Comprehensive Schools as the Frontier of Religious Education: Current Developments and Emerging Principles in Germany

1.1 The Legal Framework for Incremental Change

Religious education in German public schools is governed, at its most basic level, by a set of legal provisions in the German constitution.^[6] Far from pursuing a strict separation of church and state, German Basic Law stipulates that RE be taught in state schools “as part of the regular curriculum” and “in accordance with the tenets of the religious community concerned.”^[7] In an arrangement known as res mixta, the religiously neutral state ensures that a religious element is included in the curriculum because it deems this to be essential for the moral education of its citizens. However, the state purposefully does not claim an exclusive right to decide on the form and contents of RE. Instead, it includes the regional churches (and equivalent religious bodies) in the process of designing RE and in the qualification of RE teachers, acknowledging the fact that it cannot define the tenets of any religious community. This arrangement came about not as a favor to the churches, but because of a wariness, born out of the experience of national socialism, of unchecked state control over the moral education of children and youth. The state’s self-limitation has resulted in an intricate system of reciprocal checks and balances. While the federal states pay for all necessary resources (most notably the RE teachers’ education and salary), the churches and other communities must authorize each individual teacher, entrusting them with the task of teaching in accordance with their respective tenets. Meanwhile, the states retain the right to supervise religious education, e. g., by chairing the committees that design state-wide RE curricula and requiring that RE is academically rigorous enough to be included in standardized final exams. The committees themselves are composed of RE teachers (paid by the state, tasked by the churches, and selected for this purpose by the Ministry of Education), as well as non-voting, advising representatives of the churches and teachers’ unions.

Scholars of religious education commonly reject readings of these constitution provisions that derive from them a narrow, catechetical concept of RE. Going back as far as 1958, the Protestant churches in Germany pledged to “freely serve the free school,”^[8] agreeing to hold the pedagogical needs of schools as highly as any sectarian educational goals. With the end of the era of “Protestant instruction” (Evangelische Unterweisung) in the mid-1960s, RE in public schools has distanced itself conclusively from any form of indoctrination. Instead, teachers and scholars alike seek to foster among students a critical literacy of religious thought and praxis, including an elementary understanding of academic theology. For decades, then, the notion of “accordance with the tenets” has not been interpreted as a duty to organize RE around a confession of faith or a normative, dogmatic set of beliefs, but as a duty on the part of the religious communities to fend off arbitrariness in RE. They may elaborate much more general tenets than the twelve articles of the Apostolic Creed, for example. The Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) did just that in 1971 when it defined its tenets to include that “statements of faith and creeds need a continuous re-interpretation in the present that takes into account their situatedness in history” and that “from a Protestant perspective, the commitment to the biblical witness to Jesus Christ encompasses that teachers must interpret and communicate beliefs on the basis of academic scholarship (Wissenschaft) and through the exercise of their freedom of conscience.^[9] For decades, then, Protestant researchers of religious education in Germany have studied and sought to assist forms of religious learning that are suitable to the academic setting of public schools and the needs of present-day students and that also maintain a “commitment to the biblical witness,” all of this in a fashion befitting the Protestant ideal of an earnest, theologically informed and critical engagement with tradition.

Pursuant to the state’s self-limitation regarding the assessment of religious tenets, the German Supreme Court has consistently ruled that this mode of RE fulfills the provisions of the Basic Law. Crucially, though, scholars of law commonly find that the constitution does impose some limitations on the format of RE. If it were to develop into a subject of purely informative, strictly non-sectarian engagement with “world religions” – so say the legal opinions –, then this form of RE would no longer comply with the demand of Article 7.3 cited above. RE in German public schools at all levels includes elements of comparative religious studies. But if this were its general approach, relinquishing an underlying interest in religious truth, then that would be seen as outside of what the churches and other religious communities may plausibly claim as their basic “tenets.”^[10] To be sure, it would not be illegal to include such RE in the school curriculum. But unlike the present model, schools would not be compelled to offer it, and there would be no legal basis for the churches to be included in its design or in the licensing of teachers. Last but not least: Foundational reforms of RE like this have the potential to throw into disarray the academic infrastructure that trains teachers of religious education, whose education currently takes place in theological faculties and institutes of theology. Given this legal framework, then, it is understandable that attempts at innovation in RE that cannot claim compliance with the stipulations of the German constitution are often viewed with skepticism in the scholarly community, even if they are pedagogically promising. The legal framework and the German system of cooperation between church and state in matters of RE discourages fundamental or large-scale reforms and incentivizes incremental, small-scale changes. Therefore, spaces within the school system that give individual schools the leeway to experiment, to adapt their concept of RE nimbly to local conditions and needs, and that advance pedagogical knowledge (through trial and occasional error), should be given as much attention by researchers in religious education as larger, regional or state-wide innovations in the model of RE. As we will argue below, comprehensive schools constitute such a space within the German system of public education, displaying a particularly high tolerance for and agility in deviating from the normative model of RE practiced in other schools in their surroundings. In the dynamic environment of RE, constitutional law is the most stable factor, but its flexibility is being tested, and some might say exhausted, by innovations in the practice of RE.

1.2 The Normative Model of RE and Its Variations

The normative or primary model that emerged from the legal provisions and the churches’ explanation of their tenets is commonly referred to as “mono-denominational religious education” (monokonfessioneller Religionsunterricht) in Germany. It bears repeating that despite this term, which can be somewhat disorienting in the international discussion, RE in German schools is not catechesis. It has its foundation in the Gospel, but it eschews biblicism or proselytizing for theological and pedagogical reasons^[11] and it includes elements of learning about denominations and religions other than one’s own. Parents or older students, respectively, also have the right to opt for an alternative, non-sectarian class in Ethics/Philosophy instead. And as many regions have a severe shortage of teachers of Muslim, Alevi, Jewish, Christian-Orthodox and other varieties of religious education, courses in Protestant and Roman Catholic RE are usually open to students of all faiths and none. Churches are aware of the complex and location-specific task of working with students of different religious socializations and starkly different degrees of familiarity with their respective faiths. Consequently, churches give religion teachers wide latitude to fulfill their task with theological and pedagogical competence and creativity, and in accordance with their conscience (Protestant wording) or in “critical loyalty” (Catholic wording).^[12] There are the aforementioned core curricula but no strictly prescribed lesson plans. Teachers retain the ability to design their own lessons, to emphasize parts of the curriculum judiciously, and to discover or create suitable new material outside of schoolbooks – indeed, these competencies are central goals of teacher training and seen as necessary for good practice.

This model characterizes, with differing degrees of consistency, the mode of RE in twelve of the 16 federal states of Germany. However, as Dietrich Werner pointed out in a recent issue of this journal, several developments currently pose sharp challenges to mono-denominational RE: a dearth of teachers (and university students in theology), a continuous rise of religious non-affiliation,^[13] a correspondingly growing number of pupils who opt out of RE in favor of ethics/philosophy, budget constraints in the school system that can put RE in competition with STEM subjects, and a growing pedagogical hesitancy to divide groups of students along the lines of their denomination or preference for the duration of RE.^[14] We must add to this the increasing religious diversity of the German student population: While only about 5 % of the German population are members of non-Christian religions and an additional 4 % belong to non-mainline or post migrant Christian communities (e. g., orthodox churches in Germany that are growing rapidly from migration caused by the Ukraine war),^[15] the percentages are much larger among school-age children and youth. School statistics do not capture students’ religious affiliation; however, the majority of immigrants to Germany come from predominantly non-Christian, mostly Muslim countries, so it is possible to use migration history and nationality as imperfect stand-ins for religious diversity. According to government statistics, 42 % of people between the ages of 5 and 20 living in Germany had a migration background in 2023, meaning that either they or at least one of their parents were not born with German citizenship.^[16] 14,2 % of all students enrolled in public and private schools in the schoolyear 2022/23 were of foreign nationality.^[17] To fend off an all too common misconception: Having a migration background or a foreign nationality from a predominantly Muslim country or even identifying as Muslim does not necessarily correspond to a high degree of religious adherence.^[18] But it nonetheless stands to reason that religious socialization in traditions other than Protestant or Catholic Christianity is substantially higher among school-age children and youth than the total of 9 % in membership among the entire population.

The pressure of these factors, which appear in different combinations from state to state, are reflected in a number of alternative arrangements of RE. “Cooperative RE” teaches Protestant and Catholic students (and others who might want to join) together, typically only for a part of their school career, but permanently in some places. “Integrative RE,” the rarer option officially found only in the city states of Hamburg and Bremen, teaches all students regardless of religious affiliation along a curriculum that is developed and sanctioned by the participating religious groups. In each case, teachers are specifically trained for the inherent didactic challenges, and research in religious education has developed methods and guidelines for each variant.^[19] The models stretch the framework and convention of RE insofar as they claim the same legal foundation as mono-denominational RE. The participating religious communities must therefore elaborate the multi-denominational or interreligious approach to RE as a valid means to and expression of their respective sectarian educational aims. Doing this requires a markedly ecumenical self-understanding or interreligious openness – and where it has been successful, it has been no small feat to unite various religious bodies and stakeholders to come to a consensus. The existing forms of cooperative and integrative RE, then, are no small-scale or incidental experiments, but innovations that have been tested through rigorous debates, are explicitly sanctioned by the state as well as by the participating religious groups, can draw on specialized didactic resources and training, and continuously receive attention from RE scholarship.

1.3 The (Dwindling) Tripartite Secondary Schooling System

Finally, RE in Germany exists in a schooling system that is differentiated at the secondary level, an arrangement that has great implications for the composition of student groups in any given RE classroom and for the scholarly reflection on RE. At the end of their four-year elementary education, German students traditionally attended one of three forms of secondary school that, if completed, issue diplomas granting different levels of access to jobs and continued education. On the first rung, the five-year “Hauptschule” qualifies for a wide variety of crafts and trades which graduates learn through subsequent on-the-job training accompanied by vocational school. The middle-rung, six-year “Realschule” is typically the prerequisite for apprenticeships in clerical positions that do not demand a college degree. The diploma issued by the higher-rung, eight- or nine-year “Gymnasium,” may be used for the careers mentioned above, but its most important function is to qualify graduates for undergraduate university studies. The three strands of secondary schooling are not strictly insulated from each other: students with a degree from one of the first two rungs may enroll in a school of the next higher level. While this path can be an important corrective to the decision made after the fourth grade, the de facto permeability of the German school system is low, as shown most recently for the year 2022: In the critical phase between 7^th and 9^th grade, when a mismatch with the track assigned after elementary school could be corrected with relatively low disruption to students’ social integration, only 4,2 % of students change between school forms.^[20] It is more common for successful students to gain consecutive diplomas from different schools. Even so, in 2022, only 21 % of all students who gained the university entrance certificate had previously studied at a Realschule.^[21] Moreover, factors like the socio-economic status of the family, the highest level of schooling achieved by parents, and whether the family has a history of migration continue to be strong predictors of children’s educational success, and in particular, the level of secondary schooling they attend. In 2022, no less than 78 % of fourth-grade students from families with a high socio-economic status received the (in some states: binding) recommendation to attend a school leading to the university entrance certificate, while only one-third of students from socio-economically disadvantaged families received one, with two-thirds being recommended or compelled to attend other school forms.^[22] A disparity of 8 % between advantaged and disadvantaged children remains even when these numbers are adjusted to account for differences in their academic performance.^[23] In short, the tripartite system must be suspected of posing a hindrance to educational justice and equity, not least because the nominally merit-based assignment of students to different educational tracks after elementary school coincides with student bodies at the secondary schools that are much less socially, culturally, and religiously diverse.

The socially uneven allocation to educational tracks is, however, counteracted by an increasing number of students enrolled in higher-rung and comprehensive schools – a decision that is made, in most states, by their parents on the basis of or in refutation of elementary teachers’ recommendation. The national average of students per cohort who attend schools that potentially lead to the university entrance certificate currently stands at 64,4 %, an increase of 13,1 % since 2009.^[24] This development is largely driven by the growth of comprehensive schools, which account for more than 10 % of the increase. The dynamic is partially rooted in the perception that the other schooling tracks, in particular the Hauptschule, no longer offer the high quality of (specialized) education it did in the past and that its diploma is valued less on the job market, leading parents and students to avoid it. The largest driver of the shift, however, is more fundamental: Most federal states in Germany have replaced the Hauptschule and Realschule with integrated schools that cover both tracks and offer students the chance to earn the first and middle-rung diplomas.^[25] Taken together with comprehensive schools that cover all three tracks, there were almost 1.000 more schools of these types across Germany in 2022 than there were Gymnasiums.^[26] In consequence, it is becoming less accurate to speak of a tripartite secondary schooling system. The system is developing towards a two-fold system of integrated and comprehensive schools as one branch and the Gymnasium as the other.^[27]

4.1 Inclusive Vantage Point

Firstly and most essentially, teaching RE in comprehensive schools requires an inclusive vantage point, i. e. a view of diversity among students and staff as a desirable and normal state. This is distinct from seeing diversity as merely a challenge to meet through the integration of some, viewed as the ‘other,’ into a supposed community. In Germany, the state’s legal commitment to inclusivity through the ratification of the UNCRPD in 2009 was particularly consequential because it disputed the norm of separated educational tracks in the schooling system as a whole and lent further credence to a central pedagogical rational against a strictly denominational RE. From this vantage point, RE in schools must seek to contribute to reducing barriers and increasing equity in education. An extensive study by Ulrike Witten traces the journey that “inclusion” as a concept has taken from the (partially international) educational studies discourse into the German-speaking scholarship on religious education.^[47] In the process, it has undergone manifold interpretations, which encompass theological appropriations, practical methodical innovations for teaching, and a fundamental critique of white male heteronormativity in RE. The wide-ranging debate on inclusion in RE thus holds opportunities for a reciprocal international conversation on religious education not only in schools, but in churches and in higher education as well.

4.2 Diversity-sensitive Teaching and Learning

Secondly, religious education in comprehensive schools requires the pedagogical skill to teach and interact with students with sensitivity for their diverse preconditions for learning and development. Such an attunement to heterogeneity (Heterogenitätssensibilität) is needed with regard to academic performance, religious affiliation and non-affiliation, cultural background, gender, socio-economic status, and the full spectrum of factors that are noticeably at play in a given group of students. Even for experienced teachers, it is a challenge to ‘read’ a student group diagnostically in this way and to finetune their teaching accordingly. However, if teacher rotation from year to year is kept to a minimum, as comprehensive schools usually aim to do, and if colleagues regularly share their observations and teaching experiences, it can be achieved. Importantly, a culture of diversity-sensitivity should also be engendered in the students, through both the example of the teaching staff and explicit engagement with the differences students encounter amongst themselves. In recent years, German scholars of RE have found value in the terms “heterogeneity” or “enlightened heterogeneity,”^[48] preferring these over the related concept of pluralism that previously dominated the RE discourse regarding religious diversity. From its roots in the social sciences and critical theory, heterogeneity in RE parlance carries with it a heightened attention to intersectionality and, ideally, a consciousness of power. Such power is exerted when practitioners and theorists construct the categories of heterogeneity that are “relevant” to RE in general, or to a specific student group, and bring these categories into play with the normative claims of the Christian faith (and perhaps other faiths). Practical questions of teaching in a diversity-sensitive manner, including the risk of over-burdening teachers, are addressed in an edited volume by Bernhard Grümme, Thomas Schlag and Norbert Ricken.^[49] We would add to these that respectful and productive dialogue among students is the litmus test of diversity-sensitive teaching. This criterion corresponds with the observation that various forms of groupwork outshine all other modes of learning in comprehensive schools in Germany, extending even into the furnishing of classrooms to accommodate collaboration among students.

4.3 The Didactics of Alternating Perspectives

Thirdly, religious educators in comprehensive schools must seek ways to ensure opportunities for religious formation, not just religious information, within a diversity-sensitive approach that may, de facto, if not de jure, take the form of RE taught in multi-religious groups. To this end, the most promising tools are found within “performative religious education” (Performative Religionspädagogik)^[50] and the subsequent “didactics of alternating perspectives” (Didaktik des Perspektivenwechsels)^[51] that emerged in the 2000 s in both Protestant and Catholic RE scholarship.

One of its main proponents was Bernhard Dressler, the late professor of religious education at Marburg University and himself a former teacher in a comprehensive school. Dressler argued that modern RE should aim to enable students to experience firsthand the diverse ways in which religion is practiced and understood. A performative quality is inherent to religion, Dressler emphasized, and cannot be subtracted from it without inhibiting students’ understanding of how members of religious communities themselves understand their beliefs and practices.^[52] This reduction would interfere as much with an informed dialogue between students of different worldviews as with a well-founded critical engagement with religion. The task, then, is for teachers to invite students to witness and thoughtfully engage with religious practices and beliefs and to carefully arrange for periods in which they can distance themselves from the performative experience through reflection.

Adapted for the setting of comprehensive schools, this may take the shape of leading students into first encounters with lived religion of various traditions, e. g., through the interactions with religious artefacts, language, and places of worship, all of which make accessible the performative element. In addition, a well-tested method of German RE teachers is the careful staging of religious practices, a method adapted from theater education. In this mode, students deliberately enter into the role of a participant in religious practices, e. g., by taking different poses of prayer, and then consciously leaving this role again to reflect on their experiences from the position of an observer.^[53] If religion courses collaborate (periodically or continuously) with ethics courses, i. e. their non-sectarian alternatives, or with other subjects such as history or politics, their disciplinary viewpoints will also interact with a religious or theological one, each becoming more clearly defined and visible to the students.

All these alternations of perspective – the inside and outside perspective of religious practice, the perspectives of lived and taught religion, the perspectives of religious and secular ethics – are intended to foster an experiential and cognitively accessible understanding of the shape and character of religion. If measures are not taken to make the experimental and staged character of such encounters transparent to the students throughout the teaching process, there is a risk of coercion or overwhelming of students associated with the didactics of alternating perspectives. This would be a severe break with RE teachers’ fundamental pedagogical responsibility and theological sensibility. Careful instructions throughout the learning process serve to curb this risk, e. g., marking the role switches clearly and making it explicit that participating in staged religious practices does not mean engaging in them authentically but as an experiment that will later be evaluated for the purpose of learning. Clearly, the didactics of alternating perspectives is a demanding approach, for learners and teachers alike. While we value its potential highly, its risks are amplified when it is employed by teachers who are teaching out-of-field. Pragmatic reasons like staff shortages can cause comprehensive schools to assign faculty without training in theology to teach RE. In such situations, collegial support and supplemental training are of the essence to ensure a high quality of teaching, even more so if out-of-field teaching occurs persistently.

These measures are supported by and correspond with the artificial nature of school learning in general. Reading a short story in class and reading a short story as leisure are not the same thing either, after all. Recognizing distinctions (Unterscheidungen) like this, becoming able to draw distinctions outside of the school context as well, is what Dressler views as fundamental to reflective learning from and about religion, much more so than adopting any particular religious viewpoint.^[54]

Learning to look at today’s world from a religious perspective and to understand other people’s viewpoints aligns with contemporary school’s broader goal of fostering empathy and tolerance. It helps students to appreciate different religious expressions and worldviews, which may differ significantly from their own. The didactics of alternating perspectives encourages students to question their assumptions about religion and to develop a more nuanced understanding of the role that religion plays in the lives of others.

By helping students to recognize distinctions in perspectives, this approach also sheds light on persisting differences, boundaries, and power relations. These tensions are purposely not swept under the rug, as if the staged religious practices were experienced by everyone equally. Rather, they are highlighted in the reflective process to discuss the sometimes painful reality of life in diverse societies. Ultimately, we regard this approach as particularly beneficial in heterogeneous classroom settings, where differences in religious beliefs as well as in academic performance and personal backgrounds are prevalent. It goes beyond merely teaching about religion to offering students the opportunity of experiencing religion as an often meaningful yet varied part in the lives of others – without overwhelming students or assuming to know the contours of any individual student’s religiosity beforehand simply by virtue of their background and affiliation.