Law and Religious Diversity in Education: The Right to Difference (ICLARS Series on Law and Religion)

Religion is a prominent legal force despite the premise constructed and promoted by Western constitutionalism that it must be separated from the State in democracies. Education constitutes an area of human life that leaves ample scope for the expression of religious identity and shapes the citizens of the future. It is also the place of origin of a considerable number of normative conflicts involving religious identity that arise today in multicultural settings. The book deals with the interplay of law and religion in education through the versatility of religious law and legal pluralism, as well as religion’s possible adaptation and reconciliation with modernity, in order to consider and reflect on normative conflicts. It adopts the angle of the constitutional dimension of religion narrated in a comparative perspective and critically reflects on regulatory attempts by the State and the international community to promote new ways of living together. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series 3 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 12 Preface 13 1 The method: legal pluralism and comparative constitutional law: complementary methodology in the protection of religious difference 20 1 Legal hybridity and legal pluralism: state law as one way of imagining the real 20 2 The relationship of international and comparative law with legal pluralism 31 a The value of difference in comparative law and human rights 37 b The protection of religious difference in times of legal plurality 43 2 The concepts: revisiting religious diversity within multicultural classrooms: religious freedom, education and equality 50 1 Introduction: human rights and normative conflict 50 2 The right to freedom of religion in education: religion as a secular blasphemy? 54 3 Secularization, secularism and the right to religious freedom 59 4 Educational autonomy, religious freedom and equality 64 5 The neutrality of education and the principle of equality 68 3 The standards: interpreting the content of rights: the legal interaction of religious freedom, education and non-discrimination 71 1 Introduction: the relevance of religion in education 71 2 The nature of the right to education 73 3 The content of the right to education in its religious/cultural dimension 77 4 The right to religious freedom within education: a path towards co-existence? 81 5 The right to equality and non-discrimination in the context of religious diversity in public education 88 4 Plural public education in Israel: for equal or different students? 92 1 Legal pluralism in Israel: the context 92 2 The Normative justification of the close entanglement between religion and the State in education 96 3 The design of educational religious pluralism: general features 99 4 Constitutional pluralism and religious diversity 103 a The ambiguous principle of equality 103 b The role of the State in Israel in the provision of religious services 106 5 Educational diversification according to religious belonging 108 a Arab sector education: patterns of discrimination against Israeli Palestinian Arab learners 108 b Ultra-Orthodox education 115 6 Educational pluralism, autonomy and accommodation of religious identity in Israeli state-sponsored schools 122 7 Concluding remarks: education and democratic governance 129 5 Avoiding religion? The question of religious identity conflicts in education in South Africa 132 1 Introduction: legal pluralism in South Africa 132 2 Equality and difference: constitutional contours and interpretation 135 3 The right to religious freedom 139 a Religion and the right to education in South Africa: accommodating difference in schools? 141 b Religion with(out) culture 145 4 The right to education 146 5 The special case of independent schools in South Africa 150 6 The South African approach to religious diversity in education 151 a A historical account: the legacies of apartheid 151 b Religion in education in contemporary South Africa 153 c Desegregation: a determining framing factor 157 7 Effects of religious diversity policy in education: governance implications 158 6 From tradition to modernity and back: religious diversity in English schools as a test-case for multicultural societies 167 1 Introduction: multiculturalism, legal pluralism and conflict 167 2 Education and faith in curricular development in the UK 172 a Religion in education: the legal framework 173 b Types of schools 175 3 Religion and equality 177 4 The special case of ‘faith schools’ in Britain 183 5 The question of citizenship education in a post-multicultural setting 185 6 Religious literacy and religious education policy outcomes 187 a The place of religious education in the national curriculum 188 b Teachers’ Agency in delivering religious diversity in education 190 c Religious freedom as manifestation: religious symbols and school uniforms 191 d ‘Faith schools’ as a test-ground of religious diversity education 192 7 Concluding remarks: the ambiguous role of religious belief in English public education 200 7 Negotiating religious identity in public classrooms 205 1 Introduction: the efficiency of legal pluralism as a frame in religiously diverse education: power, agency and the law 205 2 Religious diversity as a conflict regulating factor: testing the limits of the social magic of law 209 a Religious education as a public good 213 b (In)equality in and through education 215 3 The management of religious disputes within education in plural societies: methods, conditions and challenges 217 a The role of context in promoting religious diversity in education 219 b Religious pluralism and the new role of the State 221 c The challenges of education systems in protecting religious difference 223 8 Legal empowerment through religious diversity in schools 226 1 Religion in education: a shifting agenda 226 a Education as development: globalizing and transnational dimensions 227 b ‘Faith schools’: religious communities’ agency in action 228 2 Religious diversity in education within an empowerment frame 232 a Religious identity-building as empowerment 235 b Religious education and citizenship – plurality as opportunity 238 3 Concluding remarks 243 References 246 European Court of Human Rights cases 268 Domestic case law 268 International and European legal texts 270 Index 272