Investigating the Correlation Between Religion and Key Human Values Among Educational Stakeholders in Mauritius (Joining virtually)

It is undeniable that human values are key in shaping the youth into responsible citizens capable of making a positive difference to peoples’ life, and facing global, national, and personal challenges. According to Carneiro et al. (2021), religion has an important role in the development of such values and eventually on moral and ideal behaviors. Though several studies have been done in this field to correlate religion and human values, analysis of the literature revealed that (i) most of the studies are limited to few human values, (ii) there is no published article showcasing the correlation in the Mauritian context, (iii) an Islamic perspectives has not yet been adopted in analysing the correlations, in view of planning trainings that will further the development of values in students of the Muslim community, (iv) are limited to simple statistical correlations. It is in this perspective that the Mauritius-specific data from the AEMS “Mapping the Terrains” project was used to investigate the correlation between religion and a broad set of human values, namely forgiveness, individualistic orientation, collectivistic orientation, self-efficacy, problem-solving, meaning-making, sense of belongingness, religiosity and spirituality, hope, life satisfaction, gratitude, emotion, regulation, empathy, and self-regulation.

In fact, using a purely quantitative methodology, the data from the AEMS “Mapping the Terrains” project were analysed using the SPSS and AMOS software to develop a (i) descriptive analysis, which showcase the association between the main religious beliefs in Mauritius (Muslim, Christian and Hindu) and the key human values, and (ii) Structural Equation Model (SEM) which showcases the existing correlations between religion and the set of human values. In fact, the output of this study, which maps the different human values to the main religious beliefs present in the Mauritian community, represents important baseline data that inform policymakers and other educational stakeholders on the way forward to further the development of human values amongst Mauritian students and other educational stakeholders. Moreover, by adopting an Islamic perspective to analyse the findings of the study, it was found that the Muslim community in Mauritius have greater likelihood and are more agreeable towards most of the values as compared to the other communities, excluding forgiveness, life satisfaction, individualistic orientation, self-efficacy, and problem solving. In fact, this article also provides a set of recommendations (prepared based on the findings of this study) that inform policy makers and other educational specialists on the way forward to enhance the development of human values amongst students of different religions, depending on their specific needs. This will provide healthy values-based multi-cultural and multi-ethnic relationships between the different ethnic groups of the country.

Dr. Shakeel Atchia has served the Mauritian Education system for the past 22 years as Educator, Quality Assurance Officer and currently as a member of the Science Education Department of the Mauritius Institute of Education. Backed by a strong scientific background and a PhD in Education, he has developed a research interest in the fields of science education and STEM education, which is visible through his publications, conference interventions and research work. He is currently the overall coordinator of a collaborative MIE-UKZN project on STEM education and is also the international consultant for the Quantitative Analysis of the international project ‘COVID-19 impacts on education systems’, under the aegis of Stockholm University.