Christian pedagogy? A research report on the Christian profile of an educational institution in Germany

Abstract

The article reports about an empirical study among the educational staff of one of Germany’s biggest Christian educational institutions, the ‘Christliche Jugenddorfwerk Deutschlands e.V.’ (Christian Youth Work of Germany, CJD). It tried to find out what ideas and attitudes the respondents had concerning the Christian profile of the institution and their own educational work. To this end, a questionnaire with mainly closed-ended and some open-ended questions was administered to the 6000 educational staff. The 934 responses are not representative but still give illuminating insights into the chances and problems of a ‘Christian pedagogy’ as proclaimed by the CJD. They show that a Christian profile of education is approved of by most of the CJD staff, even by many of those who do not believe in God. The results are interpreted and discussed in the context of current developments in Germany’s denominational private school sector, but imply perspectives for an international context as well.

Keywords:

• Christian education
• theology of education
• faith schools
• empirical research

Acknowledgements

I owe thanks to all members of the CJD Academic Advisory Board for their cooperation in this research project, and especially Prof Dr Ernst Hany, University of Erfurt, for his help in the field of statistical analysis.

Notes

1. The members of the Advisory Board, who also contributed to the design and evaluation of the empirical study presented here, were: Prof Dr Ernst Hany, psychologist at the University of Erfurt; Prof Dr h.c. Wolfgang Mitter, educationist, German Institute of International Pedagogy in Frankfurt; Prof. Dr Walter Tokarski, sport pedagogy, Director of the University of Sport at Cologne; and – representing the CJD – Dr mult Jörg Möller. As theologian and religious educationist I had the honour and pleasure to chair the board.

2. In the following, those who answered the questions on the existence of God and a life after death in the affirmative will be called the ‘believers’, those who answered in the negative will be called the ‘non-believers’.

3. I owe thanks to Karl Ernst Nipkow for this hint.