Education About Islam in Danish State Schools

This chapter unfolds the place of Islam within the Danish historical development of RE. The Evangelical-Lutheran Church has been state supported since the Reformation in 1536, and state and church have been closely intertwined since the stipulation of mandatory schooling in the early 19th century. The emphasis on Christianity within the school subject Religious Education (in Denmark aptly named Kristendomskundskab, Knowledge of Christianity) has changed throughout the 20th century. In 1975 the subject went from being confessional to academic, though it has in recent decades seen a revival being re-framed as a cultural component of national history. Islam is used alongside Judaism and Buddhism as a means to compare world religions to Christianity, though the culturalisation of Christianity and Islam leads to the creation of a dichotomy where Islam is placed as “the Other” compared to the Danish state and the national Evangelical-Lutheran Church.