The organization of public schools along religious lines and the end of the Swiss confessional states

Abstract

This contribution addresses the legal and pedagogical aspects of religious confession in Swiss public schools. More precisely, it examines how controversies over legal and pedagogical issues in Switzerland have changed over time. At the beginning of the 19th century Switzerland saw itself as a union of individual confessional states (cantons); a small number of non-denominational villages neighbored the otherwise Catholic and Evangelical-Reform territories. Consequently, confessional organization of individual cantons was based on the principle that national well-being was linked to the unity of a religious confession and public morality was dependent upon an absolute concept of truth to which the people were bound. In this scenario public schools naturally played an important role: a religiously- and morally-directed education was designed to prepare individuals to live not only as Christians and moral human beings, but also as citizens. This self-image as a confessional state, as well as the concept of public education with which it was connected, were called into serious question in the 19th century. Subsequent controversies yielded a legal understanding of the state and public institutions, amongst which were those requiring a "neutral" organization. This paper also puts forward that it is historically demonstrable that the declared neutrality of state institutions regarding the question of faith was not simply an idea imposed by a particular political group. We furthermore argue that the constitutional principle of neutrality more accurately represents a sort of stalemate rather than the result of public discussions. The few participants of the discussions which did take place relied each on his own conception of truth and thereafter came to regret their blindness. The second thesis of this paper is therefore that the de-confessionalization of Swiss public schools not only took place, but also that public education and its confessional character (i.e., its specifically religious organization and basic underlying pedagogical concepts) were themselves objects of fierce controversies which accelerated this process of state institution de-confessionalization. © Cairn.info 2009.