Can I Keep My Religious Identity and Be a Professional? Evaluating the Presence of Religious Literacy in Education, Nursing, and Social Work Professional Programs across Canada
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This article has interesting data on the secularization of Canadian universities and their tendency to by-pass consideration of religion in their largely on-line programmes.
The article contends that there should be better inclusion of the study of religion in teachers, nurses, and social works preparation.
In this they use the concept 'religious literacy' and take the somewhat fuzzy notion developed by Dinham and others and in the process omitting in my view much better approaches from scholars in religious education--almost none of which are mentioned. The overall result is very unclear--what exactly should be included in the university programs for these professionals?
Moreover, why is religion as opposed to culture, race, gender etc. taken to be so crucial? How and why does it feature in identity? This needed to be argued and not based on an off-the-cuff remark from Dinham, a figure largely unknown in psychology of religion or indeed religious education.
The last point indicates a need to justify the whole article. It lamely says that there are calls for religion study from CCRL but they are not developed--have we any teacher/nurse/social worker saying precisely why he/she needs more input on religion? This would proved a better starting point than calling from it from some very unclear standpoint.
Overall, a potential article but it needs significant reshaping
Author Response
Reviewer 1 comments and responses:
We thank the reviewer for their valuable comments. We address the comments in a different order than they were offered.
Issue 1: The article “needs significant reshaping” and there needs more justification for the whole article.
Response: We agree and have thus re-written the introduction and added section 2, titled “Canadian contexts.” This section is comprised of three sub-sections that establish the need for more knowledge about religion in the three human-centred professions discussed in the article. The three contexts are: secularization, increasing religious diversity, and ongoing religious discrimination.
Secularization: Parts of this section were in the previous version but we have pulled them out to highlight the specific context. We have also strengthened the notion of religious illiteracy stemming from the lack of any education about religion in K-12 school and post-secondary education and traced the secularization processes of each of the three professions studied in the article.
Increasing Religious Diversity: This section outlines the diversity of religions brought about by migration and the rise in religious “nones.” Data from Statistics Canada undergirds this section, showing that religion remains important to a segment of society and especially to newcomers, who are more “religiously committed” than those born in Canada. Beyond newcomers, religious and spiritual beliefs remain somewhat or very important to over 50% of the Canadian population. The dramatic growth of the Indigenous population and their religious, spiritual, and practice-oriented perspectives are all important to identity and to the TRC’s Calls to Action, which institutions, including those offering professional education, must advance.
Ongoing Religious Discrimination: Responses to religious diversity has taken many forms, but as RS scholar Lori Beaman notes (lines 254+), much of it has portrayed religion as problematic, essentialized religious identity, and portrayed conflict and harm as the inevitable result of different. In too many instances, the ongoing privilege of Christianity is ignored. Hate crimes based on religion is a major concern. For example, Edmonton has had a shocking number of incidents against Muslim women in the past year, and especially against Black Muslim women (lines 257+). While hate crimes based on religion has decreased since its all-time high in 2017, the numbers are still higher than they were pre-2017 and Jews remain the number one target despite comprising only one percent of the population. We include data from Statistics Canada in this section. We also reference some religious bullying data carried out by the World Sikh Organization in southern Ontario.
Issue 2: Why focus on religion rather than culture, race, gender?
Response: We agree that culture, race, gender, and other aspects of identity are all important. Section 2 (the contexts) has hopefully justified the reason for religion – that with religious diversity and religious discrimination comes a need for those in the human-centred professions to know that religion is important for some people’s identity just as non-religion is for others. Religion may not be the most important, but it interacts with the other vectors of culture, gender, and ethnicity. We have added a paragraph to the introduction noting that religion is not an independent category and interacts iteratively with culture and ethnicity (and indeed geography, race, etc.). We highlight religion because there are certain trends/incidents occuring in Canadian society (outlined in the context section described above) and because of Canadian history. Mainline Christianity has been the dominant religion in Canada until relatively recently (the 1960s), and in such a situation, we heed RS scholar Lori Beaman’s (2014) warning that,
If what was previously known as religion is recast as culture, then a majority “religion” becomes invisible in the public sphere, transformed into a matter of culture, heritage, and values. This has the effect of making minority religions’ claims to public space even more visible - for, while “ours” is culture, part of our heritage and values, theirs is “religion” and foreign. (p. 54-55). [lines 73-77]
As we write in the paper, “It is the barriers facing members of non-Christian religious groups and the importance of religion to many newcomers that prompt us to focus on religion. This is not to dismiss the equally important identity components of race, culture, and gender, but to highlight an aspect of identity that is too often overlooked.” [lines 78-82].
Issue 3: Why use the “fuzzy” concept of religious literacy and it is undeveloped in the article.
We agree that there are other approaches to religious education (as outlined in the Biesta et al. document in the reference section). We chose religious literacy because it is relevant in education and higher ed (beginning on line 329), particularly in the US context. Religious literacy has been adopted by the American Academy of Religion as an approach for American schools, included in the Religious Studies Companion Document for the C3 Framework of the National Council for the Social Studies in the United States, and is central to the Religious Literacy Guidelines for two- and four-year colleges in the US, regardless of discipline. The document offers an example of the importance of religious literacy for nurses. Much of the work on religious literacy in the US has come from Harvard’s Religion and Public Life program, which is also working with people in professions other than education. And outside of the US, religious literacy is supported by such noted RS scholars as Grace David. In Canada, the work of Paul Bramadat and David Seljak, both noted RS scholars, has highlighted the notion of religious literacy. The notion is an important tool to address religious illiteracy and the resulting discrimination and bullying against religious adherents.
We have expanded the religious literacy section to add more legitimacy to the approach.
Reviewer 2 Report
Check that, under methodology, you really explain the limitations of your approach. Your data, as you admit, is limited because you haven’t looked at the discourse/rhetoric in relevant course materials. That’s acceptable for this article but it does limit what conclusions you can draw.
Be clear about the difference between heritage belief systems (eg Christianity in Canada) and religious beliefs, eg Islam which may be newer to Canada (migration?). These get no mention in your article but, I assume, will become ever more relevant in this debate
Author Response
Reviewer 2 comments and responses:
We thank the reviewer for their valuable comments. We address the comments in the reverse order they were presented.
Issue 1: Differentiate between heritage belief systems and those that are newer to Canada.
Response: We agree that this was a limitation in the first version and have completely re-framed the article to address the differentiation more adequately. We shortened the introduction and then added section 2, titled “Canadian contexts.” This section is comprised of three sub-sections that establish the need for more knowledge about religion in the three human-centred professions discussed in the article. The three contexts are: secularization, increasing religious diversity, and ongoing religious discrimination. The religious diversity section uses data from Statistics Canada to document the increasing religious diversity in Canada, mostly due to religion, and the increasing religious “nones.” Canadians and Canadian institutions have not always understood the religious diversity arising from migration and the policy of multiculturalism, giving rise to problematic public policy, media-driven stereotypes, and hate-based crimes against religious adherents (lines 254+). We argue that it is in light of the ongoing but hidden privileges of Christianity and the religious illiteracy among Canadians that some form of religious literacy is needed in three professions studied here: education, nursing, and social work. Another rationale is the growing Indigenous population and the TRC’s Calls to Action.
To summarize, it is religious diversity that now frames the article. We’ve extended diverse religions to our observations in the Discussion section as well. For example, to the second observation (that there appears to be little religious literacy apparent in the online information of the programs studied), we added (new material underlined):
Students are receiving such instruction for Indigenous peoples, who have experienced systemic discrimination through their interactions with various professional agencies. Now the creation of safe spaces must be explicitly expanded to all minority and marginalized people. Students learning to become teachers, nurses, and social workers must gain some knowledge about religion and some basic religious literacy to ensure safe professional experiences for both those who are religious and those who are not. [lines 1092-1098]
Issue 2: More clearly explain the limitations of our approach.
As the reviewer notes, we recognize the limitations in our methodology section. The last paragraph of the Discussion section 6.1 (beginning at line 1068) we added another line referencing the limitation as noted below. Once again, the text that is underlined indicates the added material.
We recognize the difficulties of adding another element to already full programs, but we argue that it is not impossible to incorporate given existing structures. We also recognize that our observations are based on information that is publicly available and that detailed syllabi might address religion, spirituality, beliefs, and non-religion more fulsomely. What is clear, however, is that students want more knowledge about religious literacy. Below we describe conversations the CCRL has had …. [lines 1160-1163]
The limitation is referenced once again in the Conclusion, with the sentence “As noted above, absence in online documentation does not indicate absence in classroom experience, but the dearth of public references to religion reflects its lack of importance” (lines 1247-1250). Hopefully with the increased attention to the Canadian contexts and the increased justification for using the approach of religious literacy, the argument that it is important to at least reference religion in public documentation is more strongly made.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Now quite acceptable.
