Religious and Professional Beliefs of Schoolteachers – A Literature Review of Empirical Research

Nastja Häusler, Manfred L. Pirner, Annette Scheunpflug, Stephan Kröner

Abstract


We review empirical studies on possible relations between schoolteachers’ personal religious beliefs or worldviews and their professional thinking and acting. The major underlying assumption of such research is that teachers’ religiosity or worldview orientation has an impact on their teaching. Although this assumption has been the basis of much public dispute on various issues, there has been little scholarly attention to and empirical research on this field – particularly in Europe. This review aims to present, summarise and systematise relevant recent studies and discourse. After some theoretical reflections we firstly explore empirical research on how teachers’ religiosity and worldview in general is related to their teaching. We secondly focus on studies on relations between religious beliefs in particular and science teaching. As two special constellations, research on teaching religion as a subject and studies on teaching in faith-based schools are reported. Finally, studies on the relationship between teachers’ religious or worldview beliefs and their job-related self-regulation or coping are presented. 

https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.18.5.3


Keywords


teachers’ beliefs; religious beliefs; teacher; teaching; religiosity; spirituality

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References


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