Hanna de Jong-Markus

Summary 175 What teacher educators believe to be significant for trainee teachers to develop during their undergraduate studies in order to be competent in dealing with religious diversity could be categorised as follows: engaging in encounters, open attitudes, conversational skills, growth of personal convictions, deepening knowledge and careful consideration. The last one overlaps with what has already been mentioned, though it was explicitly highlighted that trainee teachersmust learn tobe reflective andmake careful deliberations instead of immediately passing judgment. Several times, teacher educators used the phrase that students must learn to think beyond “right and wrong” or “black and white”. According to the teacher educators, these competences could be stimulated in teacher education in four ways, namely: increasing knowledge and reflection, the university as a training ground, real-life assignments, practical experiences and tailored guidance. The teacher educators were asked which factors require more effort in the teacher education programme. In particular, they mentioned fostering an open and respectful attitude, developing strong conversation skills and enhancing the ability to distinguish between major and minor issues (careful deliberation). The teacher educators also mentioned several concerns. They indicated that it is important to ensure coherence in the teacher education programme when it comes to religious diversity since there is currently no cross-curricular approach. Some teacher educators are also concerned with how learning to deal with religious diversity will happen for trainee teachers who follow a programme variant in which more emphasis is placed on workplace learning at a primary school in their own region. Furthermore, the teacher educators also mentioned that teacher education is not solely responsible for developing teachers’ ability on religious diversity; development is also influenced by the media, friends and the church. According to the teacher educators, there are many striking differences between students in terms of how competent they are and where their (existential) questions lie. In this sub-study it was concluded that to a large extent, the elements mentioned by both alumni and teacher educators correspond to what was found in the literature on teacher education in relation to religious diversity. In contrast to the main concern in the literature, however, alumni and teacher educators are mainly concerned with internal rather than external religious diversity. In doing so, the aspect of ‘critical consciousness’ in the sense of focusing on social change is not reflected. Moreover, what has been said is more from the perspective of how the teachers deal with diversity among students, rather than how they can prepare pupils to effectively deal with religious others. Lastly, the uniqueness of the orthodox Protestant teacher education programme is particularly evident in the fact that deepening one’s own faith is mentioned as a significant aspect of

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