A Pluralist We in Religious Education

This volume, A Pluralist We in Religious Education: Old Narratives in New Contexts, is the result of a conference held at Nord University, Bodø, Norway, by a group of scholars (ENRECA) focusing on religious and value education, particularly religious plurality and diversity in Europe.
The publication explores the complex issue of religious identity formation in the 21st century, addressing the intersectional nature of identity through different narratives. The contributions in this volume address issues of contextualisation by discussing how narratives of different kinds can be part of educational processes. Contexts in general are difficult to grasp and to deal with theoretically without examples. Even in research, where narratives and their different interpretations are central, there is often a need for exemplification in case studies. The use and study of narratives for specific pedagogical, political and ethical purposes are manifold, as this volume shows.

The volume includes discussions on the educational challenges of a multi-religious Europe, interreligious dialogue, and perspectives from different religious traditions, including contributions from South African and Turkish/Muslim scholars.

The chapter ‘Livsfrågor’ – a Swedish Narrative from the 1960s is accessable open access via download.

press

This volume [...] offers a valuable contribution to ongoing research on more pluralist approaches to religious and values education across the increasingly diverse contexts of Western Europe [...] .With 12 contributions, including an introduction by the editors, the publication presents readers with a range of perspectives from various contexts and traditions. Although contributions are largely from Northern Europe, they include Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, and secular researchers from Norwegian, Dutch, British, German, Swedish, as well as South African contexts. A fine balance between conceptual insights in part one (chapters 2–6) and more empirically based case studies in part two (chapters 7–12) makes it particularly attractive to researchers and practitioners alike. [...] Bringing narrative identity to the front and centre of religious education, as this volume sets out to do, is valuable and needs further research in the increasingly plural and diverse socio-cultural contexts of Western European.
Ryan McAleer, in: Irish Theological Quarterly, August 2026, pp. 54-56.