Conference Program

The relationship between religion and civic education represents one of the most fertile—yet problematic—fields of inquiry in contemporary pedagogy. While Law 92/2019 and the recent MIM Guidelines (2024) emphasize the need to cultivate citizens capable of navigating a pluralistic and "onlife" society, the presence of religious phenomena within the school context often oscillates between generative possibilities and profound misunderstandings.

The possibility lies in the potential of religion to serve as a "reservoir of meaning" and an ethical compass. In a democracy understood as a socio-cultural practice, knowledge of religious traditions provides the tools for "critical reflectivity" and the construction of an identity open to alterity. However, this potential frequently clashes with structural misunderstandings:

1. The overlap between civic instruction and confessional indoctrination.
2. The difficulty of mediating between absolute religious values and democratic relativism.
3. Emerging tensions in multicultural classrooms, where the "religious fact" can become a barrier rather than a bridge.

1. With the atypical status of religious teaching in Italy, can the religion teacher teach civic education?

This paper intends to explore how the teaching of religion (or the treatment of religious facts within pluralistic contexts) can integrate with Civic Education methodologies to promote a democratic coexistence that is truly inclusive. If school is "life itself", understanding diverse faiths and value systems becomes a key tool for decoding contemporary social complexity. Through a comparison of educational models, the discussion intends to demonstrate that religious literacy is an essential prerequisite for conscious citizenship, capable of integrating the spiritual dimension into a shared ethical-political horizon.