Pluralism and religious education

Worldwide developments and paradigmatic changes such as the globalism process that has gained speed in the last quarter-century, the spreading of the means of mass media, the rise in the importance of multi-national organisations, and migrations have been laying growing importance on the issue of pluralism and one can feel its existence in recent studies more than before. Discussions on pluralism mainly hint at ethnical, cultural, religious, and world views of in today?s societies and at demands on cultural and educational fields in particular, and this state is foreseen to give rise to new visions in educational policies and programs.This paper basically aims to describe the issue of pluralism that we have frequently been coming accross in varied fields; initially within the framework of the ideas of philosophers that have contributed to it, and then to discuss the impacts that cultural, religious, and political dimensions of pluralism have had on religious education in general, and on the context of Turkey in particular. With regards to the nature of the research, a descriptive approach has been adopted as the method.The interpretation of literatüre has led us to results that; (I) recent international developments, particularly the collapse of the Soviet Union and the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks have caused a rise in the interest towards religious education, (II) the questions concerning what should be the purpose and the content of religious education given at schools have gained importance, (III) serving religious education at schools in a way that favours a traditional denominational or a confessional religious education has begun to be put into question and (IV) pluralistic religious education models receive more interest.The research has also led us to the conclusion that a variety of approaches rather than one concerning pluralism have existed; among these, the liberal theory?s approach that favours personal rights and the community/congregation-based approach that frames its discussions on groups? rights have become more prominent; however, Habermas? consensus-based, process-oriented idea of pluralism, that stresses ?unity in plurality?, seems to be more applicable to the policy and pedagogy of the religious education courses at schools in Turkey.