Dialogical approaches and their adaptability to the

There are several examples of implementing dialogical approach to religious education in different countries. Some of them follow the example of interfaith dialogue and try to adopt it for the purposes of classroom practice (e.g.

Sterkens, 2001 from a Dutch perspective; Schweizer&Boschki, 2004 from a German perspective). An interfaith dialogue could hardly be applied in an Estonian secular context, where the great majority of students do not adhere to any religious or secular community. It is problematic to regard even children who do adhere to some religious tradition as representatives of these religions as they are rarely aware of the teachings of the tradition they belong to, and their religious beliefs are not always consistent with it.

There are also dialogical approaches of religious education that take a different stand from interfaith dialogue. Julia Ipgrave from Warwick University developed her approach while working in a multicultural school. She started her research with students from one school, combining research with a form of dialogical teaching (Ipgrave, 1998). As the second step Ipgrave linked students from two schools in the same city and incorporated other teachers into the work (Ipgrave, 2001). Then she extended the research to link students from different parts of England using e-mail contacts (Ipgrave, 2003). Although Ipgrave, in her Building E-Bridges. Interfaith Dialogue by E-mail (Ipgrave, 2003a) and Interfaith Dialogue by Email in Primary School (McKenna et al, 2008), uses interfaith dialogue as a reference point, she does not see students as ‘little representatives of the faith they belong to’, but encourages them to work out solutions themselves rather than to accept the answers of authorities. Actually she does not fix children to the group of ‘insiders’ or the ‘outsiders’ of a religion, but she leaves it open.

“Neither is Dialogical RE limited to dialogue between members of the class from distinct religious traditions, such as a discussion group containing a Hindu, a Christian, a Muslim. Participants do not need to identify with any religious group or have a religious faith of their own.” (Ipgrave, 2001, 18)

Usually religious education in Germany is confessional, but there are also some endeavours to bring different religious groups into common religious education, as for example in Hamburg federal state. With the help of Hamburg University a new approach has developed – dialogische Religionsunterricht [Dialogical Religious Education]. This approach explicitly opposes the interfaith dialogue, which is seen as ‘dialogue from above’ where leaders of faith communities share theological debates, while the classroom situation requires dialogue ‘from below’ and draws on students as ordinary people, not key persons of religious organisations. In emphasizing ‘dialogue from below’ the term ‘neighbour religion’ (Weiße, 1999, 181) is used instead of ‘world religions’ – neighbour in

my classroom, village or global village – and touches upon the questions im-portant for students themselves and social justice.

“The wisdom of religious traditions should be used in dialogue with neighbours where they form stimuli and inputs, but they should not become obstacles for addressing basic questions that emerge from the realities of coexistence and dialogue. Dialogue in the context of neighbour religions is not imposed or decreed from above, but emerges from below. This kind of dialogue relates to the relevant questions of the participants, in this case those of the students at school.” (Knauth & Weisse, 2009, 8)

Heid Leganger-Krogstad has combined contextual and dialogical approaches for the needs of students in Northern Norway. Her primary interest was to incorporate the children’s life world and concerns into teaching. She empowered children with basic ethnographic skills and gave them opportunity to share their findings with each other (Leganger-Krogstad, 2001; 2003). In contrast to the dialogical approaches that see children as representatives of different world religions, Heid Leganger-Krogstad developed a dialogical approach to religious education in the Norwegian context of integrated religious education and made an even more clear distinction between interfaith dialogue and a dialogical approach in religious education.

“The ideal concept of dialogue in religious education ought not to be dialogue between religious traditions or between adult representatives. Instead, at school, dialogue should make use of the equal status that children have in their role as pupils, and use school as arena for open questions, experiments, reflection, criticism and information; dialogue should be seen as attitude and a working method.” (Leganger-Krogstad, 2003, 181)

In such a way dialogue promotes new understanding and may change both oneself and the partner in dialogue. It cannot be viewed as an interfaith dia-logue, but it happens in an interpersonal level, building identity and em-powering for citizenship.

Similarly to the Norwegian dialogical approach, other dialogical approaches are also aimed at identity-formation and mutual respect. Although dialogue brings different perspectives into the classroom, the aim of Dialogische Unter-richt is not to mirror social divisions in society but rather to develop self-understanding, mutual understanding and respect:

“Dialogue in the classroom fosters respect for other religious communities, can confirm pupils’ views or help them to make their own commitments whilst also allowing them to monitor their commitments critically.” (Weisse, 2003, 194) Weisse stresses that the starting point for dialogue should be common human experience, not similarities and differences of religions. The aim for such religious education is to understand others as well as oneself by practicing skills

of comparing and contrasting views. The “individual positions are not found by mixing different views, but by comparing and contrasting them with one another” (Weisse, 2003, 193). In doing so, participants may refer to their diffe-rent religious backgrounds, but are not required to do it. Hamburg’s approach puts great emphasis on social justice, peace, human rights and exploration of existential questions.

Ipgrave’s dialogical approach could be seen as contributing both to children’s personal development and citizenship education:

“The very nature of religious thought – its engagement with ’big questions’ and multiple answers it presents – makes the religious education class an ideal forum for the development of skills of dialogue and negotiation, and of the intellectual and moral awareness that contribute the citizenship ideal.” (Ipgrave, 2003b, 147)

Additionally Ipgrave found that approach raised children’s self-esteem, developed critical and social skills, gave a voice for underachievers and em-powered them for democratic citizenship (Ipgrave, 2003a; McKenna et al, 2008).

Both Ipgrave and Leganger-Krogstad have educed their approaches while working at school. Thus their approaches are evolved at the grass roots level and have direct pedagogical implications. Similarly to the teachers in Estonia (Schihalejev, 2009a) Heid Leganger-Krogstad believes that religion is a private matter and teachers should be concerned not to put students into vulnerable situations (Leganger-Krogstad, 2003). The risk-free zones could be created by different methods: role plays, drama, discussions through stories, and con-versations from a particular view point.

On the basis of her research Julia Ipgrave developed a threefold definition of dialogue (2001, 19; 2005, 40–41).

• Primary dialogue (context) is acknowledgement of diversity of experiences, viewpoints, understandings and ideas within the class. Primary dialogue can be achieved by e-mail contacts, quotations from people having very different views and traditions, including extracts from texts.

• Secondary dialogue (attitude) is the positive, open response to that context, promotion of an ethos in which children are willing to engage with difference, to share their own views and to learn from others. For students it involves readiness to risk own ideas in the light of encountering a different view; not to avoid areas of disagreement between religious traditions, groups and individuals, the differences are made public and explicit. Secondary dialogue is achieved by school (class) ethos which values diversity and listening to others and in which students are willing to engage with differences by sharing own views and learning from others. Students are encouraged to set up rules and evaluate their work according to them, also to formulate questions and own opinions.

• Tertiary dialogue (activity) an act of speech itself between children, it draws on primary and secondary dialogue. It is achieved by a variety of methods, strategies and exercises to facilitate dialogue, encourage students to express, negotiate and justify their views. Stimuli for tertiary dialogue can vary from stories, case studies, quotations, pictures, video extracts, also sorting tasks or sequence cards are used to activate students’ thinking skills and engagement with material.

Such a distinction is very valuable in the light of my empirical findings that implementing dialogue only as activity may not work. The context of diversity and ethos of appreciating diversity give ground to success in implementing dialogue as activity in lessons.

Even if personal faith-based contributions could be felt as too private to start with, the more distanced methods may contribute in creating risk-free zones for students. They could be enabled to enter into more explicit dialogue between different worldviews and more implicit dialogue between self and other.