The Alexander I. Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, St. Ptersburg, was asked by the Russian Ministry of Education to prepare for a non-confessional religious education within Russian post-perestroika schools, and its scholars asked colleagues from University of Wales, Lampeter, and Linköpings universitet for assistance. Within the Tempus Tacis Pre-JEP project PETER (Promoting and Establishing a Teacher Education programme on non-confessional Religious studies) they 1995/96 gave their contributions the form of PPIs (Presentations and Problem Inventories) in which they not only described non-confessional religious education in Britain and Sweden but also clarified those problems this education is supposed to solve and the historico-cultural background of these problems. In relation to these PPIs the Russian contributors described those problems in the contemporary Russian situation which a new Russian non-confessional re-ligious education should address.

The main contributors to the PPIs are Dr William K Kay, Dr Edgar Almén, and Dr Vladislav Arzhanoukhin. These PPIs are commented by Professor Ninian Smart, then at University of California, Santa Barbara, and by Professor Berit Askling, then at Linköpings universitet. Mutual comments between the PPI-groups complete this book.