From June 14th – June 18th, 2022,  University of Latvia in cooperation with Daugavpils University and Liepājas University has organized the  Nordic Conference of Religious Education: “RE in the crossroads!?” Prof. Dzintra Iliško has  participated as an co-organizer of the  Nordic Conference of Religious Education that  took place in Riga, Latvia.

‘Crossroads’ is a metaphor that reveals the diversity of these research directions. What does religion mean in terms of religious education itself? There is still a debate about the relationship between the concepts – religion and worldview and their link to the educational content in general. What is the target audience for religious education – pre-school children, primary and secondary school learners, university students, and secular society in general? Generational reciprocity and the search for answers to existential questions lead to the characteristics of generations. How can a digital generation learn religious education? How can information technologies be employed in the learning process? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer the future, it is our present. Thus, it creates conditions for discussing the relationship between a human being and AI in the context of faith, religion and worldviews. What innovations are already available in didactics? Didactics is one of the scientific disciplines, which in recent decades has similarly sought for answers to the question of how to teach and learn. For religious education didacts it is important to search for the meeting points and solutions of various learning subjects in order to respond jointly to the new approaches of the educational content design in National Standards. The  focus of the conference was on four key topics, keeping in mind that all of them might be connected with the reflections on the challenges created by Covid-19 and the pandemic: Searching for the renewal of religious education identity (post-secularism, inclusive religious education, developments of National Curriculums); Digital generations and religious education (y, z, α generations, digital childhood); Teacher religious education: challenges and opportunities for growth; and didactic innovations in religious education (innovative approaches to teaching and learning).

Previous conferences: 

Nordic conference of religious education 2019: https://www.ntnu.edu/ncre2019
Nordic conference of religious education 2017: https://isa-rc22.org/cfp-14th-nordic-conference-on-religious-education/
Nordic conference of religious education 2015: https://sisu.ut.ee/ncre2015

For more information:
Prof. Dzintra Iliško
Daugavpils University,
HSZI, Center of sustaianable education
dzintra.ilisko@du.lv