Religious education for a plural society in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Intersections between separate school systems, religious actors and public institutions

The inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflicts of the 1990s and the subsequent Dayton Accords signed in 1995 led Bosnia and Herzegovina to a clear division in public space between Bosnian-Muslims, Serbian-Orthodox and Croatian-Catholics. Today, the country is governed by a tripartite structure and organized in a ‘separate school system’: students of different ethnic and religious groups have hardly any opportunities for confrontation about issues related to religious diversity. The paper aims to offer an overview on the evolution of religious education in Bosnia and Herzegovina since the adoption of the Vidovdan Constitution (1921) to the 2000s OECD experimentation of the subject  Religious culture. The contribution also aims to illustrate some projects and teachings about religions in Bosnia and Herzegovina proposed by some Catholic institutions as peacekeeping and reconciliation tools, but also as a means of strengthening the mediation role of the Catholic Church in the political dynamics of the territory.