Impact of studies on personal beliefs and views about

As indicated in section 2.2.1, one of the arguments used against religious education in Estonia is its potential to make children religious, or deliberately encourage religious faith. In order to explore this question, I needed to ask ‘What place does religion have in the lives of young people and how does education about religion influences their personal beliefs and views abut religion?’ In the following, I triangulate the results presented in chapters 3 and 4.

1. Unobtrusive role of religion for young people. The role of religion in students’ lives and in their environment is not very visible for most students in Estonia. Religion belongs more to history and ‘others’ than to contemporary time and ‘oneself’ for Estonian speaking students, and is regarded as a very private matter for Russian speaking students. The influences of religious communities for both ethnic groups are almost non-existent. Many students in both surveys found that religion was an irrelevant topic. Their direct expe-riences of religion were rare, usually through encountering endeavours of missionaries; thus religious people often seemed to them to be annoying and strange. Few students (15%) saw themselves as affiliated to a particular reli-gious tradition, while most of them could think about religion only in abstract and impersonal terms, and found difficulties in defining their own worldview or religious affiliation.

However, Russian speaking students diverged greatly in their attitudes to religion in both surveys. For this group, religion was a personal matter, closely related to their identity, in an intimate and personal manner, almost irrespective of their religious affiliation. At the same time, religion had hardly any societal aspect for them, neither it was regarded as a means to belong to a group.

Although family was important for Russian speaking respondents, they also tended to rebel against the wider family’s attitudes and beliefs more then the

‘Estonian’ sample, as the quantitative survey shows. They looked for their own way of believing, but in this search they stayed close to a monotheistic belief and to Orthodox approaches, and were hardly aware of other religious tradi-tions.

If I compare the results of Estonian sample to other countries participating in the study (Valk et al, 2009), then students in Estonia were far less attached to religion than students in any other country. There were, for example, 3 times more religiously affiliated students in the Russian sample, which was the next less affiliated country, while 65% of all the students in Dutch and Spanish samples adhered to some religion. Also the importance of religion and fre-quency of attendance at different religious practices was lower in the Estonian sample than in other countries, but the differences here were not so drastic.

Many students tried to avoid expressing definite opinions. One of the reasons for this may be their insufficient knowledge about religion which inhibits their ability and willingness to express a point of view about their own conviction.

The reluctance to express a point of view may also indicate the students’ wish to be ‘normal’ or similar to ‘everybody else’, rather than being seen as part of a

‘religious’ minority. A further reason for avoiding fixed positions could a tendency towards a relativistic view in which some truth is seen in a variety of different positions.

2. Family and school as two main sources of information about religion.

Students valued families most highly as a source of information about religion but, at the same time, mentioned that they hardly ever spoke about religion at home. Only the students who studied religious education recently valued school higher than family as a source of information. In the qualitative survey it was clear that students who valued school as a source of information about religion spoke more about different religions and plural ways of understanding it than others. It is impossible to assess, on the basis of the quantitative survey, the extent of information they got from family or school, but it is very doubtful that parents with no education on religious issues can provide their children with balanced and rich information about it. Both surveys show that students, especially those without a religious affiliation, admit that they do not know about religion, and that they are not interested in it – so the amount of information they have about religion is very limited. Thus, their understanding of religion is very likely to be fragmented and unsystematic, supporting a state of affairs where many prejudices about religions and religious people are held.

For example, from all the REDCo countries more students from Estonia than any other country agreed that they did not like people from other religions and

fewer students from Estonia than any other country who agreed that they respect people who are believers. Several countries which have an inclusive form of non-confessional religious education have recognized that teaching about religion, when it comes to fostering tolerance and respect, is a task of common state funded schools, and not only families and faith communities.

3. Influences of religious education on the personal perception of religion. The personal relevance of religion seemed not to be directly correlated with the model of religious education they experienced. Although there were no differences in terms of belonging or belief in God between the groups who had experienced different models of religious education, students who had studied religious education believed more in ‘some sort of spirit or life force’ and believed less in God and also held less atheistic views. This option is probably felt to be more flexible and less loaded with connotations students wanted to avoid in their own belief (as for example anthropomorphism). In general views about the relevance of religion for one’s own life were similar for students who had had experiences of different models of religious education. Nevertheless, some minor differences in the importance of religion, frequency of thinking about religion and about the meaning of life were present: students with experience of religious education tended to avoid more negative extreme positions. The students with experience of religious education tended to express more readiness to change their views about religion and to think that a person can be religious without belonging to any religious community. This evidence leads to the conclusion that studying religious education does not make students more religious but tends to help them to be more reflexive and more cautious in expressing negative or very fixed attitudes about religion at the personal level or about the religious beliefs of others, as discussed above.

3.a. Impacts of religious education only in primary school on the personal views about religion. The attitudes of those who had religious education only in primary classes showed some apparent contradictions in their responses. For example, while students with experience of religious education in primary classes said that they attended religious services and prayed slightly more frequently, at the same time they considered religion to be nonsense more than other respondents did. One might observe that religious education studied only in primary schools is likely be an inadequate option, both in terms of the coverage of intellectual content and in terms of relating studies to the personal and social development of students.

3.b. Impacts of religious education in secondary school on the personal views about religion. Those students who had studied religious education at secondary level used and valued more knowledge-based sources in finding information about religion. Students who studied religious education tended to notice religious phenomena in their surroundings and in the lives of people around them. Moreover, they articulated more complex ideas about religion and religious people. They often found differences to be interesting and fascinating, while students who had no religious education showed some frustration with religious stances different from their own. This shows that a combination of the

knowledge students with experience of religious education have about different religions, and skills they acquire in handling issues of religion, can reduce their prejudices about religious issues and their fear of ‘difference’.

In conclusion, the data reported in this study provide evidence that religious education does not make students more religious but that it does change values.

Religion is not regarded as something to be afraid of or regarded as an irrelevancy from the past, but as at least an acceptable choice for some people.

A further point is that in the schools and classes with no religious education some students from a religious background may experience the expression of prejudices about religious people. These prejudices currently do not get discussed in school and often stay unchallenged because of the often tacitly accepted private and silent ’taboo’ position of religion in society and also because of the fragmented knowledge about religion of many students. The school could be a public institution that provides a ‘semi-formal’ space for giving students the possibility to encounter religious and worldview diversity.

The fear in front of ‘other’ could be lessened by increasing familiarity with different religions.

6.1.2. Impact of studies on views about religion