Religious and Human Rights Literacy as Prerequisite for Interreligious Education

Abstract

Secularisation and social construct of societies today have a direct influence on the position of interreligious teaching and learning. In some countries people tend to become less religious and others more fundamentalistic in nature. People simultaneously are more aware of democratic and human rights in general and of their individual rights (based on their cultural, religious and belief systems) in particular (cf. Ter Haar in J Runzo; N Martin & A Sharma, 2007). Religions and beliefs have become polarised in many regions in the world due to international political, economical and social circumstances. Xenophobic attacks on foreigners in many countries raise questions on individuals’ behaviour towards one another, be it political and/or economic refugees. The main question to be asked is, Can education on human rights issues – be it intercultural and/or interreligious – contribute to a better understanding of oneself and of the world the learner is living in? Ter Haar argues in his chapter ‘Rats, cockroaches and other people like us’ that during the twentieth century human rights issues have been largely a ‘matter of legislation’ (Runzo et al., 2007, p. 80). He recognised that theologians and scholars of religion recently added their voices to these debates. However, one should question how scholars in education could add another dimension to the arguments on human rights, religions, cultures and interreligious education. I would like to argue that education, especially in religion education, should propose educational arguments for human rights literacy and use the means to a more balanced view of teaching and learning interreligious education. I would like to focus on three aspects in this chapter: the interplay between human rights praxis and academic enquiry; the contextualisation of these issues for teaching and learning in ‘Religious Literacy’ and ‘Human Rights Literacy’; and a short report on a research project (2004–2008) in South Africa with in-service teachers and student teachers on the process and development of facilitation dialogue strategies in school praxis on human rights in interreligious education.