Significant learning in catholic religious education: the case of Temuco (Chile)

ABSTRACT

The object of this article is to reveal the teaching strategies used by teachers for religious education in Temuco, Chile. The paradigm used was qualitative and the design was a single interpretative case study. The data were collected by semi-structured interviews with pupils and religious education (RE) teachers. The results show convergences of successful strategies, such as the use of conversations to form opinions related with the pupils’ everyday interests. We conclude that significant learning for catholic religious education in schools (CRES) includes teaching strategies associated with individual and collective reflections and conversations on topical social issues. Thus, religious education may enable us to advance towards a pluralist approach to the teaching of religion.

KEYWORDS:

• Religious Education (RE) in schools
• significant learning
• teaching strategies
• interfaith dialogue

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The latest National Bicentenary survey carried out in Chile in 2017 shows that the religion professed by Chileans is Catholic in 59%, evangelical 17%, other religion 45% and none/atheist/agnostic 19% (Centro de Políticas Públicas de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile 2017).

2. In Chile, CRES is an orientation for teaching the Catholic religion, expressed in a study programme of the same name. As such, RE alludes to its general nature and CRES alludes to its specific confessional nature.

3. CELAM: Episcopal Conference of Latin America and the Caribbean.

4. The 1981 Subsidies Law establishes a payment per pupil attending class. This amount is paid without distinction to the sostenedores [management bodies] of both municipal and private subsidised schools. Sostenedores can administer one or more schools, and must comply with certain obligations conditioned by the state subsidy (Bellei and González 2003).

5. According to article 58 of Law 20.845/2015, education companies are Legal Persons in Private Law constituted by two or more natural persons duly registered with the authorities; they are not-for-profit organisations whose sole object is education. They are governed by the terms of the Inclusion Law, and additionally by Title XXXIII, Book I of the Civil Code.

6. The population of Temuco is 282,415. Of these, 237,942 identify as Mapuche, 5,648 identify as foreign and 2,824 identify as Chilean.

7. This study programme, designed in 2005 by the Episcopal Conference of Chile, is the official curricular framework for the teaching of the Catholic religion in the country.

8. According to the Code of Canon Law (VV. AA 1983), canons 803, 804, 805 and 806, ecclesiastical suitability is understood as the power of the Catholic Church to fix necessary guidelines for the dissemination of the Catholic faith in terms both of content and of the suitability of the persons responsible for teaching the Church’s doctrine.

9. According to Decree 924/1983 (Ministry of Education 1983), confessional schools are educational institutions that state that they have a religious orientation in their institutional educational project. Non-confessional schools have a secular approach, that is, they state that their institutional educational project does not refer to religious approaches of any kind.

10. The nomenclature (ED5:2) corresponds to E: Interview; D: teacher; 5 is the interview number; 2 the citation number within the interview.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jessica Navarrete

Jessica Navarrete,Pedagogy in religious education, Faculty of Education, Catholic University of Temuco, Temuco, Chile.

Angélica Vásquez

Angélica Vásquez,Pedagogy in special education, Faculty of Education, Catholic University of Temuco, Temuco, Chile.

Efraín Montero

Efraín MonteroPedagogy in religious education, Faculty of Education, Catholic University of Temuco, Temuco, Chile.

Daniel Cantero

Daniel Cantero,Center of School Research and Development, Faculty of Education, Catholic University of Temuco, Temuco, Chile.