Teaching about religions and education in citizenship in France

Civic education at the heart of the Republican school

Civic education has never been a wholly separate school subject, but it has gained some form of autonomy. It comprises principles and knowledge, but also values and practices, which are intended to better prepare students for democratic life. In the early days of the Third Republic, a subject in ‘Moral and Civics Education’ (Instruction morale et civique) appeared at the core of the Republican school project, following laws secularizing public sector schools (Laws of 1882–1884: school is free, laïque nonconfessional and mandatory) (Baubérot, 2010). The course programs introduced in 1883 were relayed by those of 1927 and applied until the late 1960s. The lessons were rooted both in morals and in history and geography and were intended to form a national identity. Instruction in morals and civics was restored in primary and secondary education after Liberation in World War II, following a hiatus when a ‘Moral Action’ class was taught during the Vichy regime (1940–1944). By 1969, it was discontinued at primary school, while at secondary school it was replaced in 1975 by a subject titled ‘Introduction to Economic and Social Life’. In 1985, education in civics was reintroduced in primary and middle schools (collèges), after the great debate of 1984 on ‘free schools’ (in other words, private schools, which are mostly denominational), when awareness of an increasing diversity among students developed more vividly. In 1998, a new subject, Education civique, juridique et sociale (education in civics, laws and society) or ECJS, was created for secondary school students. The middle and high school programs were renewed in 2002 and 2009. ECJS is a project in political education, applied to a large extent by learning argumentative debate. Its purpose is to train in the founding principles of French citizenship as well as national and European defense.

Can we speak of a French model for civic education? (Audigier, 1999; 2004). It is not a separate school subject, its teaching is integrated into other disciplines, it is taught by teachers of history and geography, yet it also has a specific content program and time schedule. Its thematic material makes it a transdisciplinary subject rather than an interdisciplinary one. To draw a perspective on its historical evolution is to highlight the passage from ‘national knowledge’ to the values of community cohesion or le vivre ensemble (Bergougnioux, 2006). For, if school alone cannot overcome the problems of society, it remains the environment where, despite very real local inequalities, all young French people can come together.

Key dates in this brief historical outline correspond to certain watershed developments. Civic education (discontinued in 1969) was challenged in the aftermath of the May Revolution in 1968, when there was a breakdown of values in society, authority, and the national ideal. The visible role it recovered since 1985 reflects a time when, as we shall see later, the first questions were raised about the growing ignorance of youth in religions, and more broadly in humanistic culture. The cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity of students also became more prominent as immigration increasingly involved settlement by families, not just ‘labor’ alone. At the same time, borders gradually faded with globalization. It would be difficult not to recognize in the first ‘headscarf’ (Islamic) affair in 1989, a will to reaffirm the values of the Republic in a case where integrating some students may seem more difficult.

Secularity in the ‘ECJS’ civics program

Civics developed after all religious and related references were banned from State schools. As such, it might be interpreted in its ethical dimension as the morality of a school without God (see Baubérot, 1997; Ognier, 2008). It was this ‘moralizing’ dimension that was contested in the 1970s. ECJS, in its renewed form, affirmed a return to the rules of living in cohesion in le vivre ensemble, which involved the basics of courtesy and reflected a policy to promote the school of ‘Respect’ as desired by the Minister Jack Lang in 2001-2002. While it advances a set of ethical values fully recognized and claimed by the Republic, it of course makes no affirmation of a religious nature, which is expected in a system that upholds the total separation of church and state (1905 Act : Loi de séparation des Eglises et de l’Etat (Separation of church and state)). However, neither is a wider spiritual dimension envisaged nor a possible religious nature of man, as can be found in other systems.

Among values explicitly recognized, secularity or laïcité has a significant role (Poulat, 2003). Framed in the Constitution since 1946, it functions in school curricula as a major element of integration in the national community. Hence, if we examine the latest teaching programs of 2009, we find it at the center of the program for the sixième (students aged 11 years), which is the first year of secondary school. The text reads, ‘Students learn that life in society imposes rules that you must know, respect and understand’. ¹ It further states that ‘in public school establishments, laïcité is a fundamental principle’. With regard to the process, ‘we begin with school regulations to demonstrate that laïcité is both a value and practice’.

In the following school years, it is not as explicitly treated, though it may be implied. In the cinquième (students aged 12 years), the main themes are equality—including gender—and diversity. In the quatrième (students aged 13 years), freedom is addressed through individual and collective freedoms, and educators are guided to emphasize ‘freedom of conscience (including religious freedoms), secularity, freedom of expression …’ It is also reminded regarding the use of freedoms and social prerogatives that ‘any freedom is bound by respect for the freedom of others’. In the troisième (students aged 14 years), the emphasis is on democratic citizenship.

Secularity and cultural diversity

Hence, it is at the start of secondary school that the question of secularity appears to be essential. Reference documents (ressources documentaires) are published by the Ministry of Education to support the official program and guide educators with their teaching.

Concerning laïcité, educators are advised to use ‘concrete situations, relevant to students, and then arrive at the generality of the law’. ² The entry point should be teaching ‘how laïcité is practiced in a school, and its issues’. It should be made clear that this practice ‘does not involve a ban on practicing their religion, but a denial of the special differences and exceptions being claimed by religious communities’. Thus, the ban on wearing conspicuous religious symbols since the Law of March 15, 2004 (for example, the ban on headscarves), is presented as a measure consistent with secularity conceived as ‘one of the rules on which le vivre ensemble is founded, because it is inseparable from the values of equality and respect for one’s identity’ (B.O. Bulletin officiel de l’Education nationale, 2004). The distinction made between students and public sector employees may show that different rights and duties apply, as ‘school personnel have no right to wear distinguishing marks of religious affiliation whatsoever, whereas for students it is the ostentatious character that is prohibited’. To summarize, we can say that secularity is introduced in its concrete aspects in a school setting and that its concept is developed gradually, just as it is made to appear gradually in the history of France. However, one is to avoid ‘laïcité examined solely from a historical perspective, disconnected from reality’ because ‘we must show students that it is still under debate’ and that ‘it is not the principle of laïcité that is challenged but its interpretation and applications’.

The reference document devotes a special section to ‘Explaining laïcité’. Besides the question of knowledge, the concern for civic education is to move beyond simple description in order to introduce the democratic debate, to ‘learn to make reasoned choices by listening to the arguments of others …’ It recognizes that ‘laïcité is a difficult concept for students. It cannot be imposed. It should be explained’. Its universal dimension is advanced, and hence it should be seen as a

fundamental freedom of man. It is not a negation of religions. It concerns the organization of the State in its relations with the religious. It is also to be related to equality between citizens, whatever their affiliation, belief or faith. In France, citizenship is clearly separated from religious affiliation …

The two examples cited in this respect are the secular civil registry (état civil) that ‘records the important events in the life of every citizen regardless of religion or no religion’, and of course, the public sector school system, which provides more elements. Indeed, not only is it noted that public schools ‘welcome all students regardless of background and affiliation’, but it is further stated that ‘solutions adopted to guarantee the plurality of beliefs at school may be studied as examples (meal practices, time off in the week for religious instruction outside the premises of the school, non ostentatious signs of faith, etc.)’.

Secularity is therefore given a role that relates it to cultural diversity. To further emphasize this, history programs will come into play:

The new history curricula at (middle) school refer to the diversity of cultures and religions to show that secularity is respectful of the cultural affiliation of students. Working transversally on themes taken from several cultures and possibly several disciplines, will enable students to grasp this.

This new and explicit link introduced between secularity in civics and religions in history is noteworthy, since it would not otherwise be in order on a scientific plane alone. Taking into account the religious dimension in history is in principle justifiable from a strictly historical standpoint, as the object is to study a civilization in all its aspects. Including it in civic education requires a justification of another order. It is—by addressing the diversity in cultures and religions—to respect the cultural background of students, this being viewed as secularity in its application. Four observations have become apparent (Gaudin, 2011). First, religions discussed in history cannot simply be treated as legacy items belonging only to the past. Second, a link is made with the religious and cultural diversity of today’s students. Third, the object is to respect cultural rather than religious differences (although it is recognized that cultural affiliations are at least partially structured by religious ones), which serves to inject a distance with religions and any related claims that may arise. Fourth, it suggests a definition of secularity (or an aspect of its application) that is not about the traditional distinction between private and public life but rather respect for plurality, not just a form of compliance hollowed by abstention, but a meaningful respect based on knowledge. As to working transversally on ‘themes taken from different cultures and possibly different disciplines’, such is left to the initiative of teachers in a very elliptical manner, but it also opens the door to possible discussions that may be more anthropological in nature (rites of birth and death in different religions and cultures, etc.), quite different from traditional teaching about religions within existing disciplines. To conclude, if all these signs recognizing cultural and religious diversity are consistent with promoting le vivre ensemble, the fact remains that one must always draw ‘a distinction between freedom of conscience, which is whole, and free speech, which must respect the neutrality of the school establishment and its teaching’.

Teaching through the conduit of existing school subjects

The fact that civic education is explicitly related, in resource documents, with teaching about religions brings us to further develop this track. We may begin by briefly recalling the place of religions in a school system that claims to be so strongly secular. (Borne and Willaime, 2007; Estivalèzes, 2005).

Contrary to impressions, religious topics have never disappeared from history classes since public sector schools were secularized by law. Ancient religions, of course, but also the birth of monotheism, or the Reformation, still have a place (more or less developed depending on cases) in secondary school curricula. However, in the early 1980s, several indicators showed a loss of humanistic culture in general, notably related to knowledge of world religions. In addition, as a result of a policy of mass education that proposed to train 80% of same-year students to the baccalaureate, high school teachers were faced with a new audience. Since 1982, The League of Education—otherwise quite secular, but which had argued for unified education by putting an end to a parallel private denominational school system—proposed to remedy cultural ignorance among students through the study of texts and founding myths of the great religions. In 1989, a ministerial report on the subjects of history, geography, and social sciences renewed the debate and was followed by a symposium on this question (Czajka H, Joutard, P. Lequin Y (1992). New directives applied since 1996 provide an improved (albeit not revolutionary) treatment of these topics: namely, high school was no longer the sole preserve of contemporary history, and in seconde (first year of high school), new chapters were introduced on the origins of Christianity and the Mediterranean in the 12th century, which helped fill certain gaps between Athenian democracy and the French Revolution. Important as these changes were, they were soon confronted with measures aimed at streamlining curricula (topics became optional) as well as difficulties that teachers appeared to be experiencing in some cases, when broaching topics related to religion.

At the request of Jack Lang (then Minister of Education, who was struck both by the ignorance of students on their religious heritage and by reactions following the 11 September 2001 attacks), the philosopher Régis Debray presented a report in March 2002, which was widely discussed in the media (Debray, 2002a). In this report, a distinction was made necessary between religion as ‘object of faith’ and as ‘object of knowledge’. It reaffirmed that any role given to religion in school curricula should respond to the need for objective knowledge, and not transmission of faith. Insofar as there is no question of discussing the intimate realm of personal faith, nothing can justify that the informed discourse of a teacher be restricted by limits whatsoever. The report also took a position on one point involved in the debate that marked the 1990s: for several reasons, both practical and epistemological, it rejected the idea of a specific subject in the history of religions. Such an approach would further contribute to fragmented and dispersed knowledge, when according to the report, the ‘religious fact’ (faits religieux, discussed later) should be included in existing school disciplines, as it is built into the ‘social’, ‘political’, ‘cultural’, and ‘economic’. Other arguments, more ideological, came into play. These included reservations from hard-line secularists who feared that teaching religious history would encourage a return to a form of catechesis and proselytizing. Catholic leaders, on the contrary, questioned the cultural relativism that a comparative approach to religions would inject. The strongest argument, no doubt, was the fact that it was difficult to imagine instituting, in the current workings of the national education system, a new corps of public sector teachers together with new recruitment exams, as this approach would have entailed.

The meaning of the expression ‘faits religieux’

The choice to teach about religions through existing subjects is original in Europe (Willaime, 2005a, 2009; Jackson et al., 2007). This choice has two consequences. First, this study should not be confined to the historical approach, but must also find place in the subjects of literature, foreign languages, philosophy, or economics. In this respect, reintroducing extracts from the Bible in sixième, already introduced in 1996, was a genuine break with the policy practiced since the late 19th century. Second, with regard to the meaning of the term faits religieux—literally, ‘religious facts’—used in France to refer to the religious sphere, it is meant as an all-inclusive notion in the same way that Durkheim spoke of ‘social facts’, though this should not be understood in a positivist sense closely tied to factual evidence, as the religious also includes the symbolic and the sensitive. Debray, who used the designation in the singular (fait religieux), recognized that the word ‘fact’ would underline the objective character of this teaching and its distancing methodology (Debray, 2002b). The Institut Européen en Sciences des Religions (IESR), which was established following the recommendations of the Debray report and affiliated with the EPHE, has favored the plural to emphasize the plurality of approaches concerned and avoid the risk of essentializing the concept. Talking about ‘religious facts’ in France does not mean reducing the study of religious phenomena to their sole material and visible aspects. Studying religious phenomena as collective acts, and analyzing their traces and works, involves exploring their significations, interpreting the systems of meaning that constitute the religious worlds. Social and cultural expressions of religion must be understood in connection with the exegesis of texts, the history of dogma, theological disputes and issues, and mystical or spiritual dimensions. It is also about regarding religious expressions as objects of intellectual rationalization, as the history of theologies moves in tandem with the history philosophical thought.

‘Religious facts’ also encompass experiential and sensitive phenomena, individual and collective, and their symbolic constructs of the human condition generate sensitivities. All told, the multidisciplinary and secular approach to religious phenomena cannot be reduced to the study of what is nonreligious in religion, it concerns all aspects of religion (Borne and Willaime, 2007: ch. 2).

Values and objectives of teaching about religions

After more than 20 years of debate (see, for example, Sanagustin, 2000), teaching about religions was introduced in the public school system. While challenges from both the ultra-secular and religious constituencies are bound to take place (and this is normal in a democratic debate), this teaching benefits from a broad consensus in the world of education. Its place was recalled in the definition of ‘common base of knowledge and skills in 2006’:

Religions in France, Europe and the world, by drawing on founding texts notably (in particular, extracts from the Bible and Koran) in the spirit of secularity that is respectful of conscience and convictions. ³

While the new programs may bring progress here and there, other issues remain in a status quo (e.g. in sixième, where the Hebrews are better covered, in seconde, the place of Jews in the Middle Age and Renaissance). Handled through various subjects, including history and literature, these questions continue to be addressed sparsely, and the lack of unity is a recurring complaint concerning this approach, which does not have the same visibility as Citizenship Education. The question remains what objectives have been assigned to such teaching about religions, and whether its fragmented platform will help accomplish these.

At the first symposium that followed the Debray report, the Minister of Education opened by setting out three major areas of focus for teaching about religion:

Above all, teaching about religion comes down to understanding the specific language that enables us to define it and interpret its symbolism—in sum, to understand a system framing the world. It also gives young people access to a cultural legacy of uncounted masterpieces of civilization. Finally, teaching about religion enables them to understand the role that religion plays in the contemporary world. (Ministère de l’Education nationale (MEN), 2003: 11)

This speech acknowledged the loss of culture already apparent in the late 1980s as well as international developments in which religions have played a major part, unfortunately largely related to conflict situations. However, at the same seminar, the speech made on behalf of President Jacques Chirac stressed another dimension: teaching about religion as a means to promote a spirit of tolerance and education toward mutual respect:

In today’s world, tolerance and secularity can have no better foundation than knowledge and respect of others. For withdrawal and ignorance will nourish prejudice and community [ethnic] segregation. To strengthen one’s understanding of religions, to improve teaching about religion in all concerned subjects in secondary school, to follow its manifestations in history, in the arts, and in each culture—all of this will reinforce the spirit of tolerance in our young fellow citizens and give them the ability to more fully engage in mutual respect. (MEN, 2003: 9)

Some have interpreted this as a new justification marking a significant change in the evolution of the debate on teaching about religions. Yet it appeared earlier and was likely a concern implied in the original justifications. One of the first books to address this question, La Religion au lycée (‘Religion in high school’, Hervieu-Léger, 1990), already alludes to it in the case of Islam. When lobbying developed around this question, the first surveys of parents singled out ‘tolerance’ as a dimension to which teaching about religions could lead (Hourmant, 1995). It is also a fact that, by 1996, in his report on education for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Jacques Delors stressed the need to add to the goals of knowledge and skills that of learning to live in cohesion (UNESCO, 1996).

The most frequently invoked justifications for this teaching revolve around three arguments centered on the following: (1) issues related to the cultural and symbolic; (2) a reading of the contemporary world that associates the religious and political perspective with an anthropological one, through knowledge of the experienced forms of religion; (3) an openness toward others conducive to tolerance and living in cohesion in a pluralistic society. These goals may apply in various ways to develop citizenship as it has been made in other countries (Estivalèzes, 2009; Ouellet, 2004); however, such a reading would not come without positions on the subject that would have to be examined within the choices possible for an education policy.

What ambitions for a common culture?

In a system driven by secularity, academic programs in schools are not directly concerned with religious illiteracy, which is linked to diminished attendance at catechesis and a decreased importance of Christianity in the population (although, in France, Catholics still represent 50% and Protestants nearly 2%; if Islam is called the second religion of France with only 6%, the true second place should go to the ‘indifferent’ or unaffiliated, i.e. atheists and agnostics, to a large extent, Béraud and Willaime (2009)). On the contrary, when these deficiencies are related to the artistic dimension—just a piece of the traditional humanistic culture that is fraying on all sides—they acquire universal (hence tragic) value. Not being able to recognize subjects in a majority of paintings in Western art is no longer just about being left out of the First Communion; it is like suddenly walking around the Louvre as one might in the Musée Guimet (Asian art), where most of our fellow citizens struggle to make sense of the various episodes of the Buddha’s life and the meaning of his postures. That is to say, a world of forms and colors that can charm the eyes but where neither subject nor composition contribute to deliver any message on the vision that the artist and his time had of man inscribed in a universe binding the terrestrial with the celestial. It means being ignorant of one’s own culture. This break, this inability to fit into a societal ‘culture line’ (to mirror the notion of lignée croyante, or ‘belief line’, developed by Hervieu-Léger, 1993) is seen as a cause to rally—even though in its highest form, this culture has but always been the preserve of students from a certain social class, far fewer than the 80% being targeted for the high school baccalaureate. The aesthetic and universal value of art becomes an argument devoid of suspicion (i.e. proselytizing ulterior motives), one that responds to the most diverse concerns, from the decline in the level of students to their break with their roots. From symptom, the cultural and artistic approach is also becoming a preferred remedy, an effective way to address the ‘religious’ through the mediation of works of art; for the sake of understanding forms and the works objectively, sensitive issues as well as theological aspects may hence be treated in perspective (Saint-Martin, 2007).

Intersecting this aspect with the introduction of art history in 2008 shows the importance attached to the cultural dimension in educating the ideal citizen. Here again, however, this is a new teaching without a specific time schedule, and which must be applied in history and literature primarily, even though all academic subjects are officially involved. Yet there is no doubt that the teaching goal, strongly supported by the Ministry, goes beyond simply imparting knowledge in the arts and letters and is intended to reinforce the development of a common culture where major references are unanimously shared. The list of masterpieces at the Louvre that students are expected to know would attest to this. The tutorials on the notion of heritage, and the emphasis placed as well on discovering and appropriating knowledge on local heritage, reinforce this goal. All this shows that an educational and cultural policy always reflects a political choice and that the issue of cultural legacy, far from returning us solely to the past, is also eminently inscribed in the present.

However, with regard to religions, this approach raised a concern. Would this not lead to relegating the religious dimension in the distant past of old churches, or a museum setting, this as a way of sanitizing the discovery of different faiths by reducing them to their aesthetic manifestations at the expense of current experience? Moreover, this approach could lead to giving Islam a minor treatment, only recently present on the national territory (Saint-Martin, 2011). Applying a symbolic reading of the world that articulates cultural references with a current dimension and with enrichment of individual creativity may also carry the risk of suggesting that religions have a monopoly on the symbolic ordering of the universe, at the expense of other humanistic traditions. One may argue that this is a false debate and it is indeed important to give space to different systems of meaning without privileging religious dimensions and monotheistic religions in particular. The fact remains that the religions of Asia, for example, are not very present, and their inclusion in new curricula in sixième is limited—though this is already a progress—to brief notions on Buddhism and Hinduism. In comparison, the history of secularity is given its entire place in presentations on the Third Republic, which remains an important topic in history programs.

Religions and understanding the contemporary world

The place of religion in the contemporary world is a sensitive subject. Although officially a major objective in the Debray report, and though geopolitical events described in the press as being related to religion have multiplied, we can but acknowledge that this is a weak point in school programs. The birth of religions is certainly presented, but their development in history is then hardly expanded on, and they only reappear in the contemporary world in the context of dramas and conflicts. This could lead to an ahistorical approach to the development of monotheistic religions, which would be frozen in their early form, paving the way to fundamentalist readings (see, for example, for Islam, Van den Kerchove, 2009, 2011: 9). By the same token, a presentation of religions reduced to their influence in political conflicts would give a distorted picture, and be excessive as to their actual role, as many conflicts are based on motives that are ethnic, political, economic, or cultural (in the broadest sense), regardless of religious factors that may also come into play. Such a presentation would also neglect the place of religions in the living experience of the faithful and their relevance in today’s world. In a certain way, despite the efforts made in renewed school curricula, modernity would coincide with emancipation from religion as a factor of backward traditions, if not obscurantism, and which only reappears as a source of conflict (Loeffel and Martin, 2007).

On the contrary, some recent controversies, such as the one about the censorship of the face of Mahomet in a history Textbook in 2005, give one more example of the links between past and present (Costa-Lascoux and Choppin, 2011: 119). This goes to show that teaching the birth of Islam to 12-year-old students is not just a matter of giving a history lesson focused on explaining the past. It still involves the controversies of our time, whether they relate to the repercussions of international affairs or acknowledging the presence of Islam in urban suburbs. Similar problems have been encountered when some pupils refuse to visit Churches or other places of worship during school time (Auduc, 2011).

Education in tolerance or religious diversity

The aspiration for tolerance is subject to similar criticisms. If the question of improving knowledge of others is a central one, recalling the idea inspired by Spinoza’s philosophy that ignorance creates fear, unfortunately, there is no evidence that such teaching will automatically generate higher degrees of tolerance. In addition, this notion is variously defined (and interpreted in many ways). It was widely argued in France in the 16th–18th century, from the religious wars to the Age of Enlightenment, with the famous texts of Pierre Bayle, Mirabeau, Voltaire—or pastor Rabaut Saint Etienne who, in 1789, condemned the term in the name of a true quest for liberty!

In this regard, it is interesting to note that the term tolerance, which appeared in official documents related to history programs in the 1990s and especially in government declarations as noted earlier, seems to be little encountered today in the vocabulary of the Minister of National Education, whereas the notion of pluralism or diversity recurs more often. Indeed, in 1995, the aims for the history and geography program included ‘the gradual discovery of the foundations of a human community … the absolute values and the sense of relative tolerance leading to the discovery of cultures and customs of other cultures’. ⁴ The chapter on the Mediterranean in the 12th century may (with the diversity of religions present) have been emblematic of this ambition, with the risk of generating anachronisms whenever contemporary concerns are transferred to a complex period in history. The program aims for 2009 pointed out that history and geography participate fully with humanist culture as it appears in the common base of knowledge. After the birth of religions in ancient or medieval life, the enlargement of the world appears in the program in seconde (students aged 15 years) including the subject ‘From Constantinople to Istanbul: a place of contact between different cultures and religions (Christian, Muslim, Jewish)’. The study in terminale littéraire (students aged 17 years—final year for the literary baccalaureate) of the Old City of Jerusalem or the historical center of Rome or Paris also brings students to deal with religious diversity in its various manifestations. As for literature, courses in the first years of secondary school include discovering the foundational texts of major religions through a reading of literary texts from the Bible or excerpts from the Koran. During subsequent years, students learn to identify and analyze religious references in French literature, either explicit or implied in the narrative or symbolic structure of the works.

The concern, therefore, is more about building a common culture by factoring in diversity than educating for tolerance in the more limited sense of the term, that is, as a way to acknowledge differences. Living in cohesion involves building a system of values valid for all. In this respect, talking about religions in school does mean taking part in the civic debate, not only by way of learning and the material discussed but also in the manner of talking about religions, and through the simple fact that they are being treated in a space of knowledge and secularity. Indeed—and all programs will insist on this—the purpose in school is not only to learn but also to exercise critical thinking and apply judgment. The historical account of religious traditions confronts one with the question of sources and the critical review of documents. It brings one to consider dogmas, rites, and religious symbols in their development through the centuries and not as an immutable given. This opens the way to knowledge of religions but also to putting in perspective traditions that we thought we knew, as well as different forms of representation of the world whether they are derived from religious constructs or secular humanism. These lessons involve the ability to talk about worldviews whether we share them or not, and to talk about one’s own traditions as if they were another’s (Willaime, 2005b). According to experts in the education of ‘otherness’, ‘the most difficult is not to learn to see the other, but to learn to see oneself or one’s own group from the outside and in a distanced manner’ (Abdallah-Pretceille, 1997). Many other aspects in school programs would certainly contribute to this, but with regard to cultural diversity, religious questions play a significant role in exercising the ability to distance oneself from one’s own convictions, not just out of pure relativism, but because the ability to engage in decentering is also a sign of real commitment, and the condition of a possible dialog (Milot et al., 2010).

Yet, if history courses emphasize critical thinking, it is more often within the framework of civic education that the possibility is left for students to express themselves in an argumentative debate, and to learn, in tutorials, how to confront and exchange positions. The final-year program that will be implemented in the fall of 2012 proposes a major subject for our purposes, titled ‘Pluralism of beliefs and cultures in a secular republic’. The official documents suggest three possible entries on the subject: ‘Secularity in history and current affairs’, ‘Sectarian rifts and fundamentalism’, ‘Common culture and cultural diversity’. ⁵ These choices place a prime focus on concrete questions of secularity at school; religion is approached in the refusal of its adverse effects, while the example on cultural diversity deals with the languages of minorities and the language battle. The introduction notes that ‘citizenship, in principle, ensures in the unity of the Republic the equal dignity of everyone and respect of his or her beliefs and opinions’. ⁶ However, the treatment of the religious in its avoidable aspects that can be found in the program fits in with Schnapper’s analysis: ‘Secularity symbolizes the essential fact that the social bond is no longer religious but national, therefore political’ (Schnapper, 1994: 74; 2007). It may be possible to draw links between the history program and the ECJS program with regard to training in critical thinking and argumentative debate, but diversity and its inclusion is a matter that is first built into the construction of citizenship and a common culture. In this conception, the school can accommodate the question of diversity while remaining a preserve that keeps at bay community affiliation in favor of equal treatment for all, as postulated in an ideal way in the philosophical reflections of Pena-Ruiz (2005). These positions have sometimes led to extreme distrust toward the teaching about religions. Yet it remains, in the French example, a process of knowledge and recognition of otherness and not a process of experience and sharing. It is fully in line with a conception of citizenship that transcends individual particularities.

However, the multiplicity of reforms, combined with ongoing integration difficulties encountered with certain segments of the population, shows that the question of citizenship education is still sensitive, and its overall treatment is deemed unsatisfactory. The government (set up in 2012) recently announced that a new course in ‘secular ethics’ (morale laïque) would be introduced to help build common values. A focus group is working to determine how this teaching will be developed. It could partly be integrated into the existing ECJS course, or replace it, or be approached through other existing disciplines. The announcement has already generated considerable debate. One side rejects interference in ‘morals’ by the State, a position shared by certain religious groups as well as by anyone who would feel that a ‘moral order’ would take us back to the days of the Third Republic (which imposed the ideal of a ‘secular citizen’ on society, in the late 19th century) (Zuber, 2012). The Catholic Church expressed its reserve toward this initiative, which, in its view, poses a risk of interference with value systems passed through family and religion. Others, however, point out that regardless of the quality of moral values acquired through family life, democratic life in the State also requires instilling a set of ‘universal values’ beyond the specificities of communities or religious groups (e.g. gender equality, rejection of racism, etc.) (Fath, 2012). The Minister of Education, Vincent Peillon, showed great interest in the ideal of secular spirituality, as originally envisaged by Ferdinand Buisson who helped to create the secular State school system in the late 19th century (see Loeffel, 1999; Peillon, 2010). The object is to place the notion of ‘morals’, a morality independent of any religious reference, at the heart of the construct in citizenship, and it gives strong importance to the ethical dimension attached to the joint ideals of secularity and citizenship. While recognition of cultural diversity is affirmed within these ideals, the emancipatory role of school education with relation to deterministic social factors, such as family and affiliation, remains a salient feature of citizenship education in the French model, as evidenced by the current debate.