Subaltern Thinking in Religious Education? Postcolonial Readings of (German) Schoolbooks

This paper deals with the disclosure of subaltern thinking in current German-language textbooks for religious education. For the hermeneutical framing of this analysis, the approach of a postcolonial reading is particularly profitable. Obvious hierarchical relationships from clearly up and down can consequently be made visible and their presumed self-evidence unmasked. Even hidden hegemonic forms of expression can be uncovered in this way. With regard to current theology and religious education racism and misogyny, environmental degradation and sexual exploitation are attitudes that have already and almost as amatter of course been taken up critically. They are pedagogically reflected and attempted to overcome by using counter-models such as cultural diversity, equal rights, sustainability and sexual self-determination.In exciting contrast to this there are still nowadays textbooks used with remnants of exactly such formats of colonial thoughts. We argue that decolonising schoolbooks can be a useful part of decolonising the religious education curriculum. The schoolbook analysis carried out for this purpose is structured by four leading categories: Anthropological assumptions (1), religious classifications and interpretations (2), conceptions of culture and its hybridity (3) and finally the relationship to creation and environment (4). Textbooks from primary, secondary and vocational schools were examined.