”Vi vet ju inte vad de kristna egentligen tror på.” En studie om elevers syn på sin undervisning om kristendom i religionskunskap

Abstract

Johanna Petrén, a prospective teacher of religion, has examined how a couple of students view Christianity as it is presented in a Religious Education classroom. Furthermore, how this image matches their experience of Christianity outside of school. The key questions of this essay are: How do the students generally describe Christianity and what it means to be a Christian based on the image they have acquired from outside of school, or from Christian friends, confirmation or their own faith? How do the students describe Christianity according to what they learn in Religious education at school? What potential differences do the students perceive between the image of Christianity conveyed by the school and the image they have of Christianity from outside of school? Does the school's teaching influence the credibility and interest in Christianity? The questions have been discussed in focus group interviews, in which the students way of reasoning and talking about religious matters were analysed based on previous research. References used in the analysis includes research on topics such as science of religious history, religion in multicultural and postcolonial rooms, secularism and discourse analysis have. The result showed that the majority of the students were satisfied with their education despite the fact that it mainly consisted of only basic facts about the religions. Depending on whether a student was a believer or not, they would express themselves in different ways about this matter. The believers had more negative criticism of the education and argued that it did not portrait a correct image of what Christianity is about. The students who took part in the interviews also gave suggestions on how religious education can be improved. One example was letting believers give their personal testimonies and share some experiences with the class, about their faith. With suggestion of further research the essays ends with the following quote: "Our modern society is characterized by its diversity. Therefore it is important to acquire knowledge about different philosophies and religions in order to create mutual understanding within our society". With this said she think it is of great importance that the subject religious education at school ought to provide the students with fair and accurate teachings of the different religions and philosophies.