- Guidelines for Teachers -

Guidelines and introduction for Teachers

It is suggested to begin with the first page of this module, where the concept of religion is thematised. Awareness and discussions about the concept of religion can be included in teaching on many levels also in elementary and lower-secondary school. Questions and topics about the difficulties and discussions about defining religion(s), how media, politicians etc. talks about religion(s) and the consequences of this is a highly relevant topics that can be part of many school subjects. It is also important to raise the awareness of the students, that religion is a diverse and ambiguous phenomenon. It does not easily lend itself to a formula. Religion is what it is made to be, - by religious and non-religious people, politicians, and scholars. The first page proposes different tasks to be used in the classroom to raise awareness about religion as a diverse and ambiguous concept, which not easily is defined and therefor are represented and used in different ways in the medias, by politicians etc. The next page introduces the history of the scientific study of religions and theoretical and methodological approaches, used in the scientific study of religions, and propose some tasks to the students in order to try some of these approaches.

Conceptual (Knowledge) objectives

• C.O.1: Raise the awareness of the students, that religion is a diverse and ambiguous phenomenon which not easily is defined and therefor are reprented and used in different ways in the medias, by politicians, by the religious traditions etc. with different concequences.
• C.O.2: Give an introduction to the scientific study of religions and some of its theoretical and methodological approaches.
• C.O.3: Give the students some analycical tools to analyze and reflect about how to analyze and represent religion and religions from a scientific study of religions perspective.

Skills

• S.1: Be able to make analytical-critical analyses of how the concept of religion is represented by different actors and groups in society
• S.2: Be able to reflect and discuss about the concept of religion and different ways in classifying religious concepts
• S.3: Be able to find and distinct in texts and different representations of religions between, on the one hand, the point of view of the insider (emic), the religious person(s), the worshippers, and, on the other, the point of view of the outsider (etic), that is the scholar or researcher.