Da religião à espiritualidade na educação: rumo a uma regulamentação política da espiritualidade?

Abstract

The analysis of the emergence of the concept of spirituality in public education policies reveals various tensions at work in the religious and secular fields. Is this emergence a ploy by large religious groups to preserve influence in societies that are putting an end to official alliances with them? Has the concept of spirituality become broad enough to designate any search for meaning, and also to satisfy the aspiration for formal equality between all forms of beliefs, cults, and non-beliefs? This article addresses the issue of spirituality and how it has been integrated into the school legislation of the Canadian province of Quebec. It analyzes the creation in that province of the Spiritual Care and Guidance and Community Involvement Service. Designed to be neutral, it is aimed at both religious and non-religious students, in an effort to promote a logic of equality.