The History of Religions: an italian way for the education for citizenship

Abstract

The issue that this paper states is the cultural and social function of the History of Religions, as a disciplinary field for students of high-schools. Being acquainted with the plurality of religions is an useful instrument for the education for active citizenship and participation, since religions have nowadays an important public role. Throughout the narration of some Italian experiences, in particular an experimentation in a Liceo of Turin, which concerns one curricular hour of History of Religions for all the 5 years, this contribution wants to underline the characteristics, the methods, the goals and in general the potentiality of this subject. It also wants to open a dialogue about the inadequacy of the educative proposal that is available in this field, not only in a academic milieu, or in a scholastic one, but also on a most popular level.