RT Article
T1 From citizenship of God’s Kingdom to liberal individualism?: a critical historical analysis of Finnish religious education
JF British journal of religious education
VO 39
IS 2
SP 187
OP 206
A1 Poulter, Saila
LA English
PB Routledge
YR 2017
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1636897096
AB The aim of this paper is to explore the history of Finnish religious education (RE) from the perspective of civic education. The research is based on a historical and content analysis of the data, which consist of written pedagogical and curricular material on Lutheran RE from the last 150 years. The analysis, which employs the Foucauldian concept ofgovernmentalityto explore the changes in the relationship between citizenship and religion, morality and power, demonstrates that RE has been a powerful tool in shaping civic identities throughout its history. However, the justifications for RE have differed markedly according to the social conditions of the day. This study further claims that liberalisation and individualisation are the main ideological and moral concepts that describe the change in the notion of citizenship. The main contribution of this analysis is to address the importance of understanding how the formation of civic identity is always shaped by historical and ideological currents and particularly how the externally controlling power of the nation state has been replaced by less visible ways of governing the liberal subject.
K1 Citizenship
K1 Education : Finland
K1 Individualism
K1 Religious Education
K1 Social History
DO 1080/01416200.2015.1110113