Pupils’ views of religious education in a pluralistic educational context

Abstract

This article examines Finnish pupils’ views of religious education (RE) in a pluralistic educational context. The focus is on pupils’ views of the aims and different approaches to RE in a multi-faith school. The study utilised a mixed method approach, combining quantitative and qualitative data. It employed a survey (n=1301) and interviews (n=38) of pupils from grade levels 3, 6, and 9 (age groups 9–10, 12–13, 15–16) in Finnish comprehensive schools located in Helsinki and Pori. This article focuses on the data sets from the sixth and ninth grades. Besides the overall description of the pupils’ views, the influence of gender, age group and the place or residence were examined. Many differences were found between the genders, age groups and between the pupils living in the more diverse capital city and those growing up in a smaller and less diverse town context. In presenting the findings, statistical analyses are presented together with some interview extracts.