Interreligious and intercultural dialogue in secondary schools in Catalonia

Abstract

A study was conducted by survey on the attitudes of the management teams (management, head of studies, academic secretariat and pedagogical coordination) of public and private secondary education centres in Catalonia. A Likert scale was designed to measure attitudes, of 49 items. The instrument was considered valid and reliable, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.906. A notable sensitivity on the part of the centers in view of the need to promote interreligious and intercultural dialogue among the educational community, although do not consider compulsory basic education require a specific subject of religion. Although a very large number of centers detect the need to work for the promotion of interreligious and intercultural dialogue, more than half recognize that they do not carry out any type of adaptation or specific treatment with the different religious groups. More than half of them raise the interest in working jointly with neighborhood entities dedicated to this issue. However, they maintain at the same time that the issue of interreligious dialogue is not one of the main priorities of compulsory secondary education.