From Foreigners to Citizens: Freedom of Religion, Education and Policies for Social Integration of Muslim Minors

It is undeniable that great interest is aroused by the subject of protecting the religious freedom of Muslim minors and their families in the dense web of interwoven relations between them and school, the institution called upon to cooperate within the function of educating young people. Between parents and schools, a peculiar synergy is or should be established to ensure that minors receive education and training that respect the confession to which they belong or the spiritual orientation of their families, at the same time able to guarantee the self-determination of minors from the perspective of their best interests. In the current globalized, multiethnic, and multicultural society, it can happen that the right of relatives to educate their children according to the precepts of their professed faith – and the minor’s right to religious freedom – enters into conflict with the secularity of State schools; it is also possible that the school environment reveals contrasts between parents, who expect their children to comply with religious precepts, and children who, on the contrary, wish for more scope for self-determination in their existential choices. The document sets out to demonstrate that educational communities themselves are called upon to enrich, from early childhood, through a 'pedagogy of consent', the contents of the right to religious freedom of migrant children and their families, in recognition of the non-negotiability of human dignity and the beneficial transformation of multicultural and multireligious society into an intercultural and interreligious society: a transformation that is essential for building an inclusive society. Indeed, intercultural strategies avoid separating individuals into autonomous and impermeable cultural worlds. On the contrary, they promote debate, dialogue, and mutual transformation to make coexistence possible and address the resulting conflicts. The intercultural approach thus puts the best interests of the child first, which can be effectively pursued through the implementation of inclusive policies. The intercultural approach thus puts the best interests of the migrant child first, which can be effectively pursued through the implementation of inclusive policies.