Teorijska polazišta i metodološki pristupi izučavanju religije u okviru univerzitetskog kurikuluma / Theoretical assumptions for and methodological approaches to studying religion within the university curriculum

Abstract

The paper deals with theoretical and methodological aspects of examining the position of religion within the university context. The first section offers an overview of assumptions within three recent pieces of research on this topic. In its second section, the paper examines the possibility of applying the curriculum theory to investigating the position of religion within the higher education context of public universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The results show that, in the analysed programmes, there is still no separate subject that would, as an introductory course, familiarise students with doctrinal and ritual fundamentals of religions, as well as with the main events of their historical existence. At the same time, there are a certain number of courses that include religion into a wider discourse of a given study, treating it as a philosophical, sociological, historical or cultural phenomenon. The paper also identifies courses that, within a wider theoretical discussion, include the issue of religion, whether as a substantive or an accidental element.