ABSTRACT

The courts’ role in educational disputes is much researched, but while the legal and socio-political implications of judicial decisions are often scrutinised, judges’ pedagogical assumptions have generally been overlooked. This paper focuses on educational competency by considering judges’ understandings of the pedagogical effect of religious symbols in classrooms. The formal judgements of two key cases in the European Court of Human Rights are treated as textual data for qualitative analysis: Dahlab v Switzerland, concerning a Muslim teacher’s right to wear hijab; Italy v Lautsi, concerning whether the classroom display of crucifixes breached atheist pupils’ rights. Four approaches emerged: unmediated didacticism – a direct emission of meaning by the symbolic objects; mediated didacticism – when the symbols require a spoken explanation to convey meaning; contextual factors – then other factors determine or limit the symbol’s meaning; dialogical pedagogy - when education is conceived as an open encounter with different points of view. The wide variation in the judges’ pedagogical assumptions is discussed, including the implications of how educational competency affects the variable radiating effects of the courts’ decisions. Further, the concept of educational competence is developed, particularly in relation to issues of religion and belief.

摘要

法院在教育纠纷中的作用已得到大量研究，但虽然司法裁决的法律和社会政治影响经常受到审查，但法官的教学假设通常被忽视。本文通过考虑法官对课堂宗教符号教学效果的理解来关注教育能力。欧洲人权法院的两个关键案件的正式判决被视为文本数据进行定性分析：Dahlab v Switzerland，涉及穆斯林教师戴头巾的权利；意大利 v 劳齐，关于在课堂上展示十字架是否侵犯了无神论学生的权利。出现了四种方法： 无中介的说教——符号对象直接发出意义；中介说教——当符号需要口头解释来传达意义时；上下文因素——然后其他因素决定或限制符号的含义；对话式教学法 - 当教育被视为与不同观点的公开相遇时。讨论了法官教学假设的广泛差异，包括教育能力如何影响法院判决的可变辐射效应的含义。此外，教育能力的概念得到发展，特别是与宗教和信仰问题有关。