The study will examine how teachers relate to religious studies for middle school students. Religious studies are the oldest but also the most contested subject undergoing the most changes over time. The subject is far from being obvious. Politicians and people within the school community disagree about the subject’s content and its name, some within the school system but also politicians like to call it topic of life studies or belief studies, while others want to keep the name religion studies. Religion studies aims according to scientists and people within the school community to contribute to under-standing of other people, tolerance and sympathy. Despite these positive evidence available on this subject, the issue is still the most discussed and contested topic available. Religion is an emotive sub-ject that touches many different ways but it's interesting to find out how religious educators look at this because it is their topic. The purpose of this study has therefore been to find out how teachers with the subject religion for grades 4-6 look at religion. I have found that in previous studies is research on the topic mostly on stu-dents' views on the subject. It is therefore interesting to extend the research and study only how reli-gious educators think and look at the subject they teach. The issues that will be addressed and an-swered is: How do the teachers look at the content? How do the teachers look at the literature? How do teachers look at the students' attitude toward religion? What do teachers do on their way to convey religious knowledge to the students? The study is characterized by a qualitative approach to gain better understanding about the subject. Depth interviews were conducted with four teachers of religion to answer and interpret the study's purpose. The results obtained have been able to confirm that there is a desire of educators to pursue an educa-tion in which different approaches visibility of religion using a variety of methods and techniques. Re-ligion studies considered to be a difficult subject to teach. There is a lot that should be changed and developed in the subject to improve the teaching and increase students' interest in religious knowledge. The literature is something teachers are not happy with, they want the literature to be renewed and adapted to the present. Most students have no interest in the subject and this problem can be solved by making the teaching more student-centered. A teacher’s attitude towards the subject is considered to be something that can affect students' attitude to religion.

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--University of South Florida, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 119-130). Also available online.

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