EMPIRICALLY RECONSTRUCTIVE DFG-PROJECT (2015-2017)

CHILD THEOLOGY AND CLASSROOM PRACTICE. A RECONSTRUCTIVE STUDY ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NORMS OF CHILD THEOLOGY AND ENTRENCHED ROUTINE IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE CLASSROOM.

A key element of religious education didactics is the question of good religious education in the classroom. In the context of this question, the principles of child theology are currently being hotly debated in the academic field of religious education pedagogy (especially in German-speaking countries). In the process, children’s thoughts on existential questions of theology are qualified and placed at the heart of religious education. The principles of child theology thus require religious education in the classroom to fulfil explicit normative expectations. The project focuses on the relationship between programmatic aspirations of child theology and of classroom teaching routines. In terms of didactics, the project examines video clips recorded in religious education classes in primary schools, reflecting on which sequences can be considered a success and which ones a failure according to the principles of child theology. In this regard, the project sheds light on the question how closely – and if at all – religious education in the classroom follows the principles of child theology. The extent of compliance is not – as has been typically the case in child theology to date – one-sidedly attributed to the teacher’s (lack of) professionality, which would call for a response in the form of recommended actions and relevant training. Rather – and this is the innovative aspect – the project assumes a practice-theoretical perspective, such as has been established in classroom research in the field of educational science. In this phase, the project suspends the inquiry into good religious education in schools and regards the individuals participating in religious education classes as competent actors in the ethno-methodological sense. Classroom practises are analysed with regard to the rules and norms embedded therein. Practices are understood to be routines in a social field that are neither addressed nor questioned by the actors performing them.

The project thus fulfils a threefold purpose: first of all, it surveys which child-theological expectations are fulfilled and which ones are not fulfilled by religious education in the classroom. Secondly, it describes rules and norms that are embedded in practices of religious education; thus, it aims at rendering the aspects that are taken for granted in religious education visible. Thirdly, the project specifies the areas where tensions may arise between the normative expectations of the principles of child theology on the one hand and reconstructed norms and rules in religious education in the classroom on the other hand. It thus succeeds in highlighting the question of an (actual or putative) congruence between normative principles and classroom practice on an empirical basis, without focusing one-sidedly on a potential lack of professionality among the teachers. Accordingly, classroom practice can be critically assessed in respect to the principles of child theology, and at the same time the principles of child theology can be critically regarded from the point of view of classroom practice.

Funded by the German Research Foundation