The paper examines public debates on the place of religion in education the UK as a way of disentangling the tripartite relationship among modernity, Europe and the nation. The paper focuses on the ‘faith school’ debate. This is an area in which the old confrontation between the religious and the secular is re-emerging as an urgent, contemporary conflict. The paper reviews different positions regarding the relationship between modernity and identity including the separation of church and state, ethnic/religious minorities’ right for cultural autonomy, individual autonomy, secularisation and the tension between the traditional and the modern in these debates. Modernity in these debates is presented in various ways including as progress, as toleration, as globalisation or as the rise of neo-liberalism. By examining the contributions from the civil society actors who are involved in the debate as well as other public debate, the paper aims to identify different constellations of modernity and identity that can be discerned from the debate, and aims to locate ‘Europe’ within such constellations. Because of the entwinement of modernity and globalisation, this is also an endeavour to analyse how globalisation influences identity formation process through public debates.
