Why Do We Need Active Policies for Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue in Europe?

IDEAL project intends to give participants a European perspective to the studies of society, education, and social work and also an Intercultural perspective. How? By linking together two main topics: Europe and Interculturalism across different disciplinary perspectives. Practicing Intercultural Dialogue occurs in many spheres: in a neighborhood, public services, workplaces and educational contexts. This year we will pay attention to a specific field of application for intercultural dialogue: inter-religiosity. Religion, even in a secularized society that we live in, has a central role for citizens. Religion includes moral values, definition of truth, prohibitions and permissions (lifestyle), the outlook towards the future and the loyalty to a given community of brotherhood in faith. In the past, belonging to a religion was the result of a family tradition, and it implied to share the same set of values and behavior with a “birth community”.