2 Young people’s views on religion, toleration and history

Before you begin thinking about how to engage young people with the issues of religion and toleration, it is worth pausing to look at what is already known about their attitudes towards religious diversity. Ongoing research (see: Maiden, Salmesvuori, Sinclair, Van Nieuwenhuyse and Wolffe, 2022) has led to the following insights:

• Young people value religious diversity and are usually more positive about it than older people (in theory, at least). However, some of them still hold significant prejudices, for example against the building of mosques, in Germany.
• Numerous ‘concentric circles’ of influence shape young people’s views, with family the most important, followed by friends and school, and only then their own faith community (if indeed they belong to one).
• Local context is important. For example, RETOPEA project researchers found significant contrasts between young people in schools in London situated in highly diverse multi-faith areas and those in a school in a town in the north-west of England with a majority white population. Frequent meaningful contact with people of other religions, especially in school, leads to greater tolerance and acceptance.
• Broadcast media has limited impact. While stereotypes are propagated by both news and dramas – for example, of Muslim extremists or Catholic paedophiles – young people have a critical approach to such material and would like to see the media being more nuanced and balanced in its treatment of religion. Their own views are increasingly likely to be influenced by YouTube and social media as well as by more traditional media. Although social media is not subject to traditional ‘gatekeepers’ and can therefore promote fake news such as conspiracy theories, it can have positive impacts too. However, it is vitally important to promote visual and media literacy so that young people are equipped to make sound judgements.
• Young people often have a limited ‘presentist’ understanding of the past which often reflects their limited knowledge. They tend to seize on episodes such as the Holocaust or so-called ‘wars of religion’ as evidence that things were ‘worse’ in the past than in the present or impose anachronistic moral judgements without awareness of the complexities of historical contexts. A central objective of the RETOPEA project is to provide resources and encouragement to challenge this view of the past, and to help young people to see it as a source of ideas to think creatively about their present-day situation instead.