Corso di Dottorato di ricerca in Studi sull'Asia e sull'Africa ciclo 33° Tesi di Ricerca Religious Education and East Asian Religions A Study-of-Religion\s Based Framework for Intercultural and Didactic Approaches SSD: L-OR/20 Coordinatore del Dottorato ch. prof. Patrick Heinrich Supervisore ch. prof. Toshio Miyake Dottorando Giovanni Lapis Matricola 815269 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Ph.D. scholarship for the present research has been generously co-funded by the Humanities & Social Change International Foundation through the Humanities & Social Change Center at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. I wish therefore to thank Erck Rickmers, Founder of the International Foundation, Shaul Bassi, director of the Center at Ca’ Foscari and all the members of the Center’s Board. I wish to thank all the other fellow researchers of the Venice Center for both the insightful discussions and the fun moments spent together. I also thank the Center’s project manager, Barbara Del Mercato. I want to thank Massimo Raveri for all the encouragement and assistance in this and other past projects of mine. In particular, I am really grateful for his enduring support in the past experiences of two EU-funded projects, out of which the first ideas and insights for the present work developed. I also thank Toshio Miyake for accepting to be my tutor after Raveri’s retirement, and for our genuine discussions. I wish to thank also prof. Patrick Heinrich, Doctorate coordinator, for his organization of stimulating training sessions which I regret not having completely taken part into. This work has benefitted from the exchange of ideas with various other persons, first of all, with Mariachiara Giorda and Matteo Cestari, whom I also thank for having been the evaluators of my thesis. I am grateful also to Giovanni Bulian and Silvia Rivadossi for their invitation as speaker in one of their seminars on Japanese Religions and for all the informal talks. I want to thank also prof. Francesca Tarocco for let me actively cooperating in the creation of the blended course on Chinese Religions. This experience gave me some useful hints. A special thank goes to Wanda Alberts for accepting my invitation to give a talk before my presentation at the Humanities & Social Change Center of Venice. This Ph.D. thesis is actually the result of a long journey, started well before the years of the doctorate with this strange idea of teaching the study of religions in public schools. While travelling, I met and worked with different persons which, in a way or another, contributed to push me forward. Among them I must mention the U.V.A. group from Rome: Beatrice Nuti, Giulia Nardini, Paolo Pascucci and all the others. Also, I cannot forget my former colleagues at Padua University, with whom we founded our Laboratorio di Scienze delle Religioni: Francesca L’Altrelli, Maria Giuliana Rizzuto, Maria Bombardieri and Emanuele Barro. A special mention is due to all those persons with whom I worked in the years of the two EU-funded projects devoted to the teaching of the study of religions in schools. The list is long, but I wish to thank at least Tim Jensen, Isabelle Saint-Martin, Susanne Popp, Valentina Zangrando, Giulia Taccetti, Béatrice Héraud, Elena Nonveiller and all the teams from Denmark, France, Spain, Venice and Florence. A final, big thank goes to my lovely Linda, who helped me out, with care and patience, every time I needed. RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AND EAST ASIAN RELIGIONS A Study-of-Religion\s Based Framework for Intercultural and Didactic Approaches TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................. 4 CHAPTER 1: THE STUDY OF RELIGION\S............................................................................................... 14 1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 14 1.2 Discipline or field of study? .................................................................................................................. 15 1.3 A brief history of the field and its relationship with theological thinking ............................................. 16 1.4 Implication of the reflexive turn ............................................................................................................ 19 1.5 Definition(s) of religion and identification of the subject matter .......................................................... 20 1.6 Theoretical approaches to religion ........................................................................................................ 26 1.7 The reflexive/critical turn in the study of religion\s .............................................................................. 34 1.7.1 Genealogy of the term and uses of "religion" ................................................................................. 36 1.7.2. The twin birth of the 'religious' and the 'secular' ........................................................................... 40 1.7.3. Religion, orientalism and colonialism ........................................................................................... 43 1.7.4. Critiques of essentialism and new research agenda for the study of religion\s ............................. 47 1.8 Methodology.......................................................................................................................................... 51 1.9 Relevance of the study of religion\s ...................................................................................................... 61 1.10 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 63 CHAPTER 2: EDUCATION........................................................................................................................... 65 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 65 2.2 General didactics and disciplinary didactics.......................................................................................... 69 2.3 Didactic transposition ............................................................................................................................ 73 2.3.1 Didactic transposition: epistemological dimension ........................................................................ 77 2.3.2 Didactic transposition: teaching dimension .................................................................................... 79 2.3.3 Didactic transposition: learning dimension .................................................................................... 84 2.3.4 Didactic transposition: axiological dimension ................................................................................ 85 2.4 Intercultural education ........................................................................................................................... 89 2.4.1 Whence intercultural education? .................................................................................................... 89 2.4.2 The concept of "culture" in intercultural education ........................................................................ 91 2.4.3 Intercultural interactions ................................................................................................................. 93 2.4.4 Aims of intercultural education ...................................................................................................... 95 2.4.5 Pitfalls to be avoided in intercultural education ............................................................................. 98 2.5 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 101 CHAPTER 3 - RE MODELS, APPROACHES AND PRACTICES ............................................................ 103 3.1 General introduction to the topic and individuation of the case-study ................................................ 103 3.1.1 Model for analysis ........................................................................................................................ 111 3.2 English RE: historical context and institutional framework ................................................................ 113 3.2.1 Short history of English RE .......................................................................................................... 113 3.2.2 The 2004 non-statutory national framework for religious education ........................................... 117 3.2.3 The 2013 Review of Religious Education in England .................................................................. 120 3.2.4 The 2018 Report Religion and Worldviews: the way forward ..................................................... 123 3.3 English RE: Interpretive-dialogical approach ..................................................................................... 128 3.3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 128 3.3.2 The concept of religion ................................................................................................................. 129 3.3.3 The representation of religions ....................................................................................................