Affective responses to religious education: ‘Difficult feelings’ amongst racialized student teachers
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review
This chapter addresses religious education in Danish teacher training colleges in a context of ongoing political and public debate about increased migration and its effects. The analysis is based on a study of the current curriculum of the subject module called ‘General bildung: Christianity, Life Orientation and Citizenship’ and interviews with student teachers from religious minority backgrounds. As well as examining the student teachers’ experiences and affective responses to the way religion is addressed in the module, the chapter argues that national and Christian norms implicit in the module work as ‘technologies of racialization’. By employing the notion of ‘difficult feelings’ the chapter contends that the curriculum subjectivizes the student teachers along religious and racial lines in ways that either silence or emphasize their position and participation as students. Finally, the chapter calls for an alternative, more critical and self-reflexive approach in the subject that builds on religious literacy and critical inquiry. Importantly, such an approach could address the students’ different affective perspectives, histories and relations to knowledge and power in a more sensitive and transparent manner.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Religious literacy and education in the Nordic Countries : Nordic Perspectives and Beyond |
Editors | Daniel Enstedt, Karin Flensner , Wilhelm Kardemark |
Number of pages | 15 |
Publisher | Waxmann Verlag |
Publication date | 2024 |
Pages | 39-54 |
ISBN (Print) | 9783830947523 |
Publication status | Published - 2024 |
ID: 320112551