As European countries have become more pluralist and in some senses secular, the regulation of religion in the public sphere has acquired more urgency. These 17 essays by sociologists, political scientists, historians and legal specialists report the growing importance of religious freedom in western European schools and workplaces. At the same time, they demonstrate a developing process, balancing conflicting rights and viewpoints, which will help practitioners and those worried about apparent attacks on Christianity.
The background might be best expressed in the quoted view of Professor Martha Nussbaum that responsible citizenship includes appreciating the complexities of the major world religions (p 207), and that therefore each state's duty is to provide that education, which somehow has to be reconciled with parents' (if not their children's) right of withdrawal from religious education. The chapter on Spanish state schools, while insisting that denominational teaching cannot fairly be accused of bigotry or exclusivism, asks whether those opting for denominational instruction do not thereby miss out on wider teaching that would prepare them for a tolerant and pluralist society.
The book falls into four main parts. First, the tensions and interactions between the key concepts of integration, laïcité, identity and discrimination are considered, drawing on France with Jewish schools, and England with Muslim schools. Secondly, there is an examination of the broad range of options between the complex and overall broadly Christian model in England and Wales, the highly segregationalist and bipolar – Catholic and Protestant – structure in Northern Ireland, the separationist and laïc French system and the neutral secularity of Germany (with its Basic Law spanning 16 different Länder legislatures) and Spain. In all these, the interplay of religion and education is deeply imbedded in historical and political national contexts, which are then reflected in the judicial or legislative solutions given in different jurisdictions to particular issues regarding religion.
In the remaining sections of the book, the convergent effect of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is considered in two vividly disputed areas: teaching content and religious symbols. The realm of education is seen as the main laboratory where the state can test its policies about creating a harmonious society and what place religion might hold within that society. Because schooling is compulsory, religious freedoms in schools have greater sensitivity than, say, in the workplace, but they were little discussed within European institutions until spurred on by the security implications of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 in the USA.
Because religious belief defines a person's very being, their sense of who they are and how they relate to the world, the recognition of religious freedom is a basic human right, yet it may often conflict with a national perception, or doctrine, of identity. While all states seek to integrate everyone, regardless of class, sex or religion, some seek to do so by relentless assimilation or even Soviet-style uniformity; while others pursue integration by accommodating difference, with the risks of atomised groups within society or accepting complete segregation with separate rules.
These opposing systems are exemplified by France, which permits no intermediate representation between the individual and the state, and Britain, which believes that giving a voice to groups and communities enables a valuable diversity – even though such groups may not easily find mutual understanding. France and Britain are, of course, not polar opposites: despite its anti-clerical history, France finds room for belief, while Britain has many secular elements alongside its elements of establishment. In the French saga of the veil, by placing Muslim girls in a situation in which they choose between not wearing the hijab or finding refuge in Catholic schools, it is argued that France has sacrificed its original republican intent of putting education at the heart of integration. Of the 17% of French pupils educated in the private sector, 95% of these are in Catholic schools but, as Catholic schools become increasingly secularised (by parental pressure or lack of Catholic teachers), the apparent division is now between highly prestigious wealthy schools and those in poorer areas, often attended by children from immigrant families. A contrast can also be seen in Church of England schools: those in villages are often closer to being faith schools, while many in the cities, particularly in poorer areas, can rightly be deemed ‘community schools’ in their openness to other faiths. France seems to be gradually overcoming its hostility to religion: although the National Curriculum permits no formal hour for religious education, recent history textbooks have cautiously opened for teachers' discretion the examination of religious issues arising from core subjects.
US attempts to extend science education into evolution have fallen foul of creationist objections; even teaching evolution as ‘merely scientific theory’ is held to discriminate it from other science on religious grounds. Were evolution held to be a religion per se, US parents could require their children's exemption from classes – and similarly, by extension, from classes on climate change or birth control. US courts have resisted this, although the changing membership of the US Supreme Court might today have brought a different legal outcome. Related debate has surrounded the concept of ‘intelligent design’. To a limited extent these debates have fed into discussions in Europe – Emmanuel College, Gateshead, is an example quoted – but European constitutions do not resemble the US First Amendment and divisions in European societies are less fiercely contested.
While in 1982 the ECtHR ruled Scottish schools wrong to beat children with the tawse against their parents' ‘philosophical convictions’ about punishment, in the Williamson case in 2005 the House of Lords ruled that schools' refusal to inflict corporal punishment conflicted with some parents' Bible-based right to require this under Article 9, but otherwise declined to enforce that right. Their Lordships noted that, while they should not be drawn into evaluating intensely held beliefs against official doctrines, manifestation would not be protected where it harmed other human rights.
The Grand Chamber's reversal of the earlier Lautsi v Italy judgment, ruling that a crucifix on a classroom wall as ‘an essentially passive symbol’ (whereas a Muslim headscarf had been ‘a powerful external symbol’, though worn by a person with fundamental rights) did not inevitably infringe the state's proper neutrality, raises questions about the definition of neutrality and how tolerance might be better advanced in increasingly pluralist societies. A Bavarian case 15 years earlier had held that crosses over all classroom doors (replacing earlier crucifixes) were not merely a symbol of western culture, whatever the state intended. Rather they could be seen as the primary symbol of Christian faith, and were not avoidable (as school prayers were), thus forcing pupils to ‘study under the cross’ and so violating the state's neutrality. Tobias Lock's essay compares the two decisions and also contrasts the rights of pupils with those of teachers as employed. Following a different headscarf case, eight of the German Länder passed laws enabling monks and nuns to wear habits in classrooms, in accordance with ‘Christian and Western educational and cultural values’ (p 362).
Subsequent to Frank Cranmer's discussion here of such cases and others where belief has led to action manifesting that belief in ways that have conflicted with employers' policies (wearing a cross or crucifix, veils and turbans; or refusing to counsel or conduct civil partnerships of same-sex couples), the ECtHR has in January 2013 made finely nuanced rulings. Cranmer and also Russell Sandberg (who blames newspapers' hyperbole for spreading confusion about the Equality Act 2010) chart the waters within which these rulings should be explored, while Mark Hill provides similar context in relation to rulings on the wearing of religious bracelets, rings and veils in schools.
While many of the essays inevitably overlap, all are thoroughly argued and together provide a wide overview of principles and case studies that may yet influence the courts in a field that is rapidly changing.
