paper more precisely to wariness about the adequacy of multiculturalist education policies that have been imposed on a changing Scottish society.
VVTo understand this inadequacy of multiculturalist education policies in today’s Scotland, the paper will now seek to do a number of things. First, it describes the policies in effect regarding religious schools and religious observance periods in state-funded schools, noting the relative historical context in which these policies were first enacted. The paper then considers changes in Scottish religious culture through a pair of lenses: the decreasing—and some argue nonexistent—sectarian divide and the broad secularization of Scottish society. As a result of these trends, the paper argues, a current reconsideration of the continuation of Scottish multiculturalist education policies must be considered within the context of a society in which both Protestant and Catholic parents are ever more removed from the religious leaders claiming to represent their interests.
III.I The Policies In Effect
VVCritical to understanding the history of Scottish education policies and the current debate surrounding the multiculturalist ones is an understanding of devolution. After the Acts of Union in 1707, governance of Scotland moved to the English-based Parliament at Westminster. However, in 1998, following a referendum in 1997, the Scotland Act (passed by the Westminster Parliament) established a devolved Scottish Parliament with enumerated power over education policy.17 As a result, the legislation that currently governs Scottish education - including that mandating state-funded religious schools and regular periods of religious observance—was passed by the Westminster Parliament but would be changed by the Scottish Parliament.
88817. See: Scotland Act 1998, Schedule 5, and: Meg Russell, “Constitutional Politics,” in Developments in British Politics, Ninth Edition ed. Richard Heffernan, Philip Cowley, and Colin Hay (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011), 13.
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