Introduction

During the last two decades, there has been a considerable increase in research both on religion (Franck & Thalén, 2021b; Krogstad, 2017) and on religious othering (Amirpur, 2015; Saada, 2017) in education in globalised societies. This can be understood against the background of shifting social landscapes which include both increasing religious diversity, identitarian religion, and processes of secularisation and individualisation. Drawing on the work of Habermas, researchers have argued that in post-secular contexts, sharp distinctions between the religious and the secular have become difficult (Franck & Thalén, 2021a); this challenges the place of religion in education even more. Among the different facets of post-secularism (Fancourt, 2021; Fordahl & Ragnarsdóttir, 2021), there has been a shift towards traditionalist agendas, and the case of the “anti-Muslim turn” reveals that what Fordahl and Ragnardsdóttir term “identitarian religion” (2021, p. 379) transforms traditional religion “in a core component of secular identity” (ibid.).

Regarding Early Childhood Education (ECEC), there have been studies that inquire how religion-related educational policies are enacted in pedagogical practice (Hovdelien & Sødal, 2022; Krogstad, 2017; Reimers, 2020), especially in contexts in which preschools are supposed to be non-confessional, and the contradictions this entails (Puskás & Andersson, 2023). Related research has dealt with preschool teachers’ attitudes towards religious education and their interpretations of policy documents (Hovdelien & Sødal, 2022), including their perceptions of contradictions and conflicting goals in curricula (Stier & Sandström, 2018). Kuusisto and Gearon (2019) have analysed different models of teaching about religions which were proposed and preferred by professionals. A further line of research concentrated on perspectives of children and on their faith practices (Gregory et al., 2013; Holmes, 2021). One central component of discourses on religion in education which has not yet been explored in its relevance for ECEC is religious othering.

This article is based on an ethnographic research project and addresses religious othering in preschools in South Tyrol. South Tyrol is autonomous province in Northern Italy with a predominantly Catholic population in which migration is still discussed as a rather ‘new’ phenomenon. In what follows, I will answer the following research questions: How do education policies in South Tyrol deal with religion? And how are these policies translated into practice? I will draw on data from an ethnography in a South Tyrolean preschool. I start with my theoretical framework in which I propose an education policy approach to understanding religious othering in preschools. I then outline the policy guidelines which form the framework for religion and early childhood education in South Tyrol and proceed to the findings based on my ethnography. In the concluding section, I make suggestions on how pedagogical policies and practices can support children and teachers in countering religious and racioreligious othering.

Theoretical Framework: Religion in Education in the Context of Education Policy in South Tyrol

Education policies in public schools have always been contested, particularly when power relations between majorities and minorities are negotiated (Franken, 2017; Latif, 2022; Lugg, 2004; Symes & Gulson, 2008). Education policy has not only determined resource allocation, in that it has benefitted some groups more than others but has also been symbolical, reassuring the majority of the public that policy makers are acting to protect their interests (Lefstein, 2013). Scholarship which focused on policy as social practice (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2014) has not only aimed at scholarly analysis, but at the democratisation of policy processes (Levinson et al., 2009, p. 768) which can be helpful in establishing more inclusive and socially just pedagogies. Such an approach is not only centred around codified forms of policy but includes the ways in which unofficial policies are interpreted, negotiated and (re)organised in institutional and pedagogical practice (Levinson et al., 2009). Thus, it allows us to analyse the (re)production of social order and power relations through policy in a given domain.

In a similarly critical way, migration pedagogy (Mecheril, 2018) conceptualises migration as a phenomenon of discourses, and thus as a phenomenon of hegemonic power relations. Therefore, the analytical focus of migration pedagogy is not on migrants, but on education as a site where “natio-racial-culturally” (ibid., p. 129) coded orders of belonging are (re)produced or contested and transformed. In so doing, it focuses on the processes that constitute individuals and groups as different (Dirim & Mecheril, 2018) and thus on all actors involved in educational processes and institutions—regardless of their belonging. This perspective is critical of concepts of 'intercultural' or 'interreligious' learning, since asymmetrical social relations between actors with differently socially established religious affiliations cannot be overcome by means of interreligious dialogue or learning (Radtke, 2011).

Current socio-political discourses about religion that find their way into education and pedagogical practices make religion a particularly relevant topic for education (Karakaşoğlu, 2020). One central component of discourses on religion in education is religious othering. Researchers have examined how othering and the exclusion of religious minorities, especially Muslims, are enacted in educational practices at schools (Eksner & Cheema, 2017). They have shown that Muslim students are being othered because of their religiously sanctioned diet, ‘Islamic’ names (Saada, 2017), and their headscarves (Thoma, 2023), and that they are constructed as a threat to the school (Karakaşoğlu & Wojciechowicz, 2017). More generally, research has shown that pedagogical relationships are shaped by fantasies about biographies of Muslims as 'others' outside the national norm (Dausien et al., 2015). Despite the wealth of research on demographic and cultural changes, religious othering in preschools has received virtually no scholarly attention. This article takes this research gap as a starting point to empirically investigate how teachers translate religion-related educational policies in their practice and which roles the children have in those processes.

Religion and Early Childhood Education in South Tyrol—Policy Guidelines

South Tyrol is an autonomous province in North Italy. The rights related to the autonomy regulate power sharing between three ‘language groups’: the Italian, the German, and the Ladin group. Education follows this tripartite language group notion in having three different linguistically conceived tracks, including for preschools (Platzgummer 2021).

Historically, the majority of the population in Italy and the autonomous province South Tyrol have been Catholic. Although there are no statistics on the religious affiliations of people residing in South Tyrol, recent migration movements suggest a religious pluralisation. While there are ongoing processes of secularisation (Autonome Provinz Bozen 2018, p. 27), migration processes have contributed to a greater religious diversity,Footnote 1 which also affects the composition of preschools, especially in urban centres. So far, there is no research that has examined the relationship between religion and language in South Tyrol, but there is some evidence that raciolinguistic ideologies that ‘other’ specific persons regardless their linguistic repertoire and on the basis of assumptions on ‘their’ culture and religion (Thoma, 2023), are relevant in the context of anti-Muslim discourses, for example, when politicians claim that “mosques and Arabic classes cause the formation of parallel societies and have disastrous effects” (Thoma, 2012, p. 393) on the surrounding area.

The major education policy document for preschools with German as the language of instruction,Footnote 2 the framework guidelines, was ratified in 2008. It assumes differences among children “in gender, age, origin, culture, religion, talents, and physical individuality”, which are thought to be natural and given, and which result in “the richness of a socially polyphonic world” (Autonome Provinz Bozen Südtirol, 2017, p. 17). The guidelines also state:

Religious and ethical education in preschool is guided by the values of the Christian occidental (“abendländisch”) view of man, taking into account the interreligious aspect and treating other faith traditions with esteem and respect (Autonome Provinz Bozen Südtirol, 2017, p. 23)Footnote 3

The term ‘abendländisch’ is often found in anti-Muslim, racist and anti-Roma discourses (Kaya, 2022, p. 230). Therefore, it is noteworthy that this particular term appears in the policy document. The “values” associated with the ‘Abendland’ are not further explained. However, right-wing political discourses in South Tyrol reveal that non-Christian persons are othered via the reference to the ‘Abendland’ by stating that they need special instruction in values of “enlightenment” and “humanity” in order to prevent radicalisation, at the same time implying that 'locals' already possess these values in a quasi-natural way.Footnote 4 Beside the focus on the ‘Abendland’ which implies othering, the guidelines also take into account what they term “interreligious aspect”. However, it remains unclear what this aspect is and how it could be translated into concrete practices. Even though the guidelines state that “other faith traditions are to be treated with respect” (p. 42), they place the religion of the numerical majority at the centre without further justification, while religious affiliations that deviate from this norm are considered as the “other”.

Regarding religious education, the following educational goals are formulated:

The child has an independent religious-ideological identity appropriate to children

Children […] gain insight into biblical content, images and symbols and know core biblical stories. The children are aware of the importance of religion in shaping life and treat other religious convictions and world views with respect. They express their worldview identity by participating in community customs, festivals and religious activities (Autonome Provinz Bozen Südtirol, 2017, pp. 42–43).

While this policy document does not give concrete recommendations as to how religion should be relevant in preschools, it reveals that in terms of religious education, the children’s knowledge of Christianity and related customs and practices is the primary mission of German preschools. This ambivalence in the policy document thus testifies to both Christianity and other religions being societally valued, albeit with a clear focus placed on Christianity. In this context, there are bound to be tensions between the Christian conceptualisation of the institution, and the reality of teachers educating children of diverse religious background. It is thus important to empirically investigate how teachers in this context translate these institutional policies in their practice and which roles the children get or take. To understand the concrete processes of policy enactment in practice, ethnographic approaches are commonly seen as the method of choice (Martin-Jones & Da Costa Cabral, 2018).

Ethnography as a Way to Explore the Translation of Policies into Practice

This paper is based on an ethnographic research project [Multilingualism and language education in preschools in South Tyrol (MeBiK), 2021–2023] conducted in three German preschools in an urban area in South Tyrol. The selected preschools aimed at reflecting the heterogeneity of the city in terms of social class and natio-ethno-religious belonging. Each of the preschool groups had about twenty students who were mostly between three and six years old. My fieldwork included daily participatory observation during the whole preschool day. In addition, I made audio recordings and conducted interviews with parents and group discussions with teachers. My ethnography focused on language policies in these preschools. However, in line with the principle of openness of the ethnographic approach (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2019), I was also open to other topics relevant to migration society in the course of the research. Religion turned out to be a relevant part of educational policy and its enactment in practice in one of the preschools. It therefore increasingly took up space in my fieldnotes.

According to the teachers, the children came from families with diverse religious backgrounds. While religion was not at the centre of the pedagogical considerations that the teachers shared with me, they addressed this topic during Christian celebrations, at mealtimes (as some children followed special diets for religious reasons), and on Eid al-Fitr, when some children did not come to preschool because they celebrated the end of Ramadan with their families. All the teachers in all three groups were Catholic. While my religious affiliation was never a topic in this preschool, I was generally perceived as “one of us” by the teachers (Knappik et al. forthcoming). The empirical material analysed in this article is drawn from fieldwork in the second preschool which is located in a district which was often described as having a ‘village character’. This preschool proved to be particularly interesting for an investigation of religion and religious othering for two reasons: First, many of the parents are active in a church located next to the preschool, and they and their children meet in relevant phases in the church year for joint activities. Second, unlike in the other preschools, the Catholic religion played a central role in the preschool’s premises (such as visible crosses in the rooms) and in daily practices (such as Catholic prayers).

The coding of data followed an iterative process, and first analyses guided my further observations in each preschool. My sampling strategy included the constant comparative analysis of situations in the field (FitzGerald & Mills, 2022). In addition, I complemented my observations with transcriptions of audio files. To discuss initial interpretive ideas, I had regular meetings with colleagues doing research in similar contexts (see, e.g. Riemann, 2011). In the following section, I will present and analyse selected data extracts from my fieldwork in the preschool which reveal ways of translating religion-related educational policies into practice.

Catholicism as the Norm and Religious and Racioreligious Othering

The extracts in this section are intended to show how teachers and children engage in religion-related practices and how Catholicism is reproduced as the norm while Muslim children are othered. The focus is on three facets: the performance of religious homogeneity, of interreligious learning, and of friendship independent of religion. The chosen situations reflect both ‘typical’ and ‘special’ situations and focus on different actors in the field.

“Every Child Wants to Pray”—Performing Religious Homogeneity and Belonging

Food plays an essential role in identity formation in migration societies, and it has a double function of solidarity and separation (Brown, 2017). ECEC is the first place for many children where they encounter food practices and religions that differ from their own family (Corsaro, 2018) and the first place where they experience how other people respond to markers of their families’ religious identity (Iversen, 2023). This makes meals in ECEC institutions highly relevant to understand how children deal with religious diversity.

The following section is a transcript of an audio file created at lunch. The event can be understood as a typical situation in this preschool: Every day, the children go through the same ritual before food is served and eaten: The passage begins at the moment when all the children in the lunch room have taken their seats and the food is ready on a sideboard. The teacher Irma and the children recite together:

Excerpt 1:

We fold our hands silently, because every child wants to pray now. //(singing) Who makes the stars twinkle, stars twinkle, stars twinkle, who makes the stars twinkle? Our great God! Who makes the little birds fly […]? Our great God! Who makes the plants grow […]? Our great God! Who also loves you and me […]? Our great God!// In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Enjoy your meal! Thank you as well!

While everyone is saying the passage “we fold our hands silently”, Irma and most of the children put this into practice. The claim “because every child wants to pray now” is performatively disproved by some children who talk to each other, are busy with the cutlery on the table, or direct their interest to children at another table or the prepared food, possibly because they are hungry and impatient to eat. Moreover, the claim implies that all children want to perform the prayer that the educator leads which begins with a description of the activities of an undefined God, but is placed in a Catholic context through the reference to the Trinity and the sign of the cross. After the listing of activities of “Our Great God”, who is imagined to be the same for all, and the sign of the cross, a good appetite greeting follows.Footnote 5 Regarding the sign of the cross, my fieldnotes of that day say:

Excerpt 2:

Irma makes the sign of the cross and most of the children do the same. Hakim feels visibly uncomfortable. He moves his hand toward his forehead, then moves his upper body to the left and to the right, insecurely looks to both sides, and then half-heartedly makes the sign of the cross.

My attention fell on Hakim in part because he was sitting between Irma and me, but also due to the fact that in situations where Christian rituals were central, I often focused on children who grew up in families with other religions. The fieldnote shows that Hakim knows the ritual and apparently also knows that his position in it is a “special” one. Nevertheless, his participation indicates that he does not want to be excluded from the common performance. By making the sign of the cross, he performs belonging to the community and shows that he knows its rules, even though the ritual does not match his religious affiliation.

While these two excerpts reflected typical situations in everyday preschool life, the following situation is a 'special' one that takes place after a Catholic feast.

“He has Darker Skin”—Performing Interreligious Learning Within Racioreligious Ideologies

My first day of fieldwork in one of the preschools was Nikolaus Day.Footnote 6 When I entered the building, bags with small gifts were ready on the children's cloakroom places, and everybody seemed very excited. While I was getting oriented in the building and getting to know the children and teachers, one teacher told me that they would be reading an “intercultural” book the next day.Footnote 7 The following transcript gives the scene in which the reading of the book takes place the day after Nikolaus day:

Excerpt 3:

Teacher 1::

Whose house did Nikolaus come to yesterday?

Child 1, 2::

Mine!

Teacher 1::

Please raise your hand!

Children::

With me! With me!

Teacher::

Daniel, Laura,

Teacher 1::

So many children. So today we're going to listen to a book about Nikolaus and about [...] two boys.

Teacher 2::

Felix says to Kemal: "Yes, finally the time has come. Nikolaus is coming soon!" […] but Kemal says, "He won't come to my house". Yes. (Felix has to think) () "But Nikolaus comes everywhere. Why shouldn't he come to your house?" And then Kemal said, "You know, I believe in a different God. Like you. Right? And my God doesn't have a bishop, Nikolaus. That's why he doesn't come to me”.

Teacher 1::

(pointing to the figures in the book) Look, does Kemal have the same skin colour as Felix?

Children::

No!

Teacher 1::

What does Kemal have? What is different about Kemal?

Child::

The ()

Teacher 1::

His hair is darker, exactly.

Child::

And his skin is darker.

Teacher 1::

And the skin. And among us, do all children have the same skin colour?

Children::

No!

Teacher 1::

Some children have light skin, other children have dark skin. And I think Kemal's parents () come from the same place as Haci. Yes, they come from Turkey. Like Haci's parents. Where actually Nikolaus (…).

On the one hand, the teacher’s question about which homes Nikolaus had been to the day before, reveals her awareness that not all families celebrate this event. However, she does not open up the space for a conversation about religious diversity for the children, but immediately moves on to the book she wants to read to them. After she announces the book about Nikolaus and the two boys, she tells the story and has the two protagonists use direct speech. The 'problem' in the story is that Nikolaus does not come to Kemal. The story thus assumes a deficit-oriented perspective on families that do not conform to the Christian norm. The irritation at the broken norm is evident in Felix's question, as he believes that Nikolaus goes everywhere and can think of no reason why he should not come to Kemal’s home. Kemal concretises his belief in a “different” God by saying that his God does not have a bishop Nikolaus and that he therefore cannot come, thus continuing with a deficit-oriented perspective towards Islam. Next, the teacher asks about the skin colours of the two figures. In the book, the two protagonists have different skin colours and hair, but these are not addressed in the text. Although skin colour and hair have neither any relevance for religion in general nor for the story in the book, the teacher draws the children's attention to them thus making them relevant for the topic ‘religion’. In doing so, she implicitly establishes a connection between religion and race, thus racialising Muslim children.

The teacher then moves to a different level and asks about the skin colours of the children in the preschool group, dividing them into two homogeneous groups. Beyond the simplistic dichotomisation of “light” and “dark”, she establishes a relationship between the skin colour and Haci's origins, respectively, those of his parents. The teacher's last words in this passage are not intelligible in the recording, but apparently she wants to make a connection between the country of origin of Haci's parents and the place where Nikolaus lived. Such a connection could be read as an attempt to establish a closeness between Haci's parents and Nikolaus, and thus, more abstractly, a 'cultural' closeness between differently racialized people with different origins and religions. While talking about the book, the children have learned the following so far: first, that Christianity is the norm, but there are religions that do not have Nikolaus; second, that religion is related to race and ethnicity; third, that in preschool there are children with light skin colour and those with dark skin colour; and fourth, that skin colour has to do with the origin of the children or their parents. The connection between religion, race, ethnicity and origin can be understood as part of racioreligious ideologiesFootnote 8 which conflate and co-naturalise ethnoracial and religious categories. It is possible that there are non-Catholic children who would have visits from Nikolaus. In addition, it would be possible to celebrate festivities of different religions in preschool. However, the teacher does not use the book to show children these kinds of complexity of social life. However, if we consider the teacher's reference to the closeness of Nikolaus and Haci's parents, this could be read as an attempt to establish sameness between persons belonging to different religions.

If we place the reading of the book in the larger context of the ethnography, there arise additional questions: The teacher announced the reading of the book on the first day of fieldwork as part of an educational activity that she framed as “intercultural”. This indicates that she sees “intercultural” activities as particularly interesting for a researcher doing research on migration and that, furthermore, she wants to 'show' this researcher a particularly interesting example of her pedagogical practice that is linked to religion and interculturality. The activity of reading the book and making connections between the characters in the book and the children present in the group can thus be read as performing ‘interreligious learning’, in which the teacher wants to present her own pedagogical practice as interesting for the ethnographer. The fact that the teacher does not seem to have any knowledge about religious or racioreligious othering to pass on to the children points to professionalisation needs for preschool teachers in the region.

"In My Opinion, You Can Try"—Performing Friendship

The following situation took place at lunch in the preschool. When registering for the meals, parents can specify different variants of religious or health diets. In the three preschools where I conducted research, if the meal contained fish or meat, there was always a vegetarian variation, which was intended for children who could not eat certain types of meat for religious reasons. The efforts of the kitchens to offer vegetarian options differed. In this preschool, a piece of cheese was often offered instead of the meat. While Iversen (2023) reports that food provided in a Norwegian preschool was labelled halal with a written note, such labelling did not occur in any of the South Tyrolean preschools where I did research. Instead, food without meat was marked as “vegetarian” without exception, thus hiding religious differences. My fieldnote says:

Excerpt 4:

Today there is meat again and cheese for the Muslim children. Haci, who already had no joy with the cheese last time, stands in line and picks up his portion. When he sits next to his friends again, he rolls his eyes looking at his plate and says: "Cheese again". Gabriele cuts off a piece of the cheese without further ado, tastes it and says: "In my opinion, you can try".

In the whole interaction, as in the others I observed, religion was not raised as an issue by any of the actors involved. Iversen described a “concealment of religion” (Iversen, 2023) and related strategies of the staff “to downplay the fact that not all food was considered suitable to eat for all the kids” (ibid., p. 7). I observed a similar practice: When teachers gave food that was considered halal to individual children, they never gave religious reasons for doing so. Also in the interaction of the children described in this fieldnote, religion does not play an explicit role. The fieldnote does not allow any conclusions about whether Haci likes the taste of the cheese. However, since cheese is regularly served and Haci has never complained about it in situations where all children eat it, it is likely that it is not the cheese that bothers him, but the fact that he is being served ‘other’ food. The fieldnote also does not tell whether Gabriele knows about the reasons why Haci gets cheese instead of meat, but since he is one of his best friends and usually sits next to him at lunch, he knows that Haci often gets cheese, which the latter does not like. By “pre-tasting” the cheese for Haci and thus sharing a part of the cheese with him, Gabriele relieves Haci to some extent of the othering he experiences through being served 'other' food. Moreover, his judgement that Haci could try the cheese can be read as an attempt to establish the common lunch as a shared practice over and above the differences in eating.

On a more general level, the described situation points towards a “difference dilemma” (Minow, 1985) which is characterised by the risk of reiterating a stigma associated with difference by either focusing on it or ignoring it. Both making halal meals and thus religious difference a topic of discussion and 'hiding' halal meals behind vegetarian options carry the risk of contributing to the exclusion of Muslim children. However, regularly offering a vegetarian option for all children would minimise the othering of Muslim children and provide an opportunity to talk about food practices without focusing on a particular group of children.

Conclusion

Based on an ethnography in preschools in the predominantly Catholic context of South Tyrol, Italy, this article explored how religion is relevant in institutional policy, how teachers enact this policy in their pedagogical practice, and how children position themselves in the context of religious difference. From the analysis three findings can be drawn which contribute to a better understanding on how pedagogical policies and practices can support children and teachers in countering religious and racioreligious othering.

First, the analysis of a policy paper has illustrated both an orientation towards Christianity and an appreciation of other religions. The ethnographical material revealed that teachers enacted this policy in favour of an orientation towards the Christian norm, which contributed to the religious and racioreligious othering of children. As other research has shown, models of education which centre one religion as the norm may run counter to forms of citizenship education that could adequately prepare students for life in a globalised society (Zembylas & Loukaidis, 2018). To achieve more socially just pedagogies, educational policy should direct attention to the pedagogical values of the religious repertoires and expressions of all children and their families. However, a conceptualisation of ‘interreligious learning’ conceived as learning about religions does not automatically lead to a culture of antiracism. Thus, policies have to systematically address religio-racism and natio-ethno-cultural privilege and provide appropriate didactic material.

Second, the analysis revealed how one teacher performed ‘interreligious learning’ as part of her engagement with expectations she ascribed to the ethnographer. Despite her good intentions, her pedagogical practice did not reflect social hierarchisation. While it is understandable that the teachers may not have had any adequate opportunities to deal with religion and racism within the framework of their teacher training, there is a need for professionalisation that would allow teachers and teacher students to reimagine their own and the children’s religious repertoires and agency against the background of social hierarchisation. As the analyses have shown, pedagogical work is characterised by dilemmas, such as the question of making religious diversity visible or hiding it. There are no simple ‘recipes’ for dealing with such dilemmas, but including migration pedagogy and dilemmatic perspectives systematically in teacher education would give teachers a basis for rethinking, questioning and critiquing (pedagogical) expressions of religious and racioreligious othering and therefore a larger repertoire to deal with such dilemmas in their practice.

Third and finally, the analyses give insights into children’s practices. The focus on their agency has shown that children centre their shared participation in various practices in which religion plays a role. These practices show that children, regardless of their positioning in the hierarchy of religious norms, tend to focus on their friendship and on the community among diverse children and thus become agents of active democratic citizenship. While the ethnographic data provide insights into the children's actions, conversations with them could increase our knowledge on their reflections on religion and religious diversity. In general, future research must further explore how both we as researchers working with children, and their teachers can understand children’s voices and practices to better accompany them on their way to becoming actors of democratic citizenship and to counter religious and racioreligious othering.