Recognisable elements of religious difference

• Festivals

• General festivals with non-communicated religious elements

• Religiously declared festivals of the major religion

• Festivals of the minor religions

• Secular festivals instead of religious festivals

• Information about festivals without celebrating them

• Visibility of religion in everyday kindergarten life

• Religious symbols and pictures in the kindergarten room

• Clothes and Jewellery

• Food offer

• Religious offers

• Religious education/Koran lessons

• Getting to know places of worship

• Storytelling

• Prayers

• Prayers of major religion

• Unified Prayers

• Prayers of the minor religions

• Secular sayings as a substitute for prayers

Festivals

General festivals with non-communicated religious elements

Festivals without a religious background are celebrated, whereby religious elements occur during the course of the celebration, about which no communication is made in advance. Thus, the biggest festival in the Islamic kindergarten year is the “summer party”, for which the children and the teacher prepare and rehearse for a long time in order to present a show to the parents. Religion is the theme of this festival, which is celebrated as a closing and summer party, inasmuch as the children sing two suras to their parents during the performance, whereby the non-Muslim children do not sing along with them but remain in the group. During the station operation, which includes several stations with games and music, one station is dedicated to the Koran. In this one the children recite the suras they know. Non-Muslim children do not have to com-plete this workshop to receive their final gift. Other religions are not discussed at the summer festival.

Religiously declared festivals of the major religion

There are festivals in the kindergarten that are religiously declared and assigned to a certain religious tradition. The Christian festivals of the church year are celebrated in the Catholic kindergarten. These celebrations are celebrated either in the church, in the group room or in another room available in the building. In principle, Christian festivals are celebrated with all children, but no one has to join in and no pressure is to be exerted. If it is known that parents do not want to let their child join the party, they

will be informed so that they do not bring the children to the kindergarten on the day of the celebration, or pick them up before the party; there is no alternative activity for the children. At festivals that take place outside the everyday life of the kindergarten with the parents, such as St. Martin’s or St. Nicholas, the parents can decide whether they want to participate in the party with their child. The teachers are exploring ways of dealing with the situation that “still fits the child”.⁶²⁶ The absence of some children at religious festivals and the reasons for the absence are not discussed with their parents, colleagues or children. The reason why parents pick up their children before the festi-val is thought to be the part the church plays in the celebration. The question is asked whether the celebration should take place in the church or in a neutral place, such as a hall. Despite the director’s reservations about celebrating in the church because many Muslim children are in kindergarten, St. Martin’s is celebrated with reference to tra-dition, in the church.

In Islamic kindergartens, religious festivals are not celebrated so that individual children do not feel isolated.

Festivals of the minor religions

The offer of festivals of the minor religions in kindergarten is being considered. The head of the Catholic kindergarten would like to offer festivals of different religions in the kindergarten in the future, whereby no concrete planning for the celebration of festivals of other religions is available. In the course of the year, the director tries to make preparations so that the Eid Al-Adha can be celebrated. It proves difficult to find Muslim parents who will tell the children in kindergarten about the Eid Al-Adha.

The teachers attribute this to the fact that the parents themselves either know too little about the festival or do not have the German language skills to tell the children some-thing about it. Therefore, a Muslim friend of the kindergarten director is invited to the kindergarten to celebrate the Eid with the children in the final year of kindergarten.

After the festival, the teachers are not sure whether the children have understood the festival, even if the invited woman “has done it nicely”.⁶²⁷ The celebration of the Eid Al-Adha takes place on the same day as the celebration of a birthday party, and some children are unable to participate in the Eid Al-Adha due to an activity occurring at the same time. The festival is therefore of little importance, even if the director is striving to celebrate a festival of a minor religion.

Secular festivals instead of religious festivals

Festivals with an original religious background are changed and reinterpreted in such a way that this background is no longer recognisable. Religious symbols are not used.

Festivities are selected that can be celebrated by all children equally. For example, the Islamic kindergarten celebrates a “polar bear festival” instead of Christmas or a “sun, moon and star festival”. The reasons given for celebrating a secular festival are that

626 Interview with the head of the Catholic kindergarten, 67.

627 Group discussion with teachers in the Catholic kindergarten, 224.

no one should feel excluded, everyone could participate in the festival equally and all children can feel satisfaction and gratitude. Celebrating secular festivals would also prevent parents from complaining about why children have to take part in Christian or Islamic festivals.

Information about festivals without celebrating them

Information about festivals of both the major religion and the minor religions is pro-vided to the children without celebrating the festivals in kindergarten. In the Islamic kindergarten, Christian as well as Islamic festivals are thematised by describing the background of the festivals and giving the children symbolic gifts. Gifts can vary between Christian and Muslim children; for example, at Easter the Christian children receive a chocolate bunny and the Muslim children chocolate. Therefore, there is no criticism from parents as to why festivals are celebrated by different religions.

Visibility of religion in everyday kindergarten life Religious symbols and pictures in the kindergarten room

Religious symbols and pictures can be visible in the kindergarten room. In the Catho-lic kindergarten,the group room is decorated and equipped with materials in reference to the next Christian festival. This is expressed by works on the theme, by festive decorations brought along by the kindergarten teacher, such as an Advent wreath, a manger, an arranged path to the manger with Mary and Joseph and an Advent calendar at Advent time, and by books on religious festivals such as Christmas or St. Martin’s.

Only symbols or festive design of the major religion can be found in the kindergarten.

Symbols, pictures or characters of other religions do not appear. The kindergarten building is connected to a Catholic church by a corridor.

In the Islamic kindergarten there are no religious symbols in the group room, neither to Islam nor to other religions. The group room is decorated according to the season. There are no books dealing directly with religion. In the Islamic kindergarten, there is a Koran room, where the religious or Koran lessons for the Muslim children take place, and a mosque, where the children go to Friday prayer. In the Koran Room information about the Prophet Muhammad and Arab suras is on the wall.

Clothing and Jewellery

Religious differences in kindergarten can be seen in the clothes and jewellery of chil-dren, teachers or parents. In the Catholic kindergarten, some children wear a necklace with a cross or a bracelet with Catholic motifs. Some parents wear a headscarf or have a bindi on their forehead. Situations arise in which children notice differences, such as a child whose hands were once painted with henna and a girl who has returned from vacation with a bald head due to a religious ritual.

In the Islamic kindergarten, the Muslim teacher wears a headscarf, the Christian teacher often wears short-sleeved T-shirts, is tattooed, sometimes uses nail polish and is often wearing make-up or puts on make-up in front of the children.

Food offered

The children’s eating habits differ during meals together, which is taken into account differently in the kindergartens. An attempt is made to reduce the complexity of the different requirements by selecting food that as many children as possible can eat.

Pork is generally not offered in the Catholic kindergartens. Children who only eat halal meat receive a sandwich on days when meat is included in the meal, as the size of the kindergarten makes it impossible to provide an alternative, warm meal for them. Food preference of the parents is discussed, i.e vegetarian, during the registra-tion process, and the religious reason is assumed by the kindergarten director and is not asked by her and is not brought up for discussion by the parents. In the Islamic kindergarten, only halal prepared food is offered and all children are served the same food, whereby the teachers take personal preferences of the children into consideration when distributing the food. Due to the internal Islamic diversity, which is expressed in different meal requirements of the parents, the director attempts a middle path in the different requirements in the offer of the halal prepared meal. Teachers in the Islamic kindergarten endeavour to take the religious attitudes of parents seriously and to make them clear in their own behaviour. They check whether the cakes parents bring to the children are halal.

Religious offers

In this context, all activities in which the children get to know their own religion better or learn something about other religions are seen as religious offers. Different reli-gious offers are made, so Koran/relireli-gious lessons take place, churches are visited and stories with a religious background are told.

Religious education/Koran lessons

Only Islamic religious education is offered, for which a separate room, an assigned time window on the day and a teacher for Islamic religious education are available.

The children learn the Arabic alphabet, simple sentences in Arabic and suras of the Koran. Catholic or Protestant religious education is not offered in the house – on the grounds that almost 95 percent are Turkish-Muslim children – although the director believes that children become “better and healthier”⁶²⁸ through religion.

Getting to know places of worship

Getting to know about places of worship is another offer in the kindergartens. The church is regularly visited by the Catholic kindergarten, especially during festive sea-628 Expert interview with the head of the Islamic kindergarten, 190f.

sons, as it is spatially connected to the kindergarten building by a corridor. When visiting churches, not every child has to make a sign of the cross with holy water. The one-time visit to a mosque did not meet the teacher’s expectations, as the children were allowed to run in the mosque and the visit rather resembled a gym class. The other teacher reports of her experience that children, if they passed a mosque during a trip, were not interested in her explanation about the mosque.

In the Islamic kindergarten, the Muslim children regularly visit the mosque. The teacher thematises churches when they happen to pass by a church during an excur-sion. She tells the children that because of her religion she goes into this building to pray, which she thinks the children would be interested in. Consciously initiated visits to places of worship other than the mosque are not offered.

Storytelling

Stories with a religious background are told in the Catholic kindergarten at Christian festivals or played with the children as role-plays. Stories of other religions are not discussed in the kindergarten year with the exception of the Eid Al-Adha.

In the Islamic kindergarten, the children are told the background to the Islamic and Christian festivals. In the Koran lessons the children are told about the life of Muhammad.

Prayers

Prayers of major religion

In the Catholic kindergarten, a prayer of thanks is given before each meal, as thanks can be expressed in any religious orientation, but only Christian prayers are said, sung or danced and the prayer is often concluded with a sign of the cross. The prayers before the meal or the snacks are selected from a foundation of Christian prayers. The hand position in prayer in the Catholic kindergarten is the same for all children, as all children fold their hands. Children are not forced to pray along because they are not compelled to participating in something they experience differently at home.

In the Islamic kindergarten, the children pray a dua in Arabic before eating, with the teachers sometimes saying that the non-Muslim children do not have to pray the dua. Nevertheless, most of the time all children adopt an open position of prayer and pray along. The Christian teacher does not pray, for part of the dua she talks to another teacher while the children pray dua, which does not disturb the children.

Unified Prayers

Prayers are generally formulated so that no one will take offence. No child should feel uncomfortable when praying and think that this does not fit.

Prayers of the minor religions

Prayers of the minor religions are formulated exclusively as a possibility for the future.

The director of the Catholic kindergarten is aware that no prayers are said of other religions and that no prayers of other religions are heard. She knows that it is up to the people working in the kindergarten to integrate prayers of other religions into the processes and that this is a possibility in the future. To explain why prayers of other religions have not yet been addressed, she cites the lack of knowledge of German and the shyness of children of other religions. In addition, a conscious approach requires detailed preparations, information, the consent of the persons concerned and, if neces-sary, the invitation of the parents.

Secular saying as a substitute for prayer

Instead of a prayer from a religious tradition, a secular saying is said before the meal, as sometimes happens in the Catholic kindergarten. In the Islamic kindergarten, before each meal, a secular saying is spoken by all the children together with the dua.