Abstract

Symposium abstract, authored by organizers: Christina Osbeck & Mette Buchardt Presenters: Mette Buchardt, Oddrun Marie Hovde Bråten, Christina Osbeck, Geir Skeie, Martin Ubani Respondent: Bernd Krupka Chair:Karin Sporre Related to the conference subtheme: Borders between research methods General subject didactics in the Nordic countries has developed in relation to teacher education and the need to bring questions about teaching and learning closer to specific subject-content areas. The discussions started at slightly different times in the different countries, for instance in the 1970s in Norway and in the 1980s in Sweden. However, at that time religious education was already an academic field in the faculties of theology in many of the Nordic countries, namely as religionspedagogik[k]. Since then the development of RE and its current position have been rather different in the separate countries, but also the conditions within the same country have varied largely. This symposium explore and discuss the conditions for scholarly based knowledge production about and in relation to the subject didactics of RE in different national contexts in the Nordic sphere.Aim and main questions:The aim of this symposium is to examine different conditions for knowledge re/production concerning Religious Education in the Nordic countries and discuss how disciplines work as frames for ongoing developments of knowledge, primarily research contributions. There are several academic disciplines related to RE, and an interesting question is of course how these scholarly communities influence RE. What consequences does it have for the contribution of knowledge – e.g. for research questions asked, examined and answered – if the study is done in history of religion, comparative religion, sociology of religion, theology, pedagogy of religion in a faculty of theology, sociology, communication studies, or psychology or in the educational sciences, and thus in e.g. sociology, history, psychology or philosophy of education? What does it mean for the discussion of quality in the field and the direction of the development that the research area is that varied? And how does that affect the applied didactics of religion? Osbeck, C., & Lied, S. 2012. RE research in Hamar and Karlstad in a subject didactical and international context. Religionsdidaktisk arbeid pågår! Religionsdidaktikk i Hamar og Karlstad. Vallset: Oplandske Bokforlag. Kroksmark, T. 1989. Didaktiska strövtåg. Didaktiska idéer från Comenius till fenomenografisk didaktik. Goteborg: Daidalos.Ongstad, S. 2006. Fag i endring. Om didaktisering av kunskap. I S. Ongstad. Fag og fagdidaktikk i lærerutdanning. Kunnskap i grenseland. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Form and task for the presentations: The presenters are asked to use their own dissertation in relation to one or two additional work from the country, where the presenter is institutionalized, preferably in a way where the dissertations discussed are from different periods of time. Alternativelty handbooks of RE-didactics/pedagogy of religion can be examined. The presentation will draw on examples from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and sheet light the questions stated above from this basis. Time frame: 1h45minutes Opening + 13 minutes to each of the five presenters + 13 minutes response on all papers together from Berndt Krupka Final answers from presenters and discussion