Browsing by Author "Lipiäinen, Tuuli"

Goals. In recent decades Finnish society and beliefs of Finnish citizens have undergo a lot of changes. Previous research has even indicated the current model of Religious Education teaching in schools to be inconsistent with the changed needs of the society. Since the Finnish educational system is based on scientific research, there has to be other than purely attitudinal reasons behind this antichange climate of teachers. The goal of this study is to identify those underlying values of class teachers' attitudes and to clarify their general attitudes about the beliefs related to the Religious Education in school. Attitudes are examined through three themes, which are beliefs in school, Religious Education and the current teaching model of Religious Education. Methods. For the study, eight teachers working in Kouvola or Helsinki Metropolitan Area were interviewed. The data was collected in the spring of 2015. The interviews were conducted individually by using qualitative attitudinal research methods. The transcribed material was analysed using content analysis. Results and conclusions. Based on this study, class teachers Religious Education is important for the development of the students' all-round education, answering to fundamental questions of life, to the development of ethical thinking, students' personal growth and to the development of student's worldview. Based on the results strong valuation of Christianity of the Finnish society and significance of the Christian cultural heritage at school can be detected. In the teaching of faiths, the role of the class teachers was emphasized. Therefore in Teacher Education this should take more attention in the future. The current model of Religious Education was seen problematic because the content do not correspond to the needs of the society, the responsibility of preventing the separation of faith is only for teachers and faiths are in an unequal position. It was also found from this study that the teachers strongly dignify the changes in Religious Education. Teachers' opinion is that the most important content of the subjects could be taught in an integrated way and that would be the most relevant in terms of the students' holistic development.