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Amadine barb12/15/2023 ![]() Starting in the 1940s and the strict secularization of public education by the Supreme Court, religion became also largely marginalized and neglected in American schools concerned with not breaching the “wall of separation”. In the United States, the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, adopted in 1791, indicates that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ”. As a result, French schools, which had gone through an early process of “laïcisation” at the end of the 19th century, have long disregarded faith as irrelevant and potentially corruptive for the making of modern, democratic citizens. In France, the 1905 “law of separation between the churches and the state”, asserts that “the Republic recognize any religion”, and the preamble of the 1958 Constitution further provides that “France is a (.), secular democratic and social Republic”. Indeed, although France and the United States have a different historical experience and understanding of the separation between church and state, both countries, bound by a strict secular legal framework, had traditionally overlooked the topic of religion in the sphere of education. But this academic and comparative study of religion has also been introduced in France and the United States, two constitutionally secular states, where religious education did not previously exist in public schools. At the state level, it has been recently adopted by countries such as Canada (Québec), England, and South Africa, which have abandoned their historically Christian confessional instruction in favor of a more pluralistic approach, which puts emphasis on religious culture education and ethics. This type of inclusive religious education has been strongly promoted by supra-national organizations, including the Council of Europe (2008), the OSCE (2007), the UNESCO (2003 1994), and the United Nations (2001). ![]() Over the past three decades, one of the main developments regarding the place and role of religion in public schools has been the introduction by several western democracies of a new pluralist model of religious education, characterized by the comparative, non-sectarian, and non-devotional study of religions. For a more detailed analysis of the way Islam is presented in French textbooks, see Estivalèzes 2011.A similar controversy involving the state of California and Hindu lobbies had already taken place in 2006 (see Barb 2017).American Academy of Religion 2010 First Amendment Center 2008. ![]() World Cultures: A Global Mosaic, Prentice Hall (Pearson), Grades 9-12.Discovering Our Past: A History of the World, McGraw-Hill, Grades 6-8, 2014.National Council for the Social Studies 2005. Harvard Extension School, Religious Studies and Education Certificate.California Department of Education 2016, Chapter 15. ![]() State of New Jersey Department of Education, New Jersey Student Learning Standards for Social Studies, 6.2.World History Studies, Beginning with school year 2011-2012. Texas Education Code, Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills for Social Studies, Chapter 113, Subchapter C: High school § 113.42.The Supreme Court, via the Fourteenth Amendment, extended the scope of the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses to the states in 19 respectively ( Cantwell v. When adopted in 1791, the First Amendment only applied to the Federal government.Constitution of the 5th Republic, adopted on October 4th, 1958. ![]()
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