July 16 – “Humanity has crystallized in a monoculture, and is now preparing to produce civilization in bulk, like beetroots,” wrote Claude Levi-Strauss in “Tristes Tropiques”(1955), one of the “sacred texts” of cultural anthropology. Today, the variety and richness offered by multiculturalism and religious diversity – brought on by migration flows – is also fraught with problems, as if every “promise” hid a “threat.” The “battle” against the negative stereotypes and prejudices that stand in the way of integration sees teachers in European schools engaged in the front line. From now on, they will have at their disposal a digital “toolbox” sponsored by five universities and an NGO. The project leader is the Ca ‘Foscari University of Venice; the partners are the Institut Européen en Sciences des Religions (France), the University of Salamanca (Spain), the University of Augsburg (Germany), the University of Southern Denmark (Denmark) and the organization Oxfam Italia Intercultura. Together, they will create a teaching tool organized in 27 modules to make young people aware of the history of religion and different religious traditions, and thus help teachers discuss controversial topics. The material will be molded by the collaboration of high-school professors. In Italy, for example, teachers from the Foscarini and Tommaseo institutes in Venice and from the Canova high school in Treviso will participate. “The best pedagogues and religious scholars have joined forces, skills and energy to deal with this Europe-wide problem – says Massimo Raveri, Professor of Japanese History of Philosophy and Religions at Ca ‘Foscari – We need new tools to improve sensitivity and cohesion in an environment where growing diversity is not accompanied by shared knowledge among cultures. The European Union supports this project because it recognizes that trivial ignorance may arise from serious social problems.” The Venice group consists of several alumni of the graduate program in Inter History of Religions, the only one of its kind in Italy, offered at the University Ca ‘Foscari University and the University of Padua. “By offering videos, fact sheets and reading material, teachers can explain the religious traditions of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism, – says Giovanni Lapis, curator of the project – we also inserted brief analyses for open questions that often cause conflict or misunderstanding among students, such as those related to gender, customs, rituals and festivities. In addition, part of the work aims to explain to the teachers why a scientific and open approach to other religions can help to improve cohesion in their classes.”
