Profession and professionalization as a possible format for research in religious education

After asking what makes an activity a profession, contemporary research is primarily focused on the structures and characteristics of professional action. In educational research, a distinction is made between structural, competence-oriented and biographical approaches. Recently, didactics of religion has mainly taken up the structural and the competence-oriented approach. Applying the concept of 'habitus', characteristic structures of religious teaching in religious education are described. And various catalogues of competencies present the skills of professional teachers of religion. These theoretical references to the discourse on profession mark a characteristic of a corresponding research design in didactics of religion, because the methods used in this format cover the whole spectrum of possible methods.

Professionsforschung, Forschungsforma, Strukturtheorie, Kompetenzorientierung, Berufsbiografie