Review article
How does religious education speaks of suffering and hope? Analysis of textbooks for catholic religious education with particular focus to gender implications
Ana Thea Filipović
orcid.org/0000-0002-0119-1940
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb
Abstract
the article starts from the fact that the experience of suffering and search for the grounds for hope, by which we try to overcome suffering, are fundamental determinants of human existence with which human society is gradually confronting children and young
people. the central part of this work investigates the Christian theological and existential discourse on suffering and hope in the textbooks for Catholic religious education in primary and secondary schools and it also analyzes the content and way of verbal and visual speech mediated in a religious-pedagogical way to the children of particular developmental ages. a special viewing angle to the mentioned issue is the gender implications. along these lines we examine the possible presence of gender stereotypes in connecting some aspects of suffering and hope with a specific gender. the results of the analysis of the religious education textbooks shown in tables are discursively elaborated. the results of the analysis are presented in the conclusion. they show that the speech of the textbook follows the abilities and needs of the students’ age. the content backbone of the speech on suffering and hope is the theological speech on god’s plan of salvation of man and Christ’s paschal mystery. gender stereotypes are present in the visual rather than textual representations. in religious education textbooks efforts concerning the gender equality, as required by the school textbooks standards, are evident.
Keywords
evil; suffering; hope; religious education textbooks; gender analysis
Hrčak ID:
113500
URI
Publication date:
30.12.2013.
Visits: 2.515 *