Teaching methods for religious education in the secular university

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleМетодика на обучението по религия във висшите светски училища
3. Language term Bulgarian
4. lemma author Nachev, Ivaylo
5. lemma category Education, Science and Orthodoxy
6. Publication date 23-1-2019
7. lemma work Назърска, Жоржета [Author]. Методика на обучението по религия във висшите светски училища
8. lemma manifestations Методика на обучението по религия във висшите светски училища - Sofia: За буквите - О писменехь, 2015.
9. Keywords Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Higher education
10. Lemma body

    1. The book aims at developing an all-round model for teaching non-confessional religious education at Bulgarian universities. Prepared for bachelor and master programs of University of Library Studies and Information Technologies (Sofia), it could find application in other universities as well, according to the authors. The presented model focusses on providing comprehensive knowledge of religion in a broad cultural and historical context. The book includes a number of developed teaching units that could be implemented in the process of religious education. Most of the examples are based on Eastern Orthodox Christianity but all other major religious denominations in Bulgaria today are represented as well.  

       The authors' point of departure is religious tolerance and religious pluralism. They aim is to develop a system of non-confessional education on religion which would allow students to develop “rational view” on religious questions. The authors argue that religious education at the Theology programs of the main universities in the country (state universities) is mono-confessional, based on the Eastern Orthodoxy, while education outside the Theology faculties is unsystematic. Religious education today faces a number of challenges according to the authors: inertia from the atheistic regime, increasing secularization in the globalized world, current legislation which does not stimulate adequate knowledge about religion.

       Making an overview of traditional methods of religious education in Bulgaria, the authors propose a wide-array of “innovative” methods that could form competent professionals in the fields related with religion and cultural heritage. In addition, the work proposes implementation of various foreign good practices and advocates new didactic principles of edutainment. The proposed methods integrate a number of established methods in social sciences and the humanities (in Bulgaria and abroad) and built upon experience of the authors in religious education on university level. The specific methods that are discussed in the book include lectures, lectures with multimedia visualization, lectures of guest experts, role plays, seminars, field work, work on individual and group student projects and others. The focus is on presenting the teaching units that could be used in practice.