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Central to the ongoing deliberations concerning the future of religious education are inquiries situated within the macro-level realm of church and educational policy actions. Considering the dynamics associated with religious pluralization, individualization, and dechurching, the primary objective of this study is to explore whether differences exist at the micro-level of religious education in Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Hesse, and Brandenburg. The computation of a one-way ANOVA indicates no significant differences in the perceived instructional-related pluralism of religious education among these federal states. Given this context, the paper advocates for a heightened focus on the quality of religious education at the micro-level of specific task formats and didactic settings, rather than shifting the discourse to the macro-level of organizational formats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to address the question of contributing factors to educational inequality in the perceived effectiveness of religious education, drawing on Bourdieu's theory of capital. A multiple linear regression model was calculated to examine the influence of 'religious capital', comprising religious affiliation, childhood experiences with religion, and church religiosity. The results highlight the significant impact of religious capital on the perceived effectiveness of religious education. Notably, the findings gain relevance given the context that not only students affiliated with a specific religion attend religious education, but also the number of non-religiously socialized children and those with no religious affiliation is steadily increasing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents methods for a systematic analysis of the emotive mechanisms of narrations. Thus, important premises such as the questions that should be asked when dealing with emotions in narrative texts are pointed out. All layers of emotional processes have to be distinguished carefully. For example, we have to differentiate between explicitly addressed emotions and those that are to be evoked in the readers. For the analysis of the latter, first the process of emotional text reception will be discussed. Thereafter, practical methods of narratology to examine texts more closely will be introduced. Every aspect will be illustrated by the Parable of the Great Banquet (Luke 14,15--24). The paper closes with a short outlook on the work with children and adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper conducts a cross-analysis of the data collected in the Paderborn and Osnabrück projects and comments on the problems of Interreligious Learning. The instructors' statements are examined hermeneutically with regard to their objectives. On the one hand, this reveals internal difficulties of the goals, such as the imparting of basic knowledge or existential confrontation; on the other hand, the goals often are shaped exclusively by Christian theorists and have not yet been sufficiently counter-read by their partners. It is evident that in interreligious dialogue not only the formulation of goals for interreligious learning must be agreed upon, but also that their interpretation and questions of procedure have to be negotiated at eye level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on a workshop held at the GwR Annual Conference 2022 in Erfurt. Starting from the expectations of teachers and their positionality in Religious Education, examples are used to explain that teachers cannot be "neutral". In the workshop, this was discussed in small groups on site and digitally on the basis of three pupils' statements. The question arose whether a positioning of teachers might be necessary and to what extent they could behave neutrally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following paper builds on research of Kamcili-Yildiz and Dobras (2022) on analyzing the mindsets of religious plurality of university faculty members, who teach courses on religions other than their own. The research here focuses on the mindsets of good (interreligious) teaching and their linkage with the mindsets of religious plurality. It will be worked out that on the one hand, structural connections between the teaching and plurality mindsets exist, and, on the other hand, higher education itself, as a context of action, becomes an object of teaching. The mediation between object orientation and orientation to this very context of higher education happens through ideas of professional action that the lecturers explicitly introduce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feelings and emotions have always been important from a subject-matter perspective. This applies to negative feelings such as the fear of a blank sheet of paper in German language education, of jumping off the 5-meter board in physical education, or of a seemingly unsolvable text problem in mathematics, but also to positive feelings such as the joy of a successful experiment in chemistry, a successful choir rehearsal in music, or an interesting conversation about questions of meaning in religion. Subject didactic research pays increased attention to such subject-specific emotions, as a recently published anthology shows (cf. Gläser-Zikuda, Hofmann & Frederking, 2022). From a general perspective that takes all subject didactics into account, interesting findings have emerged here both in the comparison of individual subjects and subject matter didactics and in the theoretical modeling of certain basic types of subject-specific emotions (cf. Frederking, 2022a). In the context of this article, these will be illustrated by taking the subjects of biology, German, history, geography, mathematics education, religion, and physical education and the related subject didactic research as examples. The brief presentation and explanation of the theory of general subject didactics serves as a starting point. This provides the scientific-theoretical frame of reference for the following explanations and the developed model of emotion research in subject didactics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2016, Widmaier & Zorn (2016) published the anthology "Do we need the Beutelsbach Consensus?", which indicates the range of the discussion on the Beutelsbach Consensus (BK) in the field of political didactics. This discussion has already been discussed in terms of its impulses regarding religious education. Furthermore, with the so-called 'Dresden Consensus' (2016), there exists an analogous set of didactic principles for philosophy and ethics lessons. This is of special interest due to the proximity of philosophy instruction to religious education. In the following paper, I will examine the relevant debate in didactics of philosophy for working out impulses for religious education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explanatory films and videos have grown more popular during the Covid-19 pandemic. Practitioners of religious education as well as scholars are increasingly paying attention to this medium. This paper analyses a selection of recent educational videos on religion from the standpoint of narrative theory. It then introduces the online database "relithek.de," a project connected with Frankfurt University, in through which students of religious education learn how to plan, produce, employ, and reflect on explanatory videos for (inter-)religious understanding and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narratives emanate from the temporal-spatial contexts of society, politics, and sciences. Together they form individual and collective perspectives through their provided presence in communicative memory. In an increasingly mediatized world (audio-visual) media function as resonating spaces for narratives - especially in the juvenile environment. Using the example of the transitioning-narrative in the TVseries „The Vampire Diaries" and the narrative of „winter is coming" in „Game of Thrones" the paper attempts, on the one hand, to illustrate these coherences. On the other hand, religious implications of these narratives are identified by means of the theoretical approaches of conceptual blending and the correlative space for encounter. Religious-educational applications can be derived from the obvious religious weight of the narratives that define juvenile media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents the central findings of the first round of the SpiRiTex-Project "Sacred Spaces, Rituals and Texts in European Teacher Education", which was conceived as a pilot project, running in the Northern part of Belgium (Flanders) from the 21st till the 25th of May 2018. The general aim of the project is to introduce future teachers of religious education in powerful learning environments, in which they can discover the spiritual and religious capital of Europe. Through direct experiences they are invited to learn in the presence of European fellows in theology and religious education teacher education. The basic assumption of the project is that the three spiritual sources can become vital re-sources for personal and professional development, when they are re-created, re-defined and re-appropriated in the very act of learning. This paper offers a qualitative-empirical insight in the first pilot project in Flanders, in which the focus was on the element of sacred space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the question of an appropriate preparation of teacher students of Catholic Theology for everyday school life characterized by pluralism, which increasingly requires a fundamental change in the traditional structures of Religious Education in Germany. Based on the assumption proclaimed in the theoretical discourse that practical interreligious dialogue is the ideal way for successful interreligious learning, the focus of the empirically designed research project described below (SR study) is the implementation of such a dialogue, which is initiated by the method of Scriptural Reasoning (SR). The results of the SR study point to opportunities as well as challenges of learning by dialogue, from which conclusions can be drawn for a didactically coherent implementation of the SR method in teacher education in Catholic Theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even in federal states with a strong tradition of school worship, such as Bavaria, the question arises as to whether school worship services are still up-to-date in view of increasing religious and ideological plurality or whether they should be developed further in the direction of alternative forms of celebration. This paper presents the results of a qualitative study in which perspectives of school parents on school services and alternative forms of religious school life were surveyed. It becomes clear that headmasters combine religious school services with the goal of promoting the school community; this is a challenge in that religious services can develop great integrative power, but at the same time usually exclude individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present article is to show the extent to which mindsets, practical theoretical approaches and additional factors influence teaching behaviour and determine the taxonomy of teaching. For this purpose, one case with the dense description according to Clifford Geertz was documented and analysed in the theoretical framework of the other project papers in a praxeological way, in order to subsequently describe how real teaching practices in foreign-religious parts of studies result as social negotiation processes of the curriculum specifications, action programmes of the actors and the concrete teaching situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hermeneutical research is an elementary method in religious education. At the same time, however, there are only a few methodological explanations for it. The paper outlines fundamental aspects of a hermeneutical approach and illustrates them by focussing the development of concepts in the didactics of religion. Among other things, a review of main results of hermeneutical concept development is presented, and the underlying methodological approach is characterized. In this way it can be demonstrated that a hermeneutical concept development represents an established research format with potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Didactical design research is labelled as a research concept in a discussion paper of the GFD. Considering the contentual and methodical breadth of didactical design research (DR), this article initially discusses in how far this research concept can be suitably depicted by the term research concept. Secondly, this analysis will be made concrete by means of a content-focused and process-focused variant of DR. Through this, the research concept can be defined more precisely regarding the religious-didactical point of view, so that one can eventually question the contribution for the Didactics of Religion. Thereby, it will be shown that DR, in its methodical and formal conception is, because of its process orientation, context sensitivity and incompleteness, and for religious learning- and educational processes as a domain-specific research concept, exceedingly profitable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows three perspectives to women in church(es), theology and religious education that have been developed in the last decades. Despite the chronological order one has to keep in mind that all the perspectives are useful today in different contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper an analysis of the database of the Hungarian national assessment of core skills is used to differentiate the performance of religious schools in the Hungarian system and to identify the migratory tendencies in the religious school system. The goal of the paper is to provide an overview of the comparison of students' test results from schools funded by various church organisations using data from the school years from 2010 to 2013. The research has identified tendencies in the test results of students at schools funded by various church organisations as well as factors of the socioeconomic and institutional context which may be responsible for these findings. Using linear regression analysis and a multivariate variance analysis, a significant difference between groups of schools funded by traditional churches and new churches was found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following paper is based on the assumption that moral judgement (as described by Kohlberg) plays a comprehensive role when discussing migration-related issues. Current debates see religious aspects as one reason for norm-deviating behaviour. This points to the question of whether religious bounds have an impact on moral judgement or whether, rather, general, cross-religious beliefs prevail. The empirical evidence presented here is based on a sample of (N = 444) students of vocational schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that the acquisition of interreligious competence should have a stronger focus on the body than it is currently the case in most curricula for religious education in schools. The argument is based on Bourdieu's theory of Habitus and dispositions, which he conceptualises in a similar way to (interreligious) competence. The discussion of the significance of his theory for the discourse on (interreligious) competence is followed by an examination of the curricula of Baden-Wurttemberg for Islamic, Catholic, Protestant and Moral Education in the light of this theory. It becomes evident that the curriculum for Islamic religious education reflects most strongly Bourdieu's theoretical demands. Schlüsselwörter: Bildungsungerechtigkeit, Religionsunterricht, Habitus, Teilhabegerechtigkeit, politische Dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seen from the perspective of both, Religious Pedagogy and staff flexible teaching Religious Education in schools, religious learning is to be understood as a lifelong process taking place at a range of different learning venues like family, parish, school and media. The paper looks into recent research concerning this idea and its realization in practice by carrying out a SWOT-analysis. Beyond that, it stresses the distinction between empirical research about life lines on the one hand and theological reflection on biography on the other hand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Volunteering to provide aid to refugees takes place in an environment strongly associated with religion. Religious organizations, for example, play an important role in coordinating this aid, and refugees are strongly identified with the religion of their country of origin. It is thus all the more astonishing that religion plays no significant role in the research on refugee aid. The present article reviews the few relevant studies regarding the insights they provide about the relationship between individual religiosity and voluntary engagement. It also compares these findings with research on the relationship between religiosity and voluntary engagement in general. Through this comparison it becomes clear that religion is equated with altruistic motives, which foster the will to offer assistance. In the context of refugee aid, membership in the same religious tradition further motivates voluntary engagement. In the discussion of this finding, we argue that previous research systematically suppresses the field of alternative spirituality and call for further research in this direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the argumentative weight in comparing ethical and confessional religious education in schools. The opposition between these subjects entails categorical fallacies and ethical contradictions. In result, one could and also ought to argue in favour of both subjects. Education in school depends on scientific justifications of its matters. Thus, the reason for confessional religious education consists in scientific freedom. A common, non-confessional religious education implies a final and universal scientific discovery of the ultimate religious truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper interprets the motif of justification in the context of four motives of selfevaluation (self-enhancement, self-assessment, self-improvement and selfverification). Additionally, the relevance of the motif of justification is demonstrated with reference to the related self-reflexive emotions of guilt, shame and pride. In an empirical section, adolescent experiences of self-evaluation are differentiated based on the quadrants of the values space. The potential of the diverse interpretations of justification is shown for each quadrant. The insights so gained are subsequently applied in an argumentative, emotion-oriented and action-oriented proposal for religious education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Reformation represented a massive crisis for the medieval education system. This paper contends that this crisis was in Luther's interest, as it was a result of the Reformation and an end to the old model of schooling. Luther took advantage of this opening and promoted the establishment of schools. In addition to advocating for schools for a variety of reasons, many of which were quite secular, he also developed organisational concepts for new schools. Aspects of reform pedagogy, such as coeducative perspectives which transcend the boundaries of class, can be identified; however, these concepts are always rooted in Luther's temporal context. These new concepts are justified, quite in the spirit of the times, by references to classical Greece, which serves as the model for Luther's (and his humanistic contemporaries') educational theories. In doing so, Luther changed the old model and thus created a new conceptual approach to the justification of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of the HUmanitiesLab at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the concept of the humanities lab for students as a teaching-learning laboratory was further developed and tested in religious education classes at the Faculty of Theology. On the basis of didactic considerations of the anniversary of the Reformation as a subject of religious education, this paper introduces the conception and realisation of the student lab 'Remembering the Reformation' at St. Nikolai in Spandau, a historically significant site. The use of the digital learning application Actionbound is of particular importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systematic theology struggles to answer the question of whether and how the legacy of the Reformation is represented in practical theology, because the nature of that legacy itself is unclear. This paper introduces four important models for answering this question and advocates an understanding of the Reformation as an ensemble of motifs which fosters churches' connection to Christ. This heuristic instrument is a path to opening dialogues with important newer concepts from practical theology and religious education. It becomes clear that questions for systematic theology have arisen in the practical disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This workshop paper was developed on the basis of the long-time cooperation between the Protestant Institute for Vocational Religious Education in Bonn (bibor: www.bibor.uni-bonn.de) and the Catholic Institute for Vocational Religious Education in Tübingen (KIBOR: www.kibor-tuebingen.de). Because in German vocational schools, religious education is mostly given to all pupils in one class, reflections on vocational RE can pioneer on the way to intensifying ecumenical concepts in other school forms, too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]