Véronique Tomaszewski

How would you engage students so that they acquire critical thinking skills towards others’ systems of beliefs while examining their own? I did by progressively implementing a contemplative pedagogy to overcome students’ lack of sociological imagination and to bridge the cognitive gap. Such holistic pedagogy fosters equanimity and affects group self-awareness as much as it increases mindfulness of the teacher – student co-presence. This interactive session will give an overview of the strategies used to move the problematic of the teaching of sociology of religion beyond the dichotomy individual thoughts / religious dogmatism at a time when youth get indoctrinated by fundamentalist extremists and turn to violence, instead of taking a sociology of religion class to affirm their religious identities.