ABSTRACT
The author returns to his empirical research, whose findings were that a differentiated set of factors boosted pupil motivation in religious education: pupils valued opportunities for dialogues with different religious traditions and with one another, in so far as these dialogues built existential or ethical interest or were personally significant. Based on these findings, religious education should adopt a multi-dimensional treatment of different religious traditions and proceed on a democratic basis where pupil response and religious materials have equal significance and pupils’ citizenship competences are built up. A broadened basis is provided by integrating findings from the REDCo project. The overall REDCo project findings are shown to amplify the evidence that pupils value religious education because of its democratic citizenship potential, while contributory REDCo studies show the importance of pupils reflecting on different personal influences such as the media and gender. Such self-awareness is linked to freedom of belief.
