religions (Cf. Nostra Aetate, nn. 1-2) by deepening its thought with the new understandings of the dynamics of religious relations. This will be implemented with a critical acceptance of Christian tradition to offer better contribution to fostering relations with members of other religions. My proposal therefore, sets me against those who would think that our proposed paradigm, though seen partly as a remedy to the increasing rate of religious intolerance in Nigeria is without tensions and challenges. Research Method The method we shall adopt in this study will be essentially critical, descriptive and analytical engagement on the sources available to us. We shall also include the hermeneutical interpretative approach, as we seek to situate our project within the Nigeria context. The approach will involve data analysis of relevant theological and religious materials concerning our subject. Whereby the articulation of threads of the learning process is a device to bring to light several facets of what is admittedly a complex process. Structure This research will be divided into four chapters. Chapter one will examine the history of Nigerian religious background and the Early missionary evangelisation. On this basis, the dominant paradigm for religious learning ordered by major Nigerian religions would be examined to demonstrate how these systems of education have promoted religious intolerance. Chapter two will discuss the dynamics of the crisis of religious intolerance in Nigeria. This chapter will examine the recent accounts of religious intolerance in the last decade. It will also take into account the cognisance of the historical, cultural, sociological and psychological, and ideological factors that may have led to religious intolerance in Nigeria. This chapter will demonstrate that, in spite of the different perspective of the tension as seen earlier, the bases of intolerance are misinterpretations of the other and the nature of religious education in Nigeria. Here we examine the need for a new paradigm that will open us to a culture of dialogue and peace. Chapter three will examine the paradigm shift in religious education. This chapter will strive to present the new insights in religious education by different thinkers, which solicit a shift from predominant models ordered by major religions in Nigeria, to a more open model in religious education and rethinking of the method of religious learning in the context of multi-religious Nigeria. Chapter four will aim at proposing a new paradigm in religious education as an adequate tool for achieving religious tolerance in Nigeria. The concern here will be to present how the new understanding can enable major Nigerian religions to transcend the ignorance of the other#s faith, fundamentalism, extremism, indoctrination, so that all may to come to leave in an atmosphere of peace and harmony. Planning Looking at the nature of this research, I propose the time schedule of the research per academic year as thus: - One year of writing the theoretical framework for the dissertation and attending the necessary courses. - 6 months will be for field research. - Two years of writing the remaining chapters and defending the dissertation. Hence the whole project is intended to take a maximum of three and a half. ||
 * **ph.D student : ** ||
 * [|Stella Nneji]
 * 3H070660**
 * 01.10.2006 - 01.10.2010**