Doing Ecumenics at School. A praxeological study on the implementation of the new school subject 'Christian Religious Education' in Lower Saxony (ÖkuPraxiS)

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Kerstin Rabenstein; Professor Dr. Bernd Schröder; Professor Dr. Jan Woppowa
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology ; Roman Catholic Theology
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 567492868

The introduction of a new school subject “Christian Religion according to Protestant and Catholic Principles” (CRU) in Lower Saxony in the 2025/26 school year will break new ground. Although there has long been a development trend across Europe and in Germany towards a form of organization that is at least cross-denominational or represents a suitable learning offer in the area of existence and value orientation for as many pupils as possible, there are no role models for the new school subject model. The CRU builds on the existing denominationally cooperative religious education that has long been established in Lower Saxony. However, it pursues new goals in comparison to this model, such as a more pronounced sensitivity to denominational differences on the one hand and ecumenism on the other, including a completely new curriculum development. A number of expectations are therefore placed on the subject, both in terms of content with regard to the construction of learning objects and didactically with regard to difference-sensitive and ecumenical teaching processes and, last but not least, with regard to the professionalization of teachers. The first two years after the formal introduction of the new school subject are a special period that we want to use for the planned research project. The overarching aim is to reconstruct the differences between the previously separate and/or cooperative religious education and CRU. The research interest is focused on the manner of implementation, the impact on the practice and understanding of the subject “religion” (e.g. in cooperation with "Islamic Religious Education" and "Values and Norms") and on the potential of the new subject for the promotion of ecumenism - at school and beyond. The planned project takes a praxeological approach, understanding the introduction of the new school subject as a change that takes place in small steps that teachers and other scholl actors consider essential. It combines ethnographic case studies at three schools (elementary school, comprehensive school, grammar school) with a monitoring ("following") of the practical dissemination of the new school subject by the multipliers working in the school environment. The project will also conduct expert interviews: on the one hand with subject advisors in order to examine both the processes related to the introduction of CRU at school and in multiplier practice; on the other hand with department heads in some selected other schools in order to ask about the relevance of different denominational-religious contexts. The project is being carried out on an interdisciplinary basis by two religious educators from different denominations and a school development researcher from the field of educational science.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Austria, Switzerland
• Co-Investigators: Professorin Dr. Anna Moldenhauer; Professor Dr. Oliver Reis; Professorin Dr. Hanna Roose; Professor Dr. Henrik Simojoki
• Cooperation Partners: Professorin Dr. Karin Manz; Professor Dr. Wolfgang Weirer