A social cognitive framework for examining the work of Catholic religious education teachers in Australian high schools

RIS ID

128614

Publication Details

Elliott, G., McCormick, J. & Bhindi, N. (2019). A social cognitive framework for examining the work of Catholic religious education teachers in Australian high schools. British Journal of Religious Education, 41 (2), 134-144.

Abstract

Religious education in Australian Catholic High Schools is the raison d'etre for the Catholic education system and religious education teachers are critical to this mission. This paper offers a framework for investigating the self-efficacy of religious education teachers. We first describe the nature and context of religious education in Australian Catholic schools. We argue that the teaching of religious education presents a set of unique challenges to teachers, compared to teaching other disciplines in the curriculum. Next we review the extant literature on Social Cognitive Theory, and self-efficacy as it may apply in this context. Then we look at likely constructs that may impact upon teacher self-efficacy for teaching religious education: collective efficacy, teachers' implicit theories about student ability and student faith, and the intrinsic spirituality of religious education teachers. We present a theoretical framework for examining the self-efficacy of religious education teachers, and we argue for research in this area that has not been studied hitherto, making this a unique contribution to the field of the psychology of religion, and to practitioners.

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2018.1484692