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Forskare menar att mediers alltmer betydelsefulla roll i ungdomars liv kan bidra till att stärka och sprida fördomar om olika religioner. Det finns dock begränsad forskning om hur mediers skildringar av religioner och dess utövare kan hanteras i religionsundervisningen. Studien syftar således till att undersöka på vilket sätt  mediers skildringar av olika religioner och dess utövare hanteras i religionsundervisningen i årskurs 4-6. Studien är inspirerad av en fenomenologisk ansats och utgörs av semistrukturerade intervjuer med fem religionskunskapslärare i årskurs 4–6. Intervjuerna har spelats in, transkriberats och sedan analyserats med inspiration från en fenomenologisk analysmodell. Ur resultatet framkommer att alla lärare enbart diskuterar religiösa företeelser i medier som kopplas till islam, exempelvis IS terrordåd och den pågående flyktingkrisen. Studien visar också att lärarna inte använder sig av specifika tillvägagångssätt för att analysera mediers skildringar av religioner utan behandlas främst genom diskussioner med eleverna, där diskussionerna inte enbart sker i religionsundervisningen. Lärarna är eniga om vikten av att diskutera mediers skildringar av religioner eftersom det annars finns risk för att eleverna generaliserar och relaterar alla muslimer till de våldsamma konflikter som skildras i medier idag. / The media's increasingly important role in young people's lives can according to scientists help to strengthen and spread prejudices about different religions. However, there is limited research on how media portrayals of religions and its practitioners can be handled in religious education.  The study thus seeks to examine how media portrayals of different religions and its practitioners are handled in religious education in grades 4-6. The study is inspired by a phenomenological approach and consists of semi-structured interviews with five religious teachers in grades 4–6. The interviews have been recorded, transcribed and then analyzed with inspiration from a phenomenological analysis model. The result shows that all teachers only discusses religious media phenomena linked to Islam, such as the IS terrorist attacks and the ongoing refugee crisis. The study also shows that the teachers do not use specific approaches for analyzing media depictions of religions, but is treated primarily through discussions with the pupils, where the discussions do not solely take place in religious education. Teachers agree on the importance of discussing the media´s portrayals of religion as otherwise there is a risk that students generalize and relate all Muslims for the violent conflicts depicted in the media today.

<p> Test anxiety is problem that affects college students. Explanatory mixed methods research was completed with the objective of understanding the interrelationship of prayer and test anxiety as well as the potential therapeutic effects of Christian prayer on test anxiety. It was hypothesized that Christian prayer would have significant effects on the reduction of physiological test anxiety biomarkers of salivary cortisol (SC), salivary alpha amylase (SAA), and heart rate (HR). The framework of the cognitive attentional theory (CAT) of test anxiety was used as a lens to gain insight into the phenomena of test anxiety and the use of prayer as a hypothesized alleviating agent. Undergraduates among four different majors of study from a university in the Northwest United States were volunteer participants in the study. Forty-eight participants were put into three 20-minute experimental groups to determine if a relationship existed between concentrated Christian prayer and test anxiety. The experimental groups were: Focused Christian Prayer, Guided Meditation, and Study Guide. In order to further understand the relationship of prayer and test anxiety, students were also grouped and analyzed by their scores on the Westside Test Anxiety Scale (WTAS) and their value of prayer in their lives. The mean age of the sample was 20.02 yrs old. SC and SAA were measured with Assay kits ordered from Salimetrics Company, and HR was measured using Gurin Santamedical SM-110 finger pulse oximeters. Two focus groups were conducted to help explain the quantitative data gathered. Results from the quantitative research did not clearly show that prayer is more effective than meditation or a study guide to alleviate biomarkers of test anxiety. Quantitative results did suggest that students who valued prayer higher in their lives experienced less biomarkers of test anxiety. Nine qualitative themes from the two focus groups emerged to help shed light on the findings of the quantitative data. The unique interrelationship of prayer and test anxiety is discussed. More studies on the phenomena of prayer and test anxiety are supported.</p>

This thesis sets out to examine how teachers in RE reflect and respond to religious students' questions and statements about religion and violent religious extremism by interviewing three teachers workning in so called particularily deprived areas in the outskirts of Malmö, Göteborg and Stockholm. In these areas there have been several cases of citizens leaving the country to travel to areas of conflict and war, most recently to the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. With this “backdrop”, it is this study's aim to examine and explore what didactic strategies the teachers employ when engaging with religious, primarily muslim students within a secular, non confessional and compulsory RE. The study shows that the teachers' own religiosity and attitude towards the relationship between religion and secular society is crucial to their didactical approaches. This raises questions about what role the teacher plays in didactics, where a sole focus on the interplay between student and content/lesson material seems insufficient.

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether the lower secondary school teaching in religion leads to a positive understanding and openness, concerning different religions and cultures. We want to study how pupils in grade eight and nine in two lower secondary schools in a multicultural community comprehend different religions. Since we choose a pupils perspective we decided to do a questionnaire to get a wide ground. As a complement we interviewed twelve pupils and also did observations during their religion classes. During our study we focused on three different themes. These themes are the abrahamitic religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) Hinduism & Buddhism and attitudes to religion.</p><p>Our theoretical point of view is the intercultural perspective. Therefore we have studied government’s documents and propositions about intercultural education and we have also used an anthology by Pirjo Lahdenperä called Interkulturell pedagogik i teori och praktik (2004). We aim to investigate if the teaching in religion is compatible with the intercultural education.</p><p>The thesis reveals that there are lots of prejudices among the pupils in these two schools. We think that it is important that the teaching in religion must focus not only at the Christianity in younger ages. The subject must contain other religions like Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism in much earlier age. Otherwise the pupils will create their own picture of the different religions through media.</p><p>The Swedish governments goals about school (LPO 94) and the document about the teaching in religion (kursplanen i religionskunskap) both can, according to us, be used as tools for intercultural education. The problem is that the teachers do not know how to use these tools. The methods of intercultural education must be clearer and the teachers more conscious. Before that happens, we can not state that the education is totally intercultural.</p><p>We have a big challenge in front of us when we finally will step out on the labour market!</p>

I show how my previous MA research indicated useful data regarding motivation in secondary school Religious Education (RE) but needed augmented theoretical and empirical substance to inform a general pedagogy (chapter 1): to this end I address issues of adolescent agency and identity (chapter 2) and creativity (chapter 3). Draft recommendations for an active, creative, existential and hermeneutical RE pedagogy result from these augmentations (chapter 2, revised in chapter 3). The heart of this thesis is a classroom-based empirical study designed to apply and assess my recommendations for RE practice. I argue action research and ethnographic strategies fit for my field study purposes (chapter 4). I then present and analyse my field study data, identifying categories of student motivation in RE, namely dialogue with difference, existential or ethical interest and personal significance. These categories are seen to be highly compatible with my earlier draft recommendations for RE practice (chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8). Next, I integrate my data into a critique of Andrew Wright’s religious literacy pedagogy, arguing that Wright’s oppositions of language to experience and intrinsic to pragmatic value are misleading, but conceding that his fundmental principles are sound and that his recent theory overcomes some earlier difficulties. This includes consideration of Ninian Smart’s phenomenological Religious Studies and John Dewey’s educational philosophy. I go on to re-affirm that dialogue with difference, existential or ethical interest and personal significance are basic to what motivates RE pupils. Therefore, effective RE requires hermeneutical learning, including attention to the development of pupils’ own ideas and values over time; action research indicates ways for teachers to handle this requirement (chapter 9).

This thesis investigates a network of new independent Christian schools in England, with special reference to their teenage pupils. The place of faith-based schools in British society currently constitutes a contentious issue; the nature of this controversy is explored before a description and evaluation of the schools and their educational aims is given. A wide-ranging survey is then described. This survey investigated the views, values and beliefs of 695 teenage pupils who were receiving their education in the schools in 2006. Its purpose was to discover to what extent the aims of the schools were being realised amongst their older pupils. At the same time, the survey was designed to address the criticisms aimed at faith-based schools, particularly the charge that such schools might be inadequately preparing young people for life as citizens of modern Britain. The results reveal an unusual cohort of young people. The majority of the pupils claim to hold religious beliefs and values which differ from the current norms of British society but which would not necessarily jeopardise acceptable British citizenship. The data indicate that the schools are achieving their aims of enabling pupils to develop and retain the belief system and moral position taken by their parent bodies and founding churches. The results show that male pupils hold the same beliefs as female pupils and that the older pupils are as likely to be religious as are the younger. These findings differ from those found by similar surveys conducted in other British contexts. Finally, the data reveal the existence of a small subset of pupils who claim not to hold religious beliefs and whose views and values differ substantially from those of the majority of their fellow pupils. The data also suggest that the anomalous position of these pupils is not necessarily detrimental to their well-being.

The central research question this thesis seeks to address is ‘what factors have led to the emergence of philosophy within Religious Education in Scottish secondary schools?’ This thesis therefore considers changes in the subject Religious Education within the context of Scottish secondary schools, charting a development towards the increasing use of philosophical skills and content in the course of the last four decades. Before considering the nature, extent and timing of this development this thesis provides a broader context within which to understand educational change in Scotland. Subsequent sections in the review of literature explore the emergence of philosophy in Religious Education and the social, educational and epistemological changes that have precipitated such a development. The emergent hypothesis is that Religious Education has become more philosophical as a result of changes in society (particularly secularisation); changes in education (particularly the move to more democratic and reflective pedagogy), and also as a result of the close relationship between the epistemological areas of philosophy and religious education. This thesis adopts an interpretative research paradigm and considers quantitative and qualitative data drawn from a survey of 126 secondary schools and seventeen key informant interviews. Taken alongside the review of policy and research literature this data demonstrates that the three interlinked hypothetical strands have been at the heart of the move towards more philosophical Religious Education, although other possibilities are also raised and considered. Considering the data collected as a case study in curricular changes also allows the researcher to consider educational policy change in Scotland, particularly in a post-Devolution context. Based on the above findings, this study makes recommendations and suggests areas for further research.

<p> Akiba Hebrew Academy was founded in Philadelphia in 1946 as the first community Jewish secondary day school in America. Akiba was a drastic departure and in effect, counter-cultural: an all-day secondary school program defined as community (not attached to a denomination and certainly not Orthodox), integrative (general and Jewish studies), and progressive, a term that carried weight in the Philadelphia marketplace, drawing talented faculty and skeptical parents to this yet unknown entity. Most Jewish parents were committed to public school education, favoring denominational supplemental religious schooling. </p><p> Despite Akiba&rsquo;s status as the first of its kind in American Jewish educational history, little has been written about it as a progressive school or about its leadership. Even less is known of the influence of the curriculum or the faculty on its graduates. Using archival material, this study examines the nature of the school&rsquo;s curriculum and especially the leadership of its visionary curricular architect, Louis Newman, from his selection as principal in 1951 until 1963, when he left the school for an appointment to a national curriculum initiative. It specifically explores to what degree the overt and hidden curriculum followed the founders&rsquo; initial intent. Through the use of narrative inquiry methodology, the use of participant interviews and the examination of archival material such as personal letters and communication, the study also investigates the impact of those decisions on administration, parents, faculty and early graduates in an effort to understand the influence of the school on the community and especially its students&rsquo; identities.</p>