Ateneo - UPO

The course will touch on the main juridical problems about the religious and cultural pluralism as in Italy as in Europe: 1) Citizenship, denominational affiliation and immigration; 2) Models of personal status (marriage; adoption; children's rights, etc.) between the two banks of the Mediterranean; 3) Freedom of expression and religious pluralism; hate speech; anti-Semitism and Islamophobia; 4) Democracy and the right to identity (religious and cultural symbols in the scholastic and employment law field); 5) National law in a comparative key and international and EU law concerning relations between states and religious organizations. 6) Influence the religions in the international geopolitics context

For attending students: Doctrinal and jurisprudential material provided to participants on the individual topics covered during the course and progressively inserted for each lesson block on the DIR platform. For non-attending students: Ferrari Alessandro, La libertà religiosa in Italia. Un percorso incompiuto (1848-2024). Nuova edizione, Carocci, Roma, 2025, pp. 254.

Knowledge of the main problems present in the religious Super diversity societies in order to: • educating the new generations to a more mature citizenship (civic education); • greater critical sensitivity and expertise on the issues of racism and discrimination on ethnic and religious grounds; • knowledge of the legislation and jurisprudence on the subject at both national and EU level, useful for a basic knowledge of the problems that legal operators are faced with more and more frequently; • knowledge of both national and international jurisprudence (EDU Court) in matters of religious freedom and anti-discrimination; • better ability to deal with intersubjective dynamics connected to multicultural processes; • In summary: the course moves along the guidelines indicated by the Council of Europe in the Living together Report. Combining diversity and freedom in the 21st-century Europe of 2011 which reads: “We urge educators and education authorities in all member states to develop“ intercultural competencies ”as a core element of school curricula, and to extend these beyond formal education to non- formal settings such as museums and cultural institutions, cultural events and festivals, and the particular media; the Council of Europe should continue its work on a conceptual framework to assist this development ".

Knowledge of constitutional law and private law is recommended. In the first case is knowledge of the first part of the Constitution concerning the fundamental principles. About the private law such as: juridical person; contract; property and other civil law institutions.

The course is organized in lectures. There is an obligation to attend at least 2/3 of the lessons in order to acquire the status of a student and benefit from the specific examination program. The course will be supported by multimedia tools (DVD, Youtube, Skype) and will use the expertise of external teachers on-site or via Skype. Some lessons could take place in a foreign language.

Account is taken of the needs of students with special educational needs (BES) or with specific learning disorders (DSA)

The verification of the learning in part will take place in the classroom during the entire duration of the course through the assessment of the degree of active participation of the students in the discussion on the topics introduced and developed in the "front" part of the course. A second test will be carried out at the end of the course through an oral interview that will have to verify three skills: i) knowledge of the problems, of the sources of law, of the jurisprudence and of the legal institutions examined during the course; ii) properties of language and legal reasoning; iii) ability to analyze a sentence; iv) ability to apply standards and institutions in practice by solving a practical case.

Reflect on the problems connected to multi-religious societies in a citizenship education perspective. This objective is in full harmony both with what is required by the Council of Europe in the Report and with the European Parliament with the Resolution on the role of intercultural dialogue, cultural diversity and education in the promotion of the fundamental values of the Union. In these documents we recognize the importance of training to educate new generations to live together in equality and dignity, emphasizing that a true intercultural and interdenominational dialogue fosters positive interactions and cooperation by enabling a better understanding and respect among cultures by strengthening, in this way, both the democratic pact and the sensitivity towards universal values and specific cultures. For this reason, the concept developed by the jurisprudence of the Court of Strasbourg and the Council of Europe of "living together" will be used as a key word throughout the course, reflecting on how it is possible, today, to allow peaceful coexistence in multi-ethnic societies and multireligious. In doing so we will ask ourselves what are the difficulties of living together with respect to: i) the dialectic between freedom of expression and religious freedom; ii) the use of ethnic / religious symbols in the public and institutional space; iv) the circulation of models of personal status of religious matrix in the state legal systems; v) the evolution of policies regarding relations between states, the EU and the Council of Europe and religious organizations; vi) national freedom of religion and conscience policies.

They can be divided into three distinct categories: 1) Results in terms of technical and legal knowledge: knowledge of the main sources of law; knowledge of the legal principles relating to the topics dealt with; knowledge of the functioning of institutions of domestic law and international law. 2) Results on the level of civic education: maturation of a more critical social conscience on the issues of diversity; the fight against discrimination, respect for human rights 3) Results on the full transversal competences: expository capacity in the classroom and during the examination verifications; properties of legal language; ability to resolve problematic issues of a legal nature; ability to apply the rules to concrete cases