Dissertation and habilitation projects

The aim of this study is to gain insights into the portrayal of ‘Hinduism’ and its relationship to other religions, as well as into the distinctive features of didactic approaches in the school context, through a critical comparison of German- and English-language school textbooks; and, building on this, to develop perspectives for the responsible design of religious learning processes concerning ‘Hinduism’. This analytical comparison of German- and English-language school textbooks is based on the conviction that, on the one hand, the textbooks are shaped by the differing perspectives on ‘Hinduism’ held by denominational religious education in Germany and non-denominational education in England, and, on the other hand, that insights into the various didactic approaches can be gained through this comparison.

Context:

In the discomfort of the - with a few exceptions - cognitive narrowing in the religious pedagogical discourse of ethical learning, the planned research project directs interest to concrete life-historical experiences of injustice of today's young people by interweaving theological and human scientific as well as empirical perspectives. The qualitative-empirical focussing of these negative moral experiences against the background of their moral pedagogical significance takes up Fritz Oser's theory of negative morality and at the same time gets to the bottom of it.

Aim:

The aim of the dissertation project is to systematically explore and reflect on the relevance of autobiographical experiences of injustice, together with their morally relevant emotions and implicit understandings of justice, for ethical learning processes.

Method:

The grounded theory approach serves as the framework concept for the survey and evaluation method. In a broad sample, young people are asked to describe a personal experience of injustice in writing in their own language and from their own perspective. On the one hand, the thematically relevant written documents are analysed across all cases by means of theoretical coding, focusing on the inherent structure and nature of the experiences of injustice as well as criteria of young people's understanding of justice and the significance of religious reference horizons and patterns of interpretation. On the other hand, in order to penetrate deeper into the complex inner structure of individual cases, the coding processes of grounded theory are supplemented by sequentially focussing on selected key passages.

The dissertation presented was published in 2020 by the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Regensburg under the title "'I found that really unfair! An empirical-religious-pedagogical study on young people's experiences of injustice in the context of ethical-religious education".

Context:
Reception research focuses on understanding as a dynamic process in the dialogue and dialectic between reader and text. The starting point of these developments is the reader as recipient. The non-physically present author recedes into the background, while the reader is given a decisive role in understanding the text. Within German-language theology, the "act of understanding between the biblical text and the recipient" (Theis (2005) 116) has gained in importance since the late 1980s. Paradoxically, the "act of reading" (Iser (1994)) - also in religious education research - was primarily regarded as an individual process of reception. Until the present day, communal communication about the written text has remained unnoticed. In particular, it is in communication that "young people can enter into [a] reflected dialogue with the faith of the church from their different lifeworlds" (curriculum for grammar schools in Bavaria (2005)).

Aim:
The aim of the religious education research project is to document and analyse interactive interpretations of a biblical text in open classroom discussions. The aim is to obtain information about the action-related utilisation, evaluation and systematisation of the biblical text by pupils in communication in religious education lessons.
Interactive interpretations are defined as mutually influenced translations of the biblical text in the medium of conversation, as the conversation leads to a "'running back and forth' between the thoughts and ideas" (Kolenda (2010) 34) of the people involved. In this project, this interaction is seen as a "reciprocal influencing of attitudes, expectations and actions" (Christmann (1999) 24). The term interpretation indicates that in the process of reading, the reader approaches the text in an understanding, explanatory and interpretative way. In this process, the reader translates the text for himself in such a way that he can comprehend it on the basis of his own understanding.

Method:
The research task of documenting and analysing biblical learning processes in classroom discussions suggests the development of a qualitative survey method. To this end, four lessons with classroom discussions about Cain and Abel (Genesis 4) in four 10th grade religious education classes in Upper Palatinate are to be recorded. Inspired by Krummheuer's "interaction analysis" and Porzelt's "syntactic-semantic intensive analysis", the syntax and semantics of the classroom discussions will be analysed from the perspective of interaction.

Degree:

The dissertation presented was published in 2016 by the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Regensburg under the title "Ein Text, zwei Menschen, drei Lesarten. Interaktive Interpretationen eines biblischen Textes in Unterrichtsgesprächen" (Interactive interpretations of a biblical text in classroom discussions) and was awarded the Bavaria Culture Prize by Bayernwerk AG and the Bavarian State Ministry of Education and Culture, Science and Art in 2017.

Literature:
Deurer, Rebecca: One text, two people, three views. Interaktive Interpretationen eines biblischen Textes in offenen Unterrichtsgesprächen (Religionspädagogische Bildungsforschung: Bd. 4), Bad Heilbrunn (Klinkhardt) 2018.

Context:

Karl Ernst Nipkow (1987) considered the problem of theodicy to be probably the greatest breaking point and therefore difficulty in young people's belief in God. However, almost 20 years later, the research team led by Werner H. Ritter and Helmut Hanisch found that children and young people in their sample rarely explicitly address the question of theodicy and that they largely approach a solution unspectacularly. This raises the question of whether, from the perspective of adolescents, the problem of theodicy is still an important enquiry to a personally conceived God and what religious education consequences can be drawn from this for teaching and learning processes in schools.

Aim:

The aim of the dissertation project is to reconstruct on an empirical level how the question of God and suffering is inscribed in young people's conceptions of God and what findings result from this for the understanding of God in the (religious) world of thought of adolescents.

Method:

Grounded theory as a qualitative research style serves as the framework for the survey and analysis. In a broad sample (N=265), pupils in grades 10-12 at Bavarian grammar schools anonymously produced written statements on the impulse "I imagine God", which deliberately did not induce the question of God and suffering. Following the evaluation logic of grounded theory, the phenomena identified in the empirical data are interpreted in three coding processes (open, axial and selective coding). Combined with the procedure of empirically based type formation, the various forms of the theodicy question are traced and explained in the context of individual concepts of God and faith positions.

Degree:

The dissertation presented here was published in 2009 by the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Regensburg under the title " Die Frage nach Gott und dem Leid bei Jugendlichen wahrnehmen. A qualitative-empirical search for clues".

Literature:

Stögbauer, Eva Maria: Perceiving the question of God and suffering in young people. Eine qualitativ-empirische Spurensuche (Religionspädagogische Bildungsforschung; Bd. 1), Bad Heilbrunn (Klinkhardt) 2011.

Stögbauer, Eva, How do young people think of God - in the face of suffering? A qualitative-empirical search for clues, in: Religionspädagogische Beiträge 58/2007, 97-100.

Stögbauer-Elsner, Eva, Grounded Theory (Method), in: WiReLex. Das Wissenschaftlich-Religionspädagogische Lexikon im Internet, 2018(https://www.bibelwissenschaft.de/stichwort/200257/) (external link, opens in a new window)