Summary 167 to give the Christian faith a central position within all aspects of their life, including their profession, which according to the teachers might be especially relevant for teachers’ profession, since teaching is about the formation of young children and about norms and values. With regard to the pedagogical influences, in the eyes of teachers it would be better, at least, for young children to grow up in surroundings that are cohesive and safe. Furthermore, because children spend so much time in schools, it would improve their wellbeing if the school’s norms and values are in accordwith those of their parents. Additionally, school is an ideal setting for children to learn a lot about the Bible, Christian songs and other religious elements. The formational influences have to do with feeling incapable of working at a school that is not orthodox Protestant. Because teachers had limited learning about how to engage with religious others, they were hesitant to apply for jobs at nonOPPSs. The teachers also mentioned some disadvantages of the school’s mono-religious nature. Most of them expressed regret at missing contact with people from other religious backgrounds from whom they could have learned more about how to defend and/or deepen their religious convictions. Furthermore, according to some teachers, children in OPPSs tend to look at each other and find small differences to criticise. It is concluded that the teachers’ ideas about choosing an OPPS are comparable with those of the parents: Both stress the school’s religious dimension and highlight the connection between religious socialisation at home and at school. However, among the teachers, the mono-religious characteristic is valued not only because of the desire to raise children in a certain way, but also because of the teachers’ concern for their own well-being. That outcome needs attention in further investigations because the factor of teachers’ own well-being is hardly examined in research and debates on school choice. It is expected that this factor could be related to the strong link between the personal and professional identities in the teaching profession. Furthermore, sociocultural influences might be involved, because social identity theory suggests that religion is a strong force of psychological and social processes. Chapter 5 Stimulating Inquisitiveness: Teachers at Orthodox Protestant Schools about their Roles in Religious Socialization90 Whereas the previous sub-study concluded that teachers at OPPSs perceive education and Christian socialisation as inseparable, the third sub-study aimed for more empirical insights into how the teachers then understand their role as pedagogical agents in 90 Since the orthodox Protestant primary schools and the research methods are already described in the summaries of Chapters 1 and 2, the sections that deal with those topics in this chapter are left out in the summary. The current chapter is based on the individual interviews study.
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