Religious Literacy in National Curricula of Estonia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is an interesting topic and the issue is quite well set out. My reservation is that it is a very roundabout way of stating something almost obvious--that there is relatively little religious education in the curriculum. The use of analytic tools is shallow--only two are closely relevant (Moore and Francis & Dinham, the latter is woolly, leaving me wondering what is the form of religious literacy which is possible, given the restrictions of the setting?

What about finding out from students--past and present? That might give a better idea of how adequate/inadequate current schooling is in this regard. Overall I liked the topic but did not find the approach very convincing or the punch-line sufficiently clear largely because of a shilly-shally conception of religious literacy.

 

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for the comments. Please see the attachment with our responses. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The Article is well written and very interesting, but it needs minor revisions, regarding following points:

• Maybe it is intended but the Title “once upon a time” is irritating and the reader only gets to understand it because the authors explain it at the end of the text. Furthermore, it is irritating because, the reader cannot find it in the Text. The authors write on p16, l691-694:

 

Knowledge and skills connected to religion in the analyzed curricula are associated primarily with cultures that are distant both historically (once upon a time) and geographically (in a land far, far away). This approach pays little attention to the contextual dimension of religion and hinders the understanding that religion has any relevance in the present day.

 

This statement is not comprehensible, since the majority of cited and analyzed mentions in curriculum do not refer to a specific culture. Only page on p 14 refers to this. Probably the authors are right but is this really the main topic of the paper? Shouldn’t the title refer to the main topic and results

 

• “Curriculum” analysis in the paper includes many different courses or school subjects because there is no distinct subject or course for religious education in municipal and state schools. This leads to some important questions, regarding the analysis:
  • For example, the analysis include mathematics in which people should learn:
    
    By means of percentage calculation and statistics, pupils are able to describe the processes occurring in society in relation to the topic of the multicultural world (different nations, different religions, different social positions in society, etc.)
    
    Does the curriculum here aim to improve religious literacy or just mention religions as an example for learning more about percentage calculation and categorical presentation in percentage. Of course, the analysis differentiates between four categories according to Levander and Mikkola but the question remains. What is the intention of brief implicit mentions and do they at all contribute to religious literacy?
  • 2^nd: Another question is: How or to what extent are the different mentions in different courses and school subjects related to each other. And what means this connectedness or being not connected for the development of religious literacy?

Author Response

Thank you very much for the comments, please see the attachment for our answers. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

I loved to read this article, because of the secular context in which the research was done.

I missed a reference to teaching in, about, from (Grimmitt), in the presence of the other (Roebben) and for religiosity (Van der Tuin).

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments, please see the attachment with our answers. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The article now reads well.