Chapter 8: Multireligiosity in Singapore: Implications for Educational Policy and Practice

In a globalizing world, young nation-states inevitably struggle to address the issues of social cohesion in increasingly fragmented societies that are divided not only by incomes or digital intelligences but also ethnicity and religion. State ideologies and public policies regarding religion and religious freedom have implications for the education sector and schools. Education policies clearly contribute an increasingly important role to the matter of social cohesion as evident in the initiatives which the state sector has introduced in Singapore. This chapter traces the changing policies in the management of religion and religious education in the education sector with a view to first highlighting the strengths and weaknesses in Singapore’s policy position toward its multireligious society. More specifically, the chapter will then discuss the sensitivity toward addressing religious issues postSeptember 11 and the tensions that have arisen over schools offering religious instruction in globalizing Singapore. The aim is to understand how religion and religious teaching can contribute toward the goals of education in an increasingly diverse world where differences have been the source of tensions rather than the wealth of experiences that can be brought by cultural diversity.