The Ethos of Teachers of Religious Education and its Meaning for the Development of Pupils’ Resilience

Abstract

This chapter shows how resilience, religion, religious education, and teacher ethos are connected to each other, although they have rarely been considered together. Taking the growing interest in nurturing resilience in the field of religious education as the starting point, the author describes how the development of resilience is influenced by religious background factors in a positive manner and that consequently, the school subject Religious Education can also be considered a factor in supporting this development. In order to make this claim more concrete and to also provide a conceptual basis for empirical research, the author then outlines a model for how this relationship can be conceptualized by identifying a number of aspects concerning what can be considered resources for the development of pupils’ resilience. In particular, four such resources are discussed: gaining access to ways of making or finding meaning for one’s life; the acquisition of values as a basis for making suitable decisions concerning one’s personal future; the experience of community and belonging related to religious traditions and congregations; relational experiences with teachers supporting personal development. In all of these respects, teacher ethos is understood as a mediating factor. In another step, surveys on teachers of Religious Education are reviewed with the question of how giving access to meaning, values and belonging through positive relational experiences could be rooted in these teachers’ ethos in general and how they are connected to the professional aims of these teachers in particular. Finally, a number of possible implications for teacher training as well as for future research are considered.