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The study examines which type of religious knowledge acquired in Religious Education in Greek Secondary schools can initiate both personal and collective change in understanding and appreciation of different cultures. It is blended research using participatory action-research with ethnographic elements methodology. The research gathered qualitative and quantitative data through questionnaires, focus groups, journals, and the technique of the “Most Significant Change” from four resources/target groups (students, teachers, parents, researcher). It took place during the 2017–2018 school year in a High and an Upper Schools in which the researcher participated in the school communities as a teacher. Statistical analysis (SPSS), content analysis and thematic analysis of the data show that religious knowledge, developed in Education with the aim of religious literacy, as defined in the context of Greek/European context, can operate on a personal and collective level, in cultivation of respect and underacting of cultural diversity. This is achieved when the religious knowledge is understood as experience and is meaningful when applied to the concepts of understanding, reflection and action. The overall finding is that transformative dynamics of religious knowledge facilitate both minor and major changes in the mindset of young people. Concluding, in Religious Education without sacrificing the religious content of the subject, a high degree of cultural recognition and acceptance of religious diversity can be achieved, and to a certain extent enable a change in attitude towards immigrants and refugees, in other words the ‘other’ as well as in communication and acquaintance between team members, recognition of and a greater degree of acceptance of otherness, and the development of relationships which were non-existent before.

Based on a qualitative research (2012–15) this paper is concerned with the identification of concepts and constructs of knowledge in RE. It is based on participative enquiry and educational action-research methodology. Over a three-year period, the researcher, teachers and the students of a High School in one of the most difficult social, economic and pedagogic environments in Greece collaborated and the resulting data were analysed by a team of independent researchers using quantitative and qualitative techniques. Findings point to the consideration of knowledge in education as an experience in which the content (what) of education is as important as the process (how). RE teaches an additional invaluable language with different religious meanings of concepts, which facilitates students’ communication with self and others, and offers an interpretation of the world. Such religious literacy is essentially provided at school in the framework of multi-literacies and is a result of an intersubjective process of the interconnection between thinking, reflection and action on what the curriculum positions on the top of the didactic triangle (content, teacher, student). In that process, to ‘know what I know’ and to provide ‘events with meaning’ based on experiential learning and its principles, is of inestimable value.

This article concerns two recent political legislative moves by the Greek government and one in regard to Religious Education (RE) in schools. The latter concerns compulsory RE and the right to exemption for Orthodox students. The former concerns the new Curriculum of compulsory education (2011) which keeps RE as a distinctive compulsory subject for all, claiming that RE has been non-confessional since 2003 and an Amendment (2013) of Law 3536/2007 which was never implemented. The Amendment enacts a formal Muslim RE only for the schools of Western Thrace and for the students of the Muslim Minority who register at Greek public schools and have the right to withdraw from RE due to reasons relating to their religious consciousness. The native Muslims of Western Thrace (a region in the northern part of Greece bordering Turkey) are recognized as a minority according to the Lausanne Treaty (1923). They comprise 50% of the population, and according to the Treaty they have their own religion and educational system. The author takes into account the complexity of religion, educationand politics in the region and addresses controversial issues on the topic of RE that have been raised not only in local society but also between academics, educationists and educators. The question arises as to whether the Greek State is really concerned with RE and the type of RE to be offered to children. Fieldwork by interviewing persons responsible for or related to the subject and articles of local and national newspapers provided the sources for the paper.

In this article the author argues that the teaching of religion(s) in education, in a social pedagogical context, can encourage community cohesion especially when, during the current harsh crisis, the need for cohesion seems to be of paramount importance in enabling seemingly insurmountable problems to be overcome. At the same time minorities become vulnerable and diversity, a matter of high priority, comes to the fore. The author reviews evidence of research on the effect of educational intervention within Religious Education on student attitudes toward religious diversity. He proposes that constructivist methodology, using theatre/drama as a means of Religious Education, could give people the choice to be critical religious believers and active members in a society applying the fundamental social pedagogical principle of tolerance to and respect for the ‘other’.