Functions of crisis in religious education discourse since 1975. A critical corpus-assisted analysis

ABSTRACT

The omnipresence of multiple crisis diagnoses in contemporary public discourse deeply affects religious education (RE). At first sight, this does not seem to be surprising, insofar as it corresponds to the pedagogical ambition to meaningfully respond to challenges in the lifeworld of learners. Yet, what happens when current phenomena are framed as crisis? Prior to asking the question how RE responds to a particular crisis, one might consider the way in which the perception of reality as crisis emerges and works. Against this background, the paper investigates the use of ‘crisis’ in RE discourse since 1975. We consider developments up to 2019 using an evenly distributed, diachronic random sample of 485 papers from English RE journals, and then compare this with a synchronic corpus of 31 papers around the emergence of the Covid pandemic. With reference to critical political theory, crises are interpreted as part of normative orders that structure the perception of the respective present. Methodologically, we follow the approach of a corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis. Results show how RE discourse frames its perception of the present by means of diagnosing crises. A critical examination of corresponding attributions and implications opens spaces for alternative ways of thinking and acting.

KEYWORDS:

• Crisis
• corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS)
• history of RE
• normative orders

Acknowledgments

We greatly acknowledge Dr Philipp Klutz for his pioneering work on the corpus, Karl Tovar for support in completing it, as well as Dr Sr Rose Duffy for her excellent proofreading.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Political theory explores the impact of political ideas and concepts on processes of social formation. In its critical stance it refers to a framework of analysis that aims to examine and challenge power structures, social hierarchies, and oppressive systems within society. Drawing on the works of social theorists such as Jürgen Habermas, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, or Hannah Arendt it seeks to critically questioning dominant narratives and to uncover underlying ideologies, interests, and mechanisms that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and marginalisation.

2. Corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis refers to an approach that combines critical discourse analysis (CDA) with corpus linguistics. It involves analysing large collections of texts (corpora) using qualitative and quantitative methods to identify linguistic patterns and discursive strategies that point to power relations, ideologies, and social representations embedded in language. By employing a corpus linguistic approach, it enhances the empirical grounding of critical political theory, providing systematic evidence of language use and reinforcing its aim to uncover underlying normative orders.

3. Insofar as the selected journals play a central role for international knowledge transfer in RE (Schweitzer 2022), we consider our selection to be at least significant. But of course, this selection does not claim to be representative as it ignores numerous contexts, just as the length of the study period surely allows only rough lines to be drawn.

4. We report direct quotations from our corpus in italics and inverted commas, while we do not include any references for reasons of readability.

5. With regard to the two hypotheses – that crisis diagnoses build argumentative standards of RE research and that some grave crises of the present are worked through more or less as a matter of routine – we should remember that in a strict sense, these only refer to the papers examined in this study and cannot include further contexts or future developments in any way. The present special issue, for example, may be interpreted as a possible game changer in awareness building on crises in RE.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stefan Altmeyer

Dr Stefan Altmeyer studied Catholic Theology, Mathematics and Education and has been a full professor of Religious Education and Catechetics at the Catholic Theological Faculty of the University of Mainz since 2016.

Andreas Menne

Andreas Menne studied Catholic Theology and Political Theory and worked as a research assistant at the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Mainz from 2016 to 2023.