A nocividade da moral fechada no ensino religioso na educação pública brasileira

Abstract

This dissertation addresses the harmfulness of closed morality in Religious Education (RE) in Brazilian public education. The object of study focused on closed morality, understood as the harmfulness of RE, which is perpetuated in the subject as a consequence of pressures from the Brazilian religious field in the political, legal, and educational spheres. As theoretical and methodological aspects, we used a critical analysis and a bibliographical and documentary research approach. Our objective with this research is to deepen the discussion on the harmfulness of RE to draw attention to the need to reflect on the restructuring of the subject, considering the overcoming of closed morality. The specific objectives are: i) to problematize the fields that constitute the harmfulness of RE in Brazilian public education; ii) to broaden the discussion on RE in the context of moral education; iii) to critique closed morality in RE; iv) to reflect, focusing on moral issues, on possible models of RE. In the first chapter, we problematize the fields that constitute and promote the harmfulness of RE in public education. We highlight the need for a restructuring of the subject that considers political, legal, and educational reforms. However, we understand that merely restructuring RE from a legal standpoint is not enough; it is also necessary to reflect on its ethical and moral legitimacy. Thus, in the second chapter, we advance a more critical discussion on RE and present that the moral dimension is scarcely problematized in the field. In this way, we situate the debate on RE within the scope of moral education, critique the presence of closed morality, and finally, emphasize that for the subject to fulfill its socio-educational role, it is urgent that it undergo a process of moral opening. Finally, in the third chapter, we discuss the theory of the three pedagogical models of RE, presenting new perspectives on the discussion, namely: the moral implications that each model of RE raises and critically questioning which of the models allows for greater moral openness. In this context, we present the CR model, whose raison d'être has been justified by the effort to construct a pedagogical, non-confessional, and secular identity for RE. We emphasize that the CR pedagogical model is the one most concerned with open perspectives in RE; however, it faces numerous challenges and still lacks the necessary structural conditions for its full implementation. In the final considerations, we conclude that in order to collectively reflect on the restructuring of RE based on open perspectives, it is essential to emancipate the subject from the moralism imposed by the Brazilian religious field. To this end, one possible path is through professional ethics, professionalization, and the professionalism of RE teachers.