Volume 80, Issue 1

Religious education is also considerably affected by the current social transformation processes, which appear to be epochal, and is under pressure - varying from region to region. The article analyses this connection under the keywords differentiation, digitisation, diversity and dialogue and offers a brief outlook on future questions of religious education teacher education as well as on international contexts.

Enshrined in the Basic Law, Religious Education (RE) in Germany at schools is .confessional. - and hence closely linked to the religious communities, in particular the Catholic and the Protestant church. This does, however, not imply a mono-denominational structure (and even less a catechetical approach) of RE in Germany. On the contrary, due to the ongoing pluralisation, educational innovations and ecumenical progress, inter-denominational cooperation has become a decisive feature of RE in Germany in the last decades, with a plurality of forms and regional variations. This article gives an overview over the current state of this specific type of RE in German federal states. It accentuates conceptual innovations and structural improvements, but also critically reflects on some underlying tendencies which contradict the basic ecumenical and inclusive intention of inter-denominational cooperation. Finally, perspectives for further development are presented.

The Hamburg way of a dialogical religious education for all, in which students with different religious and secular or non-religious positions take part, is presented in its emergence and development. The dynamic for such a singular approach in Germany, which has been in evidence since the mid-1990s, is characterised by innovative cooperation between religious communities, specialist institutes, the university, the Association of Religious Teachers and the school authorities. This approach was underpinned conceptually, consolidated by empirical social science research, concretized in curricula and supported in Hamburg's society and politics. For about 6 years now, work has been underway on further developing the curriculum, with advantages standing alongside problems.

Religious education in East Germany is religious education in the plural. Different models stand side by side. Acceptance and structural anchoring in the individual school types also vary. Nevertheless, unifying challenges can be identified that need to be addressed. They make it clear that there is a need for a further development or readjustment of the models of religious instruction that on the one hand satisfies the positionality of religiosity, which is so important from the point of view of religious didactics, and on the other hand is capable of absorbing religious diversity and secularity on the part of students inside.

Islamic religious education is currently in a critical phase, as in many federal states the status of a recognised religious community is lacking. Against this background, the question of confessionality is moving to the centre of attention anew. Should one stick to it and, if a religious community is not recognised, accept the end of Islamic religious instruction, or should one look for a new subject profile? The author argues for a subject with a high profile in religious ethics which he locates in the horizon of knowledge and wisdom and which primarily addresses open questions with ethical relevance. This is explained in more detail using the peace issue as an example.

The author reconstructs the institutional premises of ethics teaching and thus also the thematization of religion in ethics with references to the status of ethics as a subject, to the position in the subject system, to the heterogeneity of the learning groups and to the peculiarities of ethics teachers. Three Kant's maxims then outline the proprium of ethics with effects on religion in this subject, before selected religious topics with their specific goals are named. To illustrate this, the author also draws on his experience as a grammar school teacher. Finally, he argues for a complementary and cooperative relationship between the subjects that form values.