In this article, I make the case for a methodological turn in the field based on the growing interest in a methodology-oriented RE. That is, the idea that we should make academic methods and methodology not just a part of, but part and parcel of the core of teaching about religion and worldviews in public education. This interest is found in…

This article presents the results of an in-depth analysis of ten texts written by ten-year-old pupils during a religious education (RE) lesson about Jesus' parables. The texts from the pupils' notebooks were analysed with passages from the RE textbook and the teacher's handbook to explore how these books influenced the pupils' texts. The main…

This study investigates the instruction of religious stories of Judaism at the primary school level in a Norwegian educational setting, with a focus on the perceptions of 8-year-old students regarding narratives about Moses. By integrating classroom observations and student interviews, it examines the teacher's pedagogical approach in instruction…

For more than a decade, the authors have engaged in several collaborative action research projects in established communities of practice, generating new knowledge and promoting practice development in religious education (RE) in schools and higher education. Based on this, this article asks what characterised the collaborative processes, and how…

In this article I contribute to the scholarly discussion on how minority religions and world-views could be represented in the RE subject of Norwegian primary and lower secondary school. I will focus on Islam since Islam is the largest and -- at the same time -- most debated minority religion in Norway. The starting-point of my analysis will be…

Dealing with controversy is highlighted in policy documents as a cornerstone of democracy and education. However, previous research points to several challenges for teachers when dealing with controversial issues (CI) in class. In this article, we apply an ecological conceptualisation of teacher agency and explore the ways in which forum theatre…

In the long history of the Catholic school in Europe, it has taken various forms, linked to local cultures and to the history, particularly religious but also political, of each state. While it is possible to account for this diversity, it is also important to highlight common features and challenges, such as secularisation and globalisation,…

How are religiously based eating regulations navigated in kindergarten, and how does the pedagogical context influence the children's understandings of religion and nationality? This article builds on a qualitative case study involving observations and group interviews with children in a Norwegian kindergarten. At mealtimes, some children ate…

The article deals with the representation of the Sámi in the new national curriculum for primary and lower secondary education in Norway. More precisely, it focuses on a specific formulation in the fourth core element of the curriculum for religious education, in which an awareness of Sámi perspectives is presented as part of the diversity…

This qualitative study examines semi-structured interviews with four Norwegian teachers to explore how they teach biblical texts in upper secondary religious education (RE). The theoretical framework combines one model from biblical hermeneutics with one from RE. The former differentiates between the worlds behind, in, and in front of the biblical…

Do curricular texts address children's existential questions and how are such questions to be met in school? This is the crucial question of this study. It consists of a comparative content analysis of Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish national curricula for religious education, in use in 2019. To provide a background to this content analysis the…

In which ways do curricula recognize existential questions of compulsory school students, and what direction is given regarding how to address them? By asking these two questions, this study analyses syllabi for the school subject of religion education and its equivalents in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and in the two German regions of Bavaria and…

The purpose of this article is to analyse and discuss "Selma and the Quest for the Perfect Faith," a TV series made by The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and promoted for use in schools, and the accompanying teaching material about freedom of religion made by Save the Children. We discuss the series and material critically from a…

There has recently been an increasing focus on the inclusion of non-religious world-views in religious education (RE). An important concern for the legitimacy of an RE subject in public education in liberal democracies is that all traditions, whether religious or secular, are treated in an equal and inclusive manner. This article examines the…

Although religion has played a key role in reading instruction in many education systems, this position has been challenged by increasing religious diversity and the spread of non-religious worldviews. Simultaneously, there has been growing interest in the role of disciplinary literacy in education (i.e. the ways in which a discipline's knowledge…