Zorica Kuburić Faculty of Philosophy Novi Sad Milan Vukomanović Faculty of Philosophy Belgrade

Original scientific paper UDK: 37.014.523(497.11) Received: 30. 05. 2006.

Religious Education: The Case of Serbia*

ABSTRACT The confessional religious education was introduced, as an optional subject, in Serbian public school system by a governmental regulation published in July 2001. Such a decision was preceded by an incomplete public debate that lasted from November 2000 to July 2001. Major arguments for and against religious education are discussed in this paper. Other topics include: religiosity in Serbia; models of religious education and main actors that participated in the debates and decision-making process; legislation, curricula, textbooks; goals of religious education; teacher training; some empirical data on the attitudes towards religious education in schools, etc. Four years later, it is possible to assess not only the preconditions of the Serbian government decision, but also the consequences regarding some initial experiences in the primary and secondary schools and church-state relations (religious rights and freedoms) in general. More precisely, the issue of public religious education in Serbia appeared to be a litmus test for the forthcoming legislation on religious organizations and for the new social and political role of religious communities in Serbia today.

KEY WORDS religious education, Serbia, church, state

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* This article is a chapter from the book Religion and Pluralism in Education, ed. by Zorica Kuburić and Christian Moe, CEIR, Novi Sad, in cooperation with the Kotor Network, 2006. The research itself was conducted as part of the project „Religion and Pluralism in Education: Comparative Approaches in the Western Balkans“, supported by a grant from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Kotor Network (an international academic exchange in the field of Balkans based religious studies) and facilitated by the Department of Culture Studies at the University of Oslo.