Religion, Identity and Education for Peace: Beyond the Dichotomies--Confessional/Non-Confessional and Global/Local

Both education and religion are connected with the sense of identity. In the present global world, educators have a real challenge to be able to manage identity and diversity, the local and the global, especially in the "cultural" subjects, fields where to learn to think is also to learn to construct an opinion (especially in order to define "otherness", to learn to live within differences). Religious education could be, from a methodological point of view, a laboratory for an education for peace. However, we need to think beyond the dichotomy of confessional/non-confessional. A four-fold model of religious education is proposed: theocratic, national religion, secular and multi-religious. The first three are problematic for education in diversity and peace; the multi-religious option provides the best opportunity, but only if religious education is defined in a non religiocentric way, able to combine the sensibilities and points of view of different particular cultural identities, but also respecting a global, human common identity.