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Public apprehension about religious diversity has pervaded Canadian headlines at an increasing pace, particularly during the past fifteen years. Urban centres and suburban and rural communities alike have seen clashes over the manifestation of diverse belief systems in daily life. From immigrant ‘codes of conduct,’ a ‘charter of values,’ controversy over the wearing of the Sikh kirpan in school, to bans on religious vestments and symbols worn by public servants including teachers, conflict and socially divisive misunderstandings are often the unfortunate fruits of ignorance about the ‘other.’ Many religious actors at the center of these stories have seen their cases ultimately adjudicated in Canada’s highest court, reinforcing the perception that religious difference is a source of conflict and division in Canadian society. In this era of global conversations about how liberal democracies approach diversity, this dissertation expands the conversation on education about religion, beliefs and worldviews in Canadian classrooms. With public education situated as a primary site for constructing democratic citizenship, the question of how this evolving dynamic of diversity is taught in schools is symbolically and practically linked to broader debates about government and societal responses to pluralism. This thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge by interweaving thinking from the literature on pluralism, xenosophia and deep equality as a conceptual framework, with empirical work investigating what parents and educators thought Canadian public-school (primary and secondary) students should learn in order to best prepare them for living and thriving in a diverse society. Triangulated data gathered from semi-structured interviews with parents and educators (n=22), responses from a national online survey (n=190), and a textual analysis of secondary student manuals from Quebec’s Ethics and Religious Culture Program (n=5), provided a holistic vantage point from which to consider the central research questions. Analysis and interpretation of findings revealed that learning about diversity and difference were of central importance, however, there were fundamental concerns regarding indoctrination, rejection of majority religious privilege and even-handedness in the presentation of religious and nonreligious belief systems. Existing discourse on religious and worldview literacy education in Canada tends to focus on teaching and learning in the context of a discrete curriculum such as the Ethics and Religious Culture program. However, findings from this research suggest that increased public awareness about the religious entanglements of colonization, combined with the significant rise in the number of Canadians who hold non-religious worldviews, contribute to a rethinking of how such literacy endeavours may be better integrated into other subject areas such as civics, citizenship, history or social studies.

To be able to make accurate predictions and adapt, we sometimes need to adjust our understanding of the world, yet what incentivizes expansion of our mental world models remains poorly understood. The aim of this study was to investigate what motivates people to update their world models – here referred to as the ontological model structure, and how updating is related to uncertainty. The study is of experimental design and uses a digital game divided into two conditions (ambiguous and unambiguous) that vary the expectations for the game’s causal structure. The goal of the game was to gain points by accurately predicting on what food item a fly will land. To make accurate predictions, the participant should adjust their cognitive model when encountering new information. Data from 84 participants was collected online, using Prolific.co. It was hypothesized that initial ambiguity would affect the likelihood of information seeking by increasing the frequency of prediction errors and would result in a faster switch to an optimal cognitive model. The study found that participants in the more ambiguous condition sought information earlier, gained more prediction errors and changed to an optimal model faster than participants in the less ambiguous condition. However, both participant groups seemed equally as equipped to change models as a result of prediction errors. This might indicate that despite similar support for an initial model, it is the prediction errors and our recent history that affects our tendency to adjust our cognitive models. / För att kunna göra korrekta prediktioner och anpassa oss behöver vi ibland justera vår förståelse av världen, vad som motiverar en revidering av våra mentala modeller är dock fortfarande oklart. Studiens syfte var att undersöka vad som motiverar människor att uppdatera sina modeller – benämnd här som den ontologiska modellstrukturen, och hur uppdateringen är relaterad till osäkerhet. Studien är av experimentell design och använder ett digitalt spel uppdelat i två betingelser (tvetydig och entydig), som varierar förväntningarna på spelets ontologiska struktur. Spelets mål var att samla poäng genom att korrekt predicera på vilken matvara en fluga kommer att landa. För att kunna göra korrekta prediktioner bör deltagaren justera sin kognitiva modell när ny information fås. Data från 84 deltagare samlades in online, med hjälp av Prolific.co. Det antogs att den initiala tvetydigheten skulle påverka sannolikheten för informationssökning genom att öka frekvensen av prediktionsfel och att det skulle resultera i en snabbare övergång till en optimal kognitiv modell. Studien fann att deltagare i den mer tvetydiga betingelsen sökte information tidigare, fick fler prediktionsfel och ändrade till en optimal modell snabbare än deltagare i den mindre tvetydiga betingelsen. Däremot verkade båda deltagargrupperna lika väl utrustade att byta modell till följd av prediktionsfel. Det kan tyda på att trots liknande stöd för en initialmodell är det prediktionsfel och vår närhistoria som påverkar vår tendens att justera våra kognitiva modeller.

German text / Gelebte Ökumene wird, als Zeichen christlicher Glaubwürdigkeit, in unserer postmodernen und postsäkularisierten Gesellschaft gefordert. Die dogmenorientierten Bemühungen zur Ökumene scheinen in die Krise geraten zu sein. Es bedarf es der Suche nach Grundlagen für ökumenische Spiritualität, für die sich der Schöpfungsglaube, als von den großen Konfessionen geteiltes Glaubensgut, anbietet. Um Schöpfungstheologie und -spiritualität als zusammengehörige Elemente wahrnehmen zu können, wird in dieser Dissertation das Weltanschauungsmodell Wrights verwendet, welches durch Waaijmans Aspekt der Umformung ergänzt wird. Konfessionell geprägte Schöpfungstheologien werden in den Kategorien Story und Antworten auf weltanschauliche Schlüsselfragen analysiert. Dies bildet die Basis für eine Synthese, im Sinne der Hermeneutik des differenzierten Konsenses, zu einer ökumenischen Schöpfungstheologie. Konfessionelle Schöpfungsspiritualitäten werden in den Kategorien Symbol und Praxis dargestellt und in einem emergent-synthetischen Entwurf, auf der Basis der ökumenischen Schöpfungstheologie, zu Perspektiven für ökumenische Schöpfungsspiritualität weiterverarbeitet. Die so aufgezeigte schöpfungstheologisch-ökumenische Weltanschauung, bietet eine mögliche Grundlage für ökumenische Spiritualität. / Christian Spirituality, Church History & Missiology / M. Th. (Christian Spirituality)

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