A proper religious education is key to the development of religious identity for adolescents, or so Daniel Moulin claims, a research fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS), the humanities and social sciences research center at the University of Navarra.

He argues along these lines in his article, "Giving voice to ‘the silent minority': the experience of religious students in secondary school religious education lessons," published in 2011 in the British Journal of Religious Education. The article has recently been given free access because it is one of the most widely read articles in the journal.

According to Dr. Moulin, religious education has a clear benefit: it gives a better understanding of different faiths in the world. However, he claims that there may be some "distortion" in the way that some teachers explain certain religions.

His research revealed that some community members who were part of the study often found that their religious traditions were simplified and stereotyped in lessons. In that sense, a representative voice of their religion was missing.

Student experience

"However, many students are reluctant to disclose their religious identity in class because of the experiences of intolerance and prejudice they have suffered," as Dr. Moulin suggested. "A teenager who is in the process of forming his own identity can find it difficult for his peers and teachers to see him in a different light because of the religion he professes."

For Daniel Moulin, this is even more complex for some religions, such as Islam, whose vision can be deformed by radical acts of terrorism that we all hear of through the media.

The expert, who is part of the ICS's Religion and Civil Society project, emphasized that where teachers get their information and their degree of knowledge is key to teaching. As Dr. Moulin recommends, "We should deeply understand a religion when we talk about it." In this regard, he reminds us that students who profess a religion and share their experiences and vision enrich a class.