Religious education in Irish primary schools should not promote any particular religion over others and should also include the study of non-religious worldviews such as Humanism, according to sociologists at Trinity College Dublin.
Growing secularisation of the Irish population and the arrival of new culturally and religiously diverse migrants are posing new challenges to schools in Ireland in terms of catering for the needs of all pupils and their parents, according a paper recently published in the British Journal of Religious Education. These challenges are particularly acute in Irish primary schools, the majority of which are under Catholic patronage.The researchers points to the need for a more responsive, pluralistic approach to religious education in Ireland, according to Associate Professor Daniel Faas and Head of the Department of Sociology at Trinity who co-authored the paper.
“Rather than a challenge, religious and moral education, as opposed to indoctrination, should be seen as an opportunity to help younger people to understand and respect the increasingly diverse world and communities around them without compromising their own sense of self and their identity.”
