Teaching on Religion from The Perspective Of Interreligious Dialogue: For a Paideia of ‘Knowing How To Live Together’

The question of religious teaching in Italy has previously been the focus of a debate in which cultural, political and ideological reasons emerged. Today, the conditions have developed for such a debate to be enriched with specific pedagogical reasons, starting from a revival of interest in Italian academic pedagogy for religious education in general and for teaching on religion. The publication of a dossier on the teaching of religion in a multicultural context, published in the journal ‘Nuova Secondaria Ricerca, was very significant in this regard and was attended by colleagues from several Italian universities, who have approached the subject from multiple perspectives. There is a growing need to confront an increasing multicultural social context and the space that religious teaching can occupy in it, following the criteria authoritatively indicated by the Toledo Guiding Principles on Teaching about Religions and Beliefs in Public Schools of 2007. A correct approach to religious teaching can help build a mutual understanding and eliminate stigmas and prejudices, in the perspective of a 'paideia of knowing how to live together', which also considers the specificity of different national cultures and traditions. A further element that is important to consider is the growth and consolidation of experiences of interreligious dialogue increasingly significant and relevant: since the interreligious meeting held in Assisi in 1986, until the historic document signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam Al-Tayyeb in Abu Dhabi in 2019. The dialogical approach to the religious phenomenon and the teaching about religion is placed in a perspective that goes beyond the ‘paradigms of suspicion’, seeking to offer a religious interpretation of religious experiences and, conversely, to offer an interreligious reading of the multicultural context.