‘A court in a glass box a thousand kilometres away': judicial pedagogies of language in the European Court of Human Rights

Journal article

Courts around the world are increasingly making judgments about the place of religions and beliefs in schooling. In making formal decisions, judges inevitably express their own assumptions about teaching and learning, termed ‘judicial pedagogies’ (drawing on Bruner’s ‘folk pedagogies’). These decisions often comment on the role and nature of language in classrooms and the different contexts of school, home, and places of worship, or ‘lifeworlds’ (drawing on Habermas). Here, I will particularly consider three leading decisions by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) that consider different forms of language: Dojan v Germany, on sex education and Carnival; Lautsi v Italy, on displaying crucifixes in classrooms; Papageorgiou v Greece, on the right to withdraw from religious education. These cases, involving the right to freedom of belief, and the right to education, show how the ECtHR addresses the place of language, and indeed silence, in the classroom. The analysis raises the challenge of formally adjudging ‘in a glass box a thousand kilometres away’ (Bonello, in Lautsi), the fluidity of classroom language. The challenges of addressing education better in the courts are outlined.

Authors: Fancourt, N

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Journal: British Journal of Educational Studies
• Publication date: 2025-06-02
• Acceptance date: 2025-05-13
• DOI: 10.1080/00071005.2025.2508378
• EISSN: 1467-8527
• ISSN: 0007-1005
• Language: English
• Keywords: courts; education; human rights; language; law; religion