About SHARING WORLDVIEWS 

Created by Elsa Felle 

Last updated by Katja Boehme 39 min 19 sec ago 

On this page, you will find modules for an international qualification resulting from the Erasmus+ project ‘Sharing Worldviews’ (2021-2024). You can use the online offered modules for your own continuing education or as part of an international qualification offered by your teacher training institution. (See below Section 4: Additional QUALIFICATION)

This qualification comprises 15 CP and does not require any additional teaching load on the part of the university/educational institution.

The CONCEPT of "Sharing Worldviews: Learning in Encounter for Common Values in Diversity"

In pluralistic societies, it is increasingly important as an educational goal to ensure peaceful coexistence among people with diverse cultures, religions, worldviews, and values. Therefore, all citizens of pluralistic societies need competencies to meet one another with mutual respect, despite differing interpretations of the world. To counteract radical tendencies that undermine democratic values and hinder the equal recognition, participation, and inclusion of all citizens—such as fundamentalism, racism, populism, nationalism, and extremism—the partners of this Erasmus+ project (2021–2024) have implemented the program Sharing Worldviews internationally and digitally in schools as well as in teacher training at universities and colleges. (For school materials, see the "Sharing Worldviews I" group on ESEP).

The program Sharing Worldviews: Learning in Encounter offers opportunities for genuine interactions, from elementary school to higher education, for both students and teacher trainees. Through their respective teachers, participants are given opportunities to engage with each other either locally or in an international context via digital media. 

“Our goal is to facilitate cross-border, interfaith, interworldview, and interdisciplinary conversations among young people with diverse worldviews. We aim to ensure that students engage respectfully and with interest in each other’s interpretations of the world—whether in encounters with peers of different religious or secular worldviews locally or internationally via video conferencing tools,” explains Prof. Dr. Katja Boehme (PH Heidelberg, Germany).

The Sharing Worldviews concept (German: Interreligiöses Begegnungslernen or Kooperierende Fächergruppe), which has been implemented in school projects since 2002 and in teacher training since 2011, is based on four didactic phases (see table below):

Phase 1: Students explore a predefined, focused topic under a specific religious or ethical perspective within their respective study subjects, such as Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox or Islamic Religion/ Theology, or Philosophy/ Ethics or another subject. Where this is not possible, they prepare the topic in group work with peers who share the same religious affiliation or secular worldview.

Phase 2: Students who have worked on their own various religious or philosophical perspective meet on a study day to present their worldview’s perspective on the topic—both from the perspective of their respective study subject (religious education, science, theology, philosophy or ethics) and from their personal perspective (individual world view). It is recommended that students carry out the two interaction phases (2+3) in small, interdisciplinary groups and, in the spirit of ´Mutual Hospitality´, invite their small group to serve as hosts at their own prepared station. At each station, the presentation and interactive exchange (phases 2+3) are conducted together.

Phase 3: At each station, the students share their different perspectives and viewpoints on the agreed-upon topic in the spirit of ´Mutual Hospitality´.

Phase 4: To ensure the sustainability of the experiences in dialogue and encounter and content from Phases 2 and 3, participants return to their own subject/ group to reflect on their newly acquired knowledge, the quality of their dialogue, and the competencies gained in perspective-taking.

Four-phase model – a proposal for teacher training institutions and universities: