Correlation between education for democratic or active citizenship and catholic religious education

Maroević-Kulaga, Jeniđe. (2016). Correlation between education for democratic or active citizenship and catholic religious education. PhD Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Pedagogy.
(Poslijediplomski doktorski studij pedagogije.) [mentor Spajić-Vrkaš, Vedrana].

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Abstract

With the aim of developing a democratic culture of youth, in the year 1997 The Council of Europe launched the project on Education for Democratic Citizenship. With the similiar goals in mind, in the year 2000, the Education for Active Citizenship was initiated by the European Union. Croatia joined these projects in 1999, with the National Programme of Education for Human Rights. By the year of 2014 it joined with the draft of Curriculum Citizenship Education, as well as the introduction of Citizenship Education as a cross-curricular theme as well as a subject in the eighth grade, as the experimental implementation. In the broader context the Citizenship education may include the Religious Education, both non-confessional, which is based on religious freedom, and confessional if it is open to the other religions and world views. In 1991 Croatia introduced Religious Education in the schools as an optional subject that inspired us to investigate the attitudes of graduates of general high school in Zagreb, attending Catholic Religious Education. Methods, atmosphere and personality of teachers of religion were investigated, and how they all contribute to the promotion of a democratic and active citizenship. We have also examined the religiosity of the respondents and its influence on their views toward different religions and worldviews. We consulted numerous sociological, pedagogical and socio-religious, Croatian and foreign research, which confirmed that european trends of secularization, secular religiosity, individualization, relativization of values and the high ranking of democratic principles are present in Croatia. It was also established that Catholic Religious Education in Croatia has promising potential in promoting the democratic values and active citizenship. The first part of the questionairre designed to conduct the research, examined religiosity (dimensions according Glock and Stark), the second part originally composed, examined the views on the promotion of democracy. Data processing procedures were used in terms of descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages and correlations) procedures, inferential statistics (Chi-square and T-test) and multivariate factor analysis. The research results indicate a significant potential of Religious Education in the promotion of democratic values and the contribution of learning for democratic and active citizenship, and thus the improvement of civic competence. Respondents largely integrated those religious values in their daily life, focused especially on the social aspect of life. They also expressed a high degree of openness to the acceptance of different faiths and world views, but can still improve on more concrete joint ecumenical and interreligious cooperation. There is still room in the religious teaching practises for greater connectivity with democratic values, particularly in the area of application and methodological diversity, connecting the subject content with the values of a democratic society, improving the understanding of the closeness of the Christian and democratic values. There is also room for improvement in terms of acceptance of certain vulnerable groups in society as well as raising awareness of the active participation of every Christian for the benefit of all in their own socio-political community.

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