Bangladesh has a rich tradition of religious syncretism but much of this history has been lost to its turbulent and embattled political history. Bangladesh has seen the religion of the majority Bengali-Muslim weave in and out of its national imagination as a disruptive force. This posits interreligious encounters as a site of negotiations across communal and sectarian lines. It traces over schisms that have shaped notions of belonging to the land across its experience with being twice colonized and with struggles to sustain a democratic polity. This seeps into the education system: even in classrooms, national textbooks convey damaging stereotypes and incorrect information about religious and ethnic minorities. This also unfolds against the reality that Bangladesh has seen a rapid decline in civic spaces (CIVICUS, 2023), with Bangladeshis avoiding engagement in political discussions (Counterpart International 2024). While the backsliding in democratic practices and the oppression of political freedom are not directly tied to interreligious encounters, politicians engage demagogic techniques to induce sectarian violence and communal disharmony to sustain their control over the masses. Thus, religion has become a political tool to deflect their increasingly authoritarian inclinations. After a popular uprising in July and August 2024 that overthrew a regime that was in power for 15 years, exclusionary politics stemming from ethno-religious divides has once again entered the public discourse in Bangladesh’s political landscape.

Such tendencies are not unique to Bangladesh but rather, connect to global issues affecting the human condition: regional conflicts, genocides, gender-based violence, encroaching impacts of climate change, loss of indigenous worldviews, etc. are topical concerns across the globe. We identify a potential to address these global issues as well as the slippages in active citizenship through framing these issues in terms of interreligious encounters.

Overall, interreligious encounters pose a broad field of study which may encompass: majority-minority considerations, notions of belonging within the religion and among a particular faith within a broader religious tradition, forms of religious ‘otherization’, peace-building strategies and conflict management, and governance techniques, among others (Cheetham, Pratt, Thomas, & Thomas, 2013). Given this broad potential, interreligious encounters can enable students to nurture nuanced values of good citizenship, which requires consolidating personal understanding of good citizenship into a shared understanding (James, Schweber, Kunzman, Barton, & Logan, 2014; Pradana, Mahfud, & Priyanto, 2023).

Interfaith dialogue is among one of the many areas of consideration when it comes to understanding interreligious encounters. Interreligious encounters have long been studied, but Moyaert (2013) observed that the “dialogical turn” gained more prominence as an area of scholarly interest around the 2010s (pp. 193). Overall, this domain of inquiry largely focused on understanding how religions and their communities perceive their various religious ‘others’ (Cheetham et al., 2013). This gives interfaith dialogue wide-ranging nuances that are “historical, descriptive, etymological, and also philosophical” (Moyaert, 2013, pp. 193). Since the 1970s, interreligious dialogue has “made unprecedented advances” in terms of the forms it can take and the grounds it can cover (Moyaert, 2013, pp. 201). These applications and their forms depend on “the participants (laypeople, religious leaders, theologians, and monks), the structure (local/international, small/large-scale, bilateral/multilateral), and the themes to be discussed (everyday concerns, ethical challenges, spiritual experiences, doctrinal issues, etc.)” (Moyaert, 2013, pp. 201). Hence, whilst designing this course it has been important to ask: how do we get students to think critically about the role religions play in their society and in their day-to-day affairs? How can students be actively engaged as interfaith doers so they can, in turn, understand the effectiveness and necessity for community mobilization to promote peace-building vis-a-vis interfaith dialogue? What are the forms of discrimination and oppressions that can be addressed through such a framework? Through a dialogic approach, students are able to connect the global issues to local realities, giving a broad-ranging avenue to become active citizens while embracing the ethno-religious contours of their nation and beyond.

The dialogic turn places emphasis on understanding the impact and operationalization of dialogue as a means of understanding how communities engage with, manage and strategize encounters with their various religious ‘others’. Thus, garnering an understanding of the contours of meaning-making processes deployed by the communities hold the potential to reveal sites of encounters and how they are internalized and projected outwards by the community. According to Hall (2021), the ‘positions of enunciation’ disclose that strategies of representation are not about the truth but how the truth is imagined by a community. Since the process of identification with a specific community is rooted in a wider social, political, economic and cultural framework, consideration towards how a community is represented in public discourses and scholarship is necessary. Hall (2021b) further posits that the imagination of the community is self-reflective of the contemporary status, envisioned future orientations and group dynamics; thus, explorations here can reveal both in-group and out-group dynamics. Barth (1994) suggests this exploration takes place through understanding the contours and limits, rather than the contents, of the ethnic and cultural identity.

In the case of Bangladesh, religion can often dominate the contours of one’s imagined community. Scholarship on religious studies in inclusive classrooms suggest that the tendency of discussions on religion or religious communities to be contentious and controversial provides the scope to explore a ‘disruptive’ moment (Avest, 2020). It opens the scope to observe the contours and limits alongside the contents of one’s identity. Such explorations can contribute to finding shared values among a diverse group and allow participants to embrace their differences in a new light (Pradana et al., 2023). The dialogic approach allows students and instructors to leverage the existing social and political organization of their society to more closely study and address questions of exclusions, discriminations and sites of oppressions.

According to Halahoff (2013), religious communities and religious leaders are uniquely predisposed towards peace-building and conflict resolution efforts due to several factors: “religious communities have extensive networks for communication and action; injustice can give rise to conflicts and religions provide mandates for non-violent resistance to injustice; in situations where there is state corruption or collapse, religious institutions and leaders provide moral authority and have the trust and respect of the people; processes of reconciliation are often informed by religious concepts; and religious actors are engaged with communities at the grassroots level”. (pp. 268)

Working with religious communities and through the interfaith dialogue approach, students garner a broader understanding of their own positionality and are empowered to become engaged changemakers in their own communities. Within this course, students will be connected to a community partner to upskill them, provide access to communities and to enable data collection through doing interfaith work. Thus, in supporting students with their capstone projects, the course encourages and challenges students to address their own biases, to explore ways of coming together, to nurture empathy and active listening, and to embrace differences as a strength towards peace-building in their communities.

As mentioned earlier, this course is yet to be taught at the time of this guide being developed. Hence, the tools and techniques identified rely on literature review, best practices identified by many instructors whose input were taken and refinement processes undertaken through course design workshops. The course assumes diversity along the following lines in the classroom to aid the design process: socio-economic background, ethnicity, religion, linguistic differences, academic backgrounds, regional belonging, nationality, political stance, gender, and sexuality. These factors are based on the general profile of students at the university. This segment outlines the reflexive exploration behind the design and development of this course.

Given the focus on the dialogic and discursive aspects of interreligious encounters, it is important that such a courses take into cognizance and acknowledges different worldviews in its teaching and learning strategies. To achieve this, inclusive and didactic methods must be implemented across every stage. The pedagogy must be inductive, rather than deductive, to allow students to become co-constructors of the knowledge being produced through the class (Bartz & Bartz, 2018). Considerable evidence demonstrates that student-centred learning, which entails engaging with learning materials through discussions, in-class activities, collaborative projects and constructive assessments, is more effective in making students participants in the construction of their own knowledge (Murphy Paul, 2015 in Bartz & Bartz, 2018).

To enable such significant learning experiences, experiential learning becomes imperative. Fink (2013) provided useful insights into what makes a course truly meaningful to students, and his “A Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning” was extremely useful in the exercise of developing the course mindfully. The taxonomy outlined by Fink (2013)- foundational knowledge, application, integration, human dimension, caring, and learning how to learn- underscores the necessity to make learning as interactive as possible. There was already an interest in working with community partners and interfaith dialogue practitioners to give students knowledge of how things work on the ground and outside the classroom. The course evolved around the intentional focus on experiential learning, in which students would be able to reflect on how interfaith dialogue can be grounds for civic engagement.

The course was aimed at connecting the social, cultural and political with the personal, allowing students to invest on an issue they care about. These factors tied in to become the ‘big’ learning outcome: inculcating a foundational idea that active engagement with religious ‘others’ can foster peace and unity among people, if done with intention and understanding of the nuances involved. Due to this, an outcome-based approach which would conclude with students producing a capstone project was determined. The ADDIE Model (1975) was employed to begin the backward design process (McTighe & Wiggins, 2012). Using constructive alignment (Biggs, 2014), the learning outcomes focused on the skills students would need to successfully develop their capstone projects, which would aim to engage the broader public or at least the university community in conversations surrounding the topics. They would be introduced to the work of a wide range of stakeholders, understand how authorities structure governance surrounding management of diversities, and be upskilled to have the skill sets necessary to engage in bringing change for the community. It was determined that these projects would be deliverable in three modalities: blog posts, podcast episodes and special issues. Students would be given a thematic area to develop their projects around and the modality would be determined by them. They would also be given the scope to work in groups or individually, depending on the class size and their interests. The aim: students would be empowered to understand how they, too, can contribute and become champions for interfaith work.

While designing this course, a few pedagogical tools and techniques were identified that could potentially engage students in interfaith dialogue:

• Miro/padlet to make the logic of the course visual: organizing the flow of learning materials and contents in a visual and interactive format so students are not overwhelmed with juggling the multimodal model of teaching. This enables clear communication of what to expect.
• Case studies to develop foundational knowledge: initiating the experiential learning process through engagement with cases selected by the instructor and preparing students to engage in dialogues themselves by bringing in their own experiences and examples where appropriate.
• Gameplay to integrate knowledge: Long Table, fishbowl debates, Theatre of the Oppressed and other similar techniques can encourage dialogues among students.
• Dialogues with community partners/practitioners to refine understanding: hosting speakers, working alongside community partners, building pathways for students to do fieldwork and to simulate engagement with diverse perspectives
• Project based learning to create and demonstrate passion: developing a capstone project grounded in experiential learning through dialogues and fieldwork enables students to connect the foundational knowledge to their individual passions towards the topic and demonstrate their contribution to co-creation of knowledge.

While the course is student-centred, preparations for the instructor must run in parallel for the successful implementation of the course. Fruchtman and Park (2020) have emphasized that instructor behaviour needs to be “welcoming, affirming, and supportively challenging” in order to achieve an inclusive classroom. To start off, it might be helpful for an instructor to first define what inclusivity entails in their own context (Sharma, 2011). Application of didactic and inclusive methods such as the Universal Design for Learning and Learning in the Presence of Others may also be useful exercises to map challenges and identify potentially controversial topics that one may encounter in the classroom (Bartz & Bartz, 2018). A course built on interreligious encounters and interfaith dialogue may entail delving into controversial or contentious topics. Based on the preparations taken by the instructor, controversial issues can be framed as ‘disruptive’ moments that can be harnessed to arrive at a better understanding of diverse and divergent worldviews (Avest, 2020). Avest (2020) posits that exploration of the discomfort felt during these moments of ‘disruption’ are ‘boundary experiences’ which can help one better understand their own position as well their relational position to the ‘other’. The instructor must be prepared to communicate through these moments, making clear communication essential to ensuring an environment where students can safely and informedly explore these boundaries (Fruchtman & Park, 2020; Svendby, 2024). One of the key conditions to embracing controversial issues in class is for the instructor to engage in reflective inclusion to become aware of “the individual consequences and structural conditions of one’s own actions” (Bartz & Bartz, 2018). Awareness of one’s positionality can be an extremely useful exercise for both the teacher and the students. With this awareness, the instructor will gain the ability to transform and facilitate the knowledge generation students are partaking in. Thus, embracing controversial topics and politics of religion in the classroom requires ‘pedagogy as a tact response’ (Stevens, 2019 in Avest, 2020).

In Section 2, an emphasis was placed on the necessity for the instructor to take preparations to teach the course. This included the suggestion that an instructor first defines what inclusivity entails in their own context (Sharma, 2011). It was further argued that a course built on interreligious encounters and interfaith dialogue may entail delving into controversial or contentious topics. Thus, it is important that the instructor be prepared to communicate through moments where discomfort may arise among students from encountering such content or conversations in the classroom.

Bartz and Bartz (2018) have argued that one of the key conditions to embracing controversial issues in class is for the instructor to engage in reflective inclusion to be better aware of one’s own positionality. This exercise can enable the instructor to develop the tools and techniques needed to embrace controversial topics and politics of religion in the classroom and result in a teaching style which sees ‘pedagogy as a tact response’ (Stevens, 2019 in Avest, 2020). The “who am I, who are they, who are we: a positionality mapping guide for course design and implementation” is a short step-by-step guide that provides a basic outline to gathering the necessary information an instructor may need to teach a course on religion and inclusivity. It has been compiled based on reflexive practices adopted during the design process of this course. In the first step, the instructor is asked to reflect on the question, “who am I?”, to situate the ‘self’ in the scheme of the course. Mapping even the simplest biographical information can help in understanding where the instructor fits into the course. Next, the guide asks the instructor to reflect on who their potential students might be—the “who are they?” —and challenges these students might face in terms of the teaching and learning strategies to fulfil the criteria for the course. This enables a better understanding of the ways in which the course would need to consider ‘inclusivity’ and a means to rudimentarily chart the forms of diversity/ies that would require to be managed in the classroom. Finally, the guide brings both the instructor and the students into the same plane of consideration—the “who are we?”—to ponder on the potentially controversial topics that may arise, what their root causes are or what forms of limiting beliefs they may be attached to, and how these may be mitigated. Instructors can continue to modify and adapt this guide based on their observations and learning from designing and implementing the course, creating the scope to look back and learn from different cohorts of students and revisions made to the course over time.

This guide was utilized by the author while preparing to teach the adapted version within the course “Community Engagement and Action”. It aided the process of reflecting through a number of scenarios which could arise within the classroom. Firstly, it helped preemptively assess the impact of having a religiously homogeneous student body within the classroom. This helped develop some contingencies with regards to the course contents so that students would still be able to explore interreligious encounters even if the students taking the course were from the same majoritarian religion. Secondly, it helped identify any potential weaknesses students may have (such as language aptitude in English, the medium of instruction). Keeping this in mind, the materials provided to students, ranging from podcasts to books, were deliberately chosen to cater to various learning styles and capabilities. Based on evaluations of the students’ training with their community partner and the course itself, the guide will be revisited to make further improvements to the course.

The arguments presented in Sections 1 and 2 posit that a course built on interreligious encounters and interfaith dialogue requires that students engage in ‘boundary work’, understanding through such exploration how they envision their in-groups and out-groups. Thus, harnessing discomfort felt during these moments generates ‘boundary experiences’ which can help one better understand their own position as well as their relational position to the ‘other’ (Avest, 2020). Below is a profiling exercise, titled “Reflecting on the ‘self’ and ‘others’”, which asks students to reflect on how they see the ‘self’ and their religious ‘others’ through an exploration of negative stereotypes made about the religious and faith communities around them. The guided exercise is to be implemented in the first two weeks of classes, with each segment completed in-class, over the span of approximately five lessons.

This exercise aims to help students learn through self-reflection how encounters gain cognizance to various groups through their act of stereotyping. The instructor must guide students to understand how stereotypes that are perpetuated can help recognize similarities and differences in experience between different groups. The exercise deliberately poses intrusive questions that probe students to consider their feelings about these stereotypes, to better understand how these stereotypes may have an impact on the communities they are made about. Finally, the last segment also encourages students to listen actively to views shared by their peers, with the aim to bring about a common understanding of human experiences and to provide the first steps towards promoting a dialogue. During the implementation of this exercise, the instructor must be prepared to communicate through any uncomfortable or heated moments that may arise. It is essential to ensure that an environment where students can safely, respectfully and informedly explore these boundaries is created (Fruchtman & Park, 2020; Svendby, 2024).

Overall, this exercise creates the foundation students must build on to do interfaith work and for their capstones: by nurturing active listening, developing a notion of ground rules needed to respectfully engage in interfaith dialogue, and acclimatising students to complexities and practicalities of ‘boundary work’. This material, too, was utilised in the classroom for the “Community Engagement and Action” course. During a training session by the community partner, students reported being able to better grasp the connection between stereotyping and taken-for-granted everyday discriminatory practices and its impact on peace-building efforts. The students conveyed that “listening around the room” helped prepare them to engage in debates and dialogue with their peers as well as the practitioners. Overall, this compounded their understanding of why interfaith dialogue practitioners use a dialogic framework for community-building.

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