How do politicians and teachers perceive the role of ethnic and religious diversity in education? Drawing on a qualitative vertical case study of Berlin’s secondary school ethics classrooms, Annett Gräfe-Geusch argues that two distinct logics of diversity – one inclusive, one exclusive – prevail in political and educational spaces. Find a reading sample from chapter 4 from her book “Aiming for Diversity. Inclusive and Exclusive Logics on Ethno-Religious Diversity in Berlin’s Secondary Schools” here.
Reading sample, pp. 71–74.
4 Ethics and the Question of Diversity: Berlin’s Quest for Value Education
“If children are to shape their lives on a clear and stable foundation of values, education must do more than simply provide facts – it must also impart values. These values cannot be conveyed neutrally; they must stem from a creed, a belief. That is why we advocate for a clear commitment to religious education, as it provides a framework for imparting values and convictions. Those who relegate religious education to the sidelines and claim it can be replaced by a neutral form of value education distort the issue – just as we see happening in Berlin today.” (Former Christian Democratic German Chancellor Angela Merkel, 2005, p. 6)
4.1 Value education in Berlin: A Contested Field
In Germany value education is by constitution a matter of religious education. It is stated in article 7.3 of the German constitution, which decrees mandatory confessional religious instruction for German public schools. Historically, both Christian denominations (Protestant and Catholic) have been the only providers of religious education in Germany and Berlin. This would not change until 1982 when the Humanistic Alliance entered Berlin’s schools, closely followed by the Jewish community in 1986.[1] A remnant of the Weimar Republic,[2] the teaching of values has thus historically been situated within the confines of “Christian religious education“ (cf. Ziemann, 2011, p. 704). As the quote from former Chancellor Merkel above, which was part of a speech given at the Christian Democrats protestant annual working group meeting, shows this connection remains unquestioned at the national level.[3]
In Berlin, city state and the only federal state today that combines both a former West German and East German part, the connection between value education and (Christian) religious education was not taken for granted. Instead, the Berlin model of value education relies on a legal exception to the national constitutional mandate of mandatory religious education.[4]Within the first decade of the 21st century Berlin’s quest for a new regulation of value education turned into an all-out culture war (cf. Joffe, 2008; Posener, 2010). Against local and national pressures, Berlin’s leftist government carved out a secular solution for value education unique among German federal states – ethics.
Overall, there is very little scholarly literature on ethics instruction, its history in Berlin, and its classroom practice. However, the few scholars who have written about the introduction of ethics in Berlin argue that the core issue was a differential understanding of the role of Christianity in society (cf. Gräb and Thieme, 2011; Häusler, 2007). They cite declining participation in religious education and decreasing church membership in the city as key factors. In contrast, this chapter challenges the notion that the changing status of Christian churches in society was the decisive factor in this political development. While secularization certainly played a role in putting value education on the political agenda, the formal secularization of society[5] alone did not generate enough political momentum to drive a reorganization of value education in Berlin. Instead, I argue that the issue of diversity – particularly in debates linking youth, Islam, and violence – was the key driver of policy change.
This chapter demonstrates that the introduction of ethics instruction in Berlin’s public schools in 2006/2007 was propelled by two main catalysts:
- Secularization, understood as the declining social significance of religion (Wilson, 2016, p. 4), reflected in dwindling participation in religious education and the Christian churches’ inability to garner sufficient support for the ProReli referendum.
- International fears and security concerns, particularly regarding minority populations, which were translated into the local political context.
I argue that the debates were shaped by two competing logics of diversity, which I term productive and destructive diversity. Political conceptions of ethics as value education were driven by broader national and global discussions about diversity and what it means to be German. At stake in these debates was the fundamental question of how to manage diversity in order to foster a peaceful, pluralistic society – and how to structure education accordingly. Ethics instruction thus serves as a prime example of how debates over school curricula can evolve into broader political struggles over diversity integration and national identity. As such, this case study sheds light on the process by which global and national political discourses are translated into local educational policy, ultimately leading to organizational changes at the school level.
The history presented in this chapter is based on the analysis of 142 parliamentary documents ranging from minutes of parliamentary hearings, subcommittee hearings, minor, oral and written interpellations, notifications, decision minutes, decision recommendations, motions, notifications, draft bills, and bills dating from February 3rd, 1993, through January 4th, 2018. In addition, this chapter includes the analysis of two expert interviews (134 minutes and 112 minutes in length respectively), email communications with these experts, speeches given by Berlin’s and national politicians outside of parliament and the scholarly literature.
This chapter focuses on the historical developments that led to the implementation of ethics. This history is marked by three distinct periods: The first period, which I call “losing faith,” provides evidence of how the declining numbers of participation in Christian religious education slowly changed political and church perspectives on the organization of value education in Berlin.
The second period, “diversity matters,” shows how the introduction of diversity as a political argument, its connection to youth, local and global violence, and religion, drove policy change and essentially produced a new organizational solution. “The last rebellion” discusses the final attempt to bring religion back into the debates and the failure of the Christian Churches to mobilize enough political and public support to produce policy action. It also exemplifies a period that established a strong challenge to the legitimacy of ethics instruction in Berlin. In the discussion section of this chapter, I argue that the political debate relied on two logics – productive and destructive diversity – that were able to produce two distinct organizational models and political imaginations for value education although only one of these models was implemented.
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Aiming for Diversity
Inclusive and Exclusive Logics on Ethno-Religious Diversity in Berlin’s Secondary Schools
by Annett Gräfe-Geusch
References
[1] The Humanistic alliance entered on a two-year probation but was established as a regular provider by 1984 (cf. Gräb & Thieme, 2011, p. 34; Häusler, 2007, p. 39). The Jewish community started to provide religious education in Berlin in 1986 and has since stayed predominantly within its own private schools – it only teaches in one public primary and one public secondary school in Berlin (cf. Häusler, 2007, pp. 42-43). Muslims would not gain the right to provide Islamic religious education in Berlin’s schools until 2000. In 2015, a total of eight different organizations of various religious denominations and world views provided religious instruction in Berlin’s schools: the Allevite Community of Berlin, the Buddhist Society of Berlin, the archdiocese of Berlin, the protestant church of Berlin and Brandenburg, the Humanistic Alliance, the Islamic Federation of Berlin, the Jewish community of Berlin, and the Syrian Orthodox Church Mor Afrem (cf. Abgeordnetenhaus von Berlin, 2018).
[2] Religious education was also provided by the Catholic and Protestant churches during the NS regime in Germany. For the official agreement between the Catholic Church and the German Reich see the Concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich from July 20th, 1933, article 21 and 22 (in addition articles 23, 24, and 25 regulate private religious schools – Concordat Between the Holy See and the German Reich [with Supplementary Protocol and Secret Supplement], 1933).
[3] In fact, Berlin’s approach to organizing value education was so controversial and deviated so sharply from established German principles on how to educate students in this area that even the German Parliament (Bundestag)—a governing body that typically does not intervene in federal state education policy—dedicated an entire session to the issue on April 13, 2005.
[4] In contrast to most other federal states in Germany – with the exception of Bremen – Berlin does not follow the mandate for mandatory Religious Education of article 7.3 of the German Constitution. Instead, Berlin and Bremen claim article 141 or the “Bremer Klausel” due to a school law that regulated religious education prior to the German constitution becoming effective. The Bremer Klausel states that “paragraph 7.3 of the German Constitution does not apply to federal states that had a different state regulation predating January 1st, 1949”. This exception has created a legal environment that made it possible for Berlin to find its own path in term of the value education of the city’s students.
[5] Formal church membership at least for the Christian denominations is measured in Germany through a tax that deducts between eight and nine percent (depending on the federal state of residence) of your income. Other factors that lead scholars to the conclusion that church memberships are declining are the attendance in mass and the participation in religious education. It should also be noted that secularization does not necessarily mean the decline of religiosity (see for examples arguments that consider soccer a form of religion, e.g. Xifra, 2008) and that secularization arguments in Europe – as this trend is not confined to Germany alone – are usually focused on Christian religions.
