Negotiating and reshaping Christian values and professional identities through action research: experiential learning and professional development among Christian religious education teachers

Abstract

In European societies, major patterns of plurality have changed over recent decades due to modernization and globalization. In schools, these new patterns of plurality have consequences for learning processes and may be challenging for students and teachers. This article investigates these issues, taking as its point of departure the way they surfaced in the Norwegian subject-oriented research project ‘Teaching about Religious Diversity in Schools. Applying and Developing an Interpretive Cultural Approach to Religious Education’ (2007–2010). Nine teachers and two researchers worked together in a community of practice, adopting an action research mode of collaboration. Each participant carried out and documented individual development projects, mostly within their own student groups. Developments and results were discussed in regular community-of-practice workshops. The data analysed in this article were generated from these workshops and from interviews with participants. The main research question raised is how an action research project in the field of religious education can lead to professional development for the participants. More specifically, the question is how such development can be described with respect to the relationship between personal and professional aspects of teacher identity and practice. The introduction of core concepts from theories of religious education and action learning triggered a collective inquiry among the participants into their own professional knowledge. Gradually a common professional discourse developed within the community of practice, and the participants became aware of and started to investigate critically how personal values and beliefs played a role in their professional work.

Keywords:

• action research
• community of practice
• living theory
• experiential learning
• personal knowledge
• religious education

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank all members of the ROM community of practice for creating such an inspiring environment for collaboration, personal growth and learning for all! Special thanks go to those members who patiently read and gave their comments to various drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The project’s short title was ‘Religious Education and Diversity’ (in Norwegian: ‘Religionsundervisning og Mangfold’ [ROM]). The project period was from June 2007 to November 2010 and the project was financed by the Norwegian Research Council under the Programme for Practice-based R&D (PRAKSISFOU 2006–2010). In the ROM project there were two sub-projects. This article refers exclusively to one of them; the other is documented by Dag Husebø (2012, 2013).

2. ‘KRL’ is an acronym for the original name of the subject from 1997: ‘Kristendomskunnskap med religions- og livssynsorientering’ and later ‘Kristendoms- religions- og livssynskunnskap’ (2005). The subject has been amended several times since then, and in 2008, the name was also changed to ‘Religion, Philosophies of life and Ethics’, in Norwegian ‘Religion, livssyn og etikk’ and with the acronym ‘RLE’.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Research Council of Norway under The Programme for Practice-based R&D (PRAKSISFOU 2006–2010) [grant number 176465].