The paper discusses the role of religion, as a subject taught in schools, from a curricular perspective. Based on the teaching materials in use in the Canton of Solothurn around 1800, I argue that education in religion is -in the tradition of curriculum studies -particularly suited for reconstructing the historical expectations placed on education. First, it is evident that the teaching materials in use were meant not just for instructing schoolchildren about religion but were also meant to

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... ate teachers. Second, and precisely because classes in subjects such as reading or writing used religious material, religion must be understood as an expression of socially and culturally dominant expectations, quite apart from what was required of education in a curricular sense. By the end of the 18th century, religion was the dominant language used for expressing normative expectations -one which far transcended the classes explicitly devoted to it as a subject.