'Living with and Learning from Refugees': Schools in vienna dealing with global challenges

Abstract

Public schools represent places in which overall societal exchange occurs and plays out. Austria looks back on more than 30 years' experience of including different religions beyond Christianity in the public educational system. Democratic countries are well advised to embed religious education into the educational system at large. Doing so, it is easier to implement a rational and deliberating agenda into the religious systems currently flourishing within the population. The "refugee problem" touches ground in the institutional integration of children and adolescents within the public school system, where questions about religion, culture, gender roles, and education have to be debated face to face by teachers, students, and their parents. Therefore, public schools can be seen as a nucleus for current societal changes. In reviewing work done in schools, one thus may observe the opportunities and chances, as well as specific challenges, that arise for the public authorities when refugees inhabit shared spaces with the native population.