Student conceptions of religion : Ethics and cosmology as essential elements

Abstract

This abductively oriented empirical article investigates the use of ‘essences’ and ‘central themes’ in student-made ‘religions’ created as an optional written assignment among Norwegian upper secondary school students. The article aims to add to the discussions on how ‘religion’ is conceptualised and taught, with a particular focus on religious studies and religious didactics. It describes the coding and analysis process and showcases the data. The results are discussed, with an emphasis on the abductively produced categories of ethics and cosmology, chosen due to their prevalence and depth in the data. The religions are compared to Ninian Smart’s dimensional model of religion, used as a method to describe which parts of ‘religion’ have been included or omitted in the student-made religions. Lastly, I discuss how educators might go forward and suggest a didactics-based discussion on how to deal with religious experience and ritual in the classroom.