Bible Didactics and Social Inequality? Critical Considerations on the Interconnection of Religious Education and Heterogeneous Settings

Abstract

This paper deals with the question, to what extent, in the German context, have biblical didactic implications and systemic requirements in religious education led to social inequality in heterogeneous classrooms. Based on four different case studies in elementary, middle, and vocational schools, an empirical insight is provided that sheds exploratory and descriptive light on the construction of reality in the context of biblical learning. The analysis clearly shows that physical as well as socialization-related limitations, structural and systemic conditions in the German school system, and also strangeness and existential irrelevance, are obvious barriers that prevent students in heterogeneous settings from accessing biblical learning. In the synopsis, with theological–pedagogical implications as well as didactical challenges, it becomes clear how necessary difference-sensitive Bible didactics in the context of heterogeneity and social inequality is. Finally, based on the empirical evidence of the analyzed case studies and the theoretical framings, concrete expectations for biblical learning in religious education, in relation to heterogeneity and social inequality, are highlighted.

1. Introduction: Bible Didactics in Heterogeneous Classrooms

A typical observation sets the scene for the following reflections on heterogeneous study groups and biblical learning: classroom activities at a Bavarian vocational school. The activities relate to religious education, a regular subject. The learning group is composed of about 15 students with widely diverging learning motivations and dispositions. Whereas some students are continuously involved in the teaching process, other students can only participate in the learning process to a limited extent or at certain points in time. At the same time, three of these students, who here will be called Fabio, Selina, and Max, show that they are not generally passive, but that they drop off strongly whenever a methodical mode of text work is called for. In contrast, they appear more clearly present and engaged in lesson sequences that are more strongly characterized by discussions or creative forms of learning.

1.1. Only for High Performers?

Fabio, Selina, and Max represent students who are often labeled as “low-performing” and are contrasted with “high-performing” students (Witt-Brummermann 1995; Sturm and Wagner-Willi 2015). Heterogeneity in the classroom is a part of everyday life in schools, and educational research has strong evidence supporting the idea that the spectrum of performance-based diversity has increased tremendously (Bönsch 2014; Schmitz et al. 2020; Behrendt et al. 2019; Hinz 2019); however, the classroom observation outlined can also be interpreted to mean that the term “low-performing” may fall short here. Barriers that prevent these students from participating more successfully are primarily problems of text processing and not of the learning process as a whole. Such observations could be particularly explosive for religious education, as the Bible, which is the basic text of Christianity, represents a distinctive pillar of Christian educational processes in the school context (Scholz 2012). In concrete terms, therefore, the broad field of biblical didactics offers itself, on the one hand, to ask about the contribution that religious education makes in terms of the increase of such heterogeneities, and on the other hand, to clarify which possible processes arise in this regard. Here, biblical didactics is defined in as broad a sense as possible, in order to be able to include very different profiles and methods of biblical didactic work (see also point Section 4.2 and the following general definition of Bible didactics as “teaching and learning processes with the Bible”, Zimmermann and Zimmermann 2013, p. 1). Thus, biblical didactics is located within interdisciplinary studies; for example, it can synthesize exegesis, dogmatics, and practical theology. It participates in philological and philosophical hermeneutical clarifications of scripture, history, theology, and the world. Moreover, it includes praxis-oriented instructions for understanding biblical texts as well as creative impulses for self-reflection, and so on (see Freudenberger-Lötz et al. 2021; Ballhorn and Gärtner 2017, pp. 18–19). Only a broad understanding of Bible didactics is suitable to consider the whole spectrum of Bible didactics, and to be able to map the effects, challenges, and chances of Bible didactics on heterogeneous classrooms as a whole.

1.2. What about Empirical Findings?

Social inequality and its impact on religious education processes can be considered as being well researched in today’s German-speaking world. In addition, over the past 10 years, research on this topic has experienced a massive boost, which is reflected in increased publication activity. As a result, educational justice, inequality, recognition, inclusion, and exclusion have become important components of contemporary discourse in religious education (see Uppenkamp 2021; Möller 2015; Unser 2014; Vieregge 2018). For example, Grümme explores the potential of religious education in light of pressing challenges related to the integration of refugees in schools. In this context, he outlines the concept of “enlightened heterogeneity”, which he distinguishes from pure plurality in order to be able to better identify and address the dynamics of disadvantages (Grümme 2018). Könemann traces her recent research report in detail, which concerns how current interactions between cultural and religious diversity with gender categories, migration, and social disadvantages are evidently on the religious education agenda (Könemann 2021). Based on these general insights into social inequality from the perspective of religious education, the following study will focus upon empirical results concerning biblical learning processes.

In this context, empirical findings on children’s and youths’ attitudes towards biblical texts and their knowledge of biblical texts seem interesting. Recent empirical studies on this are rare (Schambeck 2015), but this gap is increasingly being filled (Gennerich and Zimmermann 2020); however, interdisciplinary research perspectives can first help clarify the field of general textual understanding and, subsequently, biblical textual understanding. Thus, the extensive reading achievement studies on general reading comprehension in the last 20 years, such as PISA and DESI, have demonstrated that young people in Germany only have a basic understanding of texts at the end of their schooling. Due to this low reading ability, children and adolescents only partially acquire the preconditions for orientation and participation in a democratic society (Artelt et al. 2001, pp. 103–5; 2008; Gailberger and Willenberg 2008, p. 66). In particular, children and youths from socially weak or underprivileged families, and with migration biographies, who are also often formally found in lower school types, are significantly affected by what can be called deficient reading comprehension; in other words, reading comprehension that does not exceed basic skills (Baumert and Schümer 2002, p. 296; Artelt et al. 2004). This points to the social conditionality of reading comprehension and to the fact that reading competence is to be understood as an empirically verifiable manifestation of successful or unsuccessful reading socialization (Hurrelmann 2004). With regard to general reading interest and reading frequency, the 2018 JIM study shows that only 40% of young people between the ages of 12 and 19 read a book once a week outside of school. It also becomes clear that gender, age, and education have a central influence on reading frequency. Overall, interest in reading declines with increasing age. At the same time, girls have a higher affinity for reading than boys (MPFS 2018, p. 19). An even stronger influence than gender or age, however, is educational background on young people’s interest in reading. The lower the educational level, the lower the reading frequency (Weidenbach 2021). This makes it obvious that reading ability, reading interest, and reading frequency are directly related to the family socialization and biographical conditions of children and adolescents, which are also reflected in the reading of biblical texts. Accordingly, Theis was able to prove in a research project on Bible reading behavior: “[t]hose who never read also do not read the Bible […] and those who otherwise also read a lot open the Bible more often” (Theis 2013, p. 21). In most cases, biblical texts are not read out of interest, but because educational settings, such as school, demand it. This is accompanied by a clear alienation from the biblical text because the world of the Bible no longer reaches into one’s own life. The Bible is said to be existentially irrelevant because its statements and themes are not considered to be relevant to life (Theis 2017, pp. 9–11). This is the general consensus in biblical didactic research, to the extent that hardly any biblical didactic study in the German-speaking world does not contain such a reference (see Schambeck 2015, p. 4; Ballhorn and Gärtner 2017, pp. 19–20; Albrecht 2008, pp. 126–27; Zimmermann and Zimmermann 2013, p. 17).

It is not surprising that this attitude can change if an emotional open-mindedness for biblical texts can be created. Similarly to other texts taught in class, the understanding of, and interest in, topics and people increases when emotional involvement is achieved pedagogically when opening up the contents of the text. If children and teenagers can relate to the text in a questioning and interpretative way, the relevance of the text for their own life becomes significant. This stimulates a more intensive, or personal, engagement with the text, which increases reading motivation and comprehension (Theis 2017, p. 12). At this point, the problem in dealing with biblical texts becomes apparent, which Berg already aptly noted at the end of the 1980s: “[t]hus, with regard to attitudes toward the Bible, we must note a strong deficit of experience and relevance, which obviously has not been compensated by existing Bible teaching” (Berg 1989, p. 96). Establishing a correlation between everyday experience and the experience of the biblical text still seems to be a great challenge for teachers. Kammeyer and Büttner show that many of the teachers interviewed believe that it is often too difficult for children to perceive a life–world connection to biblical texts. As a result, the potential concerning the individual level of interpretation when dealing with biblical texts is not always realized (Kammeyer and Büttner 2011); however, if a connection is made, then gender-specific aspects in particular play a significant role. Arzt’s research on gender-sensitive approaches to biblical texts shows that three dimensions of gender are significant: gender plays an important role in terms of which perspective of the biblical text is understood by children and adolescents; the power of androcentric gender constructions in the history of the impact of biblical texts is perceived and identified, especially by young people, as a patriarchal world; the fact that women can also take on important roles and positions is surprising for many (Arzt 2015).

Against the background of these empirical findings on the heterogeneous conditions of children and adolescents with regard to reading ability and text comprehension, approaches from children’s and youth theology in particular appear to be suitable for obtaining further empirical insights into how, and in which, setting the motivation to read biblical texts can be deactivated or activated (Schlag and Schweitzer 2011; Reiß and Freudenberger-Lötz 2012; Kammeyer 2012).

2. Heterogeneity and Social Inequality in Religious Education: Case Studies from Elementary, Secondary and Vocational Schools on Biblical Learning

In order to be able to frame the questions of heterogeneity and social inequality more precisely in religious education, and to exemplify them using case studies, the legal and structural framework conditions of religious education in schools in Germany will first be addressed as follows.

2.1. Learning Contexts of Religious Education

The focus of this paper is on religious education in different types of schools in Bavaria. As a school subject, religious education in general has constitutional status in the German Federal Republic. At the same time, the federal education system in German states sometimes leads to quite different designs of the framework for religious education (Link 2020; Meckel 2011; Rothgangel and Schröder 2020; Wermke and Reimann 2019; Hassanein 2013; Fischer 2017; Messinger 2016). This has consequences for the topic and the discussion of this paper. The very complex historical situation is exemplified by a comparison of the two German states of Bavaria and Berlin. Whereas Bavaria conceives of religious education as a compulsory subject that is relevant for moving up to the next grade (Fikenscher 1986), Berlin uses the so-called Bremen Clause (Lott 1991), which places it outside the constitutional context. Religious education in Berlin is therefore offered as a voluntary optional subject (Funk 2009; Häusler 2007). The compulsory character of religious education in Bavaria unavoidably ties this subject into school codes that can be paraphrased as discipline, progression of competence, selection, and so forth (Hertel 2020; Hess 2020; Knestrict 2019; Olbrich 2011). This implies that performance equity maps the learning culture in school, and marks should account for the acquisition of a defined learning domain (Linke 1996). The state and religious community’s related performance expectations map the school framework for religious education (Kiefer 2019; Hein 1998). In this context, the heterogeneity and inequality of the students develop a completely different dynamic than would be the case, for example, under the conditions of an optional subject with a voluntary character. At the same time, and this shows the difficulties of stringently contouring the subject of religion, religious education can also be labeled with attributes relating to deceleration, interruption of everyday school life, or even systemic criticism (Schoberth 2002; Grümme 2014; Kläden and Schüßler 2017. It is mainly performance-critical or even anti-pedagogical models (Oelkers 1990; Braunmühl 1976), which, in their skepticism towards tendencies to economize education (Röben 2020; Graßl 2008; Millmann 2018), are also being received in religious education and fed into the discourse on the profiling of religious education (Pirker and Juen 2018). The following case studies examine this tension of locating religious education between the integration and disintegration of current educational policymaking in schools. This tension reveals the different facets of the demotivational behavior of students in the context of didactic Bible learning processes. From a systemic perspective, these facets can be understood as interacting forces.

2.2. Case Studies from Elementary, Secondary and Vocational Schools

The case study method was chosen here to shed exploratory and descriptive light on the construction of reality in the context of biblical learning. As a social research method, the single case study serves to reach findings by integrating and identifying as many relevant variables as possible in order to generate a holistic understanding of the research subject. This has proceeded in a threefold manner: on-site case observation, which allows for the perception and consideration of what characterizes the case; next, case representation, which is the description of sequences and situations, and of events and occurrences that comprise the case; and finally, case analysis, which opens up the analysis and interpretation of features, events, occurrences, and the formulation of connections and insights that emerge from the case (Binneberg 1985). Overall, four teachers who taught in the four different classes were interviewed in the form of expert interviews. In addition, the method of participant observation was chosen as a field research technique to identify meaning structures in the four classes. By perceiving situations in an immediate way, aspects of behavior and thought could become apparent that would not be accessible in conversations and documents concerning these interactions or situations. (Burawoy 1991; Cole 1991; Lüders 2001). The participant observations in the four classes took place over a period of three months and were documented in an observation log. The observation periods were related to biblical learning topics and took place in 2–3 consecutive lessons. In the data collection process, a qualitative sampling plan has been prepared in advance, in which, in contrast to theoretical sampling, the sample size and drawing criteria have been fixed before the collection, and the data have been analyzed after the collection. At the same time, this selective sampling meant that the study situations, time points, study locations, and persons were defined before the field phase. Before collecting the data, the following specifications were made for the sampling (Kelle and Kluge [1999] 2010, pp. 50–55):

• relevant characteristics for case selection (high heterogeneity in the class);
• characteristics, attributes, and combinations (different learning levels and reading abilities);
• size of qualitative samples (different school types, such as elementary school, middle school, vocational school, in order to achieve specific contrasts in terms of age, experience, and life situation in the student body).

The cases described are to be understood as a case–problem method, and they already state the underlying issues and challenges with the case description. The focus here is on the discussion of problematic situations concerning heterogeneity and social inequality, as well as the solutions found. The intention is not to generalize the statements, but to analyze the individual cases in detail, which were composed of interviews and participant observations (Geertz 2003). Based on a precise interpretation of the social phenomenon, the data have been analyzed using qualitative content analysis (Lamnek and Krell [1988] 2016; Mayring [2000] 2010). The results can provide indications for a changed didactic practice of biblical learning in heterogeneous classrooms (Borchardt and Göthlich 2007; Ridder 2020).

Case Study 1: Physical and Socialization-Related Language and Reading Barriers

The first case study is from a 3rd grade elementary school class in a small-town setting. The class has 21 children who came together from two classes in the Lutheran religious education program. The teacher is solely responsible for the teaching process and does not have a second teacher available. As children of different learning and performance levels can still learn together in elementary school, the class is characterized as having a medium to good motivation to learn. Biblical stories are mostly not read but narrated. The children are stimulated linguistically as well as through reading tasks.

Two students, Tim and Malon, stand out in this class because they have difficulty following what is going on, and have limited verbal participation. Tim has undiagnosed attention deficit disorder, which makes it challenging for him to structure himself, follow a topic, and express himself. His attention span is short, and he has problems paying attention to details. His patience during mental tasks is minimal and he often jumps up abruptly during class discussions (Günther et al. 2016). Malon, on the other hand, comes from an educationally distant family with many children, which hardly supports him in his school education and sometimes even neglects him. He finds it difficult to participate in classroom discussions, to empathize with biblical characters, or to read and answer questions about the biblical topic of instruction (Maitz et al. 2018); however, if creative and handicraft tasks are incorporated, both can participate in the short term, are usually motivated to do so, and can establish links to the biblical text.

This case study highlights the fact that language and reading capacities play a decisive role in shaping biblical learning processes in compulsory religious education. The ethical and meaningful content of biblical texts is usually approached through open classroom discussions and learning arrangements that challenge intellectual creativity. This correlative process between biblical interpretations and one’s own life interpretation is based on communicative as well as textual skills. Both a physical disability in the form of ADHD, which may be manifested in a partial performance disorder such as dyslexia, and educationally disadvantaged socialization, which provides little access or motivation to read, fantasize, and empathize with texts and their characters, present barriers to biblical learning processes. They exclude students whose physical or socialization-related learning conditions require other means of access. Following a reception–aesthetic Bible didactic, it is therefore necessary to ask how the relationship between the biblical meaning of the text and the perceptions of Tim and Malon can be didactically activated, and how a story of understanding can be initiated (Köppe and Winko 2013; Schambeck 2009, pp. 123–124).

Case Study 2: Structural and Systemic Barriers

The second case study shows a 6th grade middle school in a suburban area. For the Lutheran religious education class, 14 students from two classes come together. Three of the students have migration experiences, two of them are Russian-Germans, one student is from Armenia. The atmosphere in the class is characterized by the fact that the students see themselves as a leftover, or looser, group after school selection, during the transition from primary to secondary school (Neuenschwander and Grunder 2010). Musical and playful–creative subjects such as choir, band, theater club, and so on, which increase self-esteem and were associated with both curiosity and fun, are increasingly no longer offered due to the lack of staff. This negative self-image of the class is combined with a low motivation to learn in all school subjects, not only in religion. At the same time, the physical and psychological maturation processes of adolescence become perceptible, with roles and identity formations as well as physical changes.

This complex situation leads to children in this sixth grade class being demotivated to learn and engage with Lutheran religious education, which is aggravated by the fact that the higher-performing students, who have moved away due to school selection, are missing in the classroom (Stojanov 2011; Gomolla 2012, p. 2). In the remaining learning group, there is a relatively static indifference to biblical topics and texts, which can at best be broken up by digitally prepared materials such as clips, podcasts, or games; however, when reading tasks or text indexing tasks are given, most of the students need a lot of time to decode the content and structure of biblical texts. Particularly for students with migration experiences, these tasks require great cognitive effort, because they are only able to participate to a limited extent due to their lower language and reading abilities. The level of meaningful interaction remains at low and is not increased by upcoming performance exams.

The case study shows a situation in middle schools that may be well-known to pedagogues. Nevertheless, the question of exclusionary factors and unequal learning conditions in the education system arises in this context. The early division in the German education system, which is particularly disadvantageous for students with migration backgrounds (Gomolla and Radtke 2009), as well as the increasing lack of musical and artistic activities, can be understood as a form of institutional discrimination. Students are thus being discriminated and are being denied social, peer, and artistic learning in blended learning settings (Hasse and Schmidt 2012; Krüger and Mähler 2014). It is well known that inclusive learning groups have a positive impact on students’ social behavior and performance (Labsch et al. 2021), which can be applied to biblical learning in religious education (Schiefer Ferrari 2018; Leutzsch 2016). In order to compensate for the effects of structural conditions in the educational system, multi-professional cooperation, and the use of inclusive support programs and arts education programs are therefore central for religious education processes in the school system with its tripartite structure.

Case Study 3: Strangeness as a Barrier

The third case study deals with religious education in vocational schools and focuses on a class in the twelfth grade Religious education is taught on a bi-denominational basis, almost throughout the entire school, as a result of a model project. In addition to 7 Lutheran and 5 Catholic students, 2 Muslim and 1 non-denominational student also participate. The general profile of religious education at this vocational school shows that Bible-based units play a rather subordinate role, and that ethical and life-world topics are currently being focused upon. The students are largely well motivated, even if sometimes only sporadically, but also unstructured and erratic.

It is striking that the motivation curve usually moves downwards quite quickly when the Bible is integrated into the lesson and the reading of a biblical text passage is introduced. This atmosphere-based perception is usually confirmed by the connected, rather listless, and unproductive class discussion. Once the first obstacle has been overcome, so that a linguistic understanding of the text has been achieved, further in-depth studies of content-related topics often come to a standstill. The Bible is perceived as being foreign and strange. The historical–cultural distance between the Bible and the students forms the framework of reference for this.

The reading of the Christmas story in a school lesson shortly before 24 December is intended to concretize and clarify this generally perceived strangeness of the Bible: the class is very familiar with the narrative plot of the Christmas story, whether through church, socialization, or through classroom learning in previous grades; this is also true for the non-denominational or Muslim students. Paradoxically, this general narrative of knowledge can hardly support the reading of Luke 2. Even the use of a student-oriented version such as the Basic Bible instead of the Lutheran Bible can do relatively little to change this. The Roman Emperor Augustus, a governor of Syria, a nativity scene, or even angel beings who speak to people are not associated in the learning group with the Christmas tree celebration or with any other circumstances of their training profession or leisure time. That is how Jonas sums it up, echoing the sentiment of the other students: “what a fairy tale!” Only Mario, who seems to live in his own world, likes to draw unicorns during class, and is generally open to fantastic stories, immediately draws the angel into his series of comic pictures. This experience of strangeness, which has been noted several times, is inevitably reduplicated further in biblical texts that lack a familiar point of reference, such as “Christmas” in this case. In the discussion of biblical didactics, there are mainly two contrasting approaches that consequently uphold the category of foreignness: Thomas Ruster (2000), in his, rather basic, reflections on the foreignness of the Bible, starts from the following dualistic distinction: on the one hand he sees the God of the Bible, on the other hand he views capitalism as an expression of today’s all-determining reality. He considers both to be incommensurable, and as a result, students must be integrated into the biblical world. Ruster’s concept was perceived as a provocation by many religious educators because this approach seems to break with the usual figure in religious education of an experience-oriented correlative mediation effort between biblical text and students (Halbfas 2001). Alkier and Dressler (1998) take a different approach by introducing biblical stories as alien worlds on which common didactic mediation efforts can fail. Biblical texts “are basically meant to be read as alien worlds that we have to explore all over again, as if we were the crews of Captain Kirk, Captain Picard, or better yet like Captain Janeway and the crew of the Starship Voyager or the new arrivals on Earth 2. We do not know the laws of the alien worlds, and we must necessarily reckon with the fact that the laws and rules which prevail in these alien worlds are different from those which govern our world” (ibid., p. 166). Alkier and Dressler therefore continue to work with the linguistic metaphors of voyage of discovery, surprises, failures, new insights, faulty hypotheses, and so on. A didactically clever discussion in class, preceding and following the Bible reading, could start at this point: the focus on the difference between the heterogeneous realities of the students and the biblical text worlds relieves them of the pressure to build bridges which, from the perspective of the students, are not very sustainable, absurd or at best suitable for elementary school. The accentuation of intentional strangeness in the style of a journey through the universe could open up learning potential as a point of motivation in this learning group.

Case Study 4: Existential Irrelevance as a Barrier

The last case study also takes a look at religious education in vocational schools, in this instance, an 11th grade class studying information technology (IT). The high diversity of the students in a vocational school is shown in the comparison with non-vocational schools and the learning group from case study 3: this group consists of 12 students, three of whom have a German university entrance qualification, and the rest of whom have a secondary school leaving certificate. The students are very disciplined, are used to working reliably, are result-oriented when completing tasks, and have good reading comprehension. Four students have an intense church connection, three students have a so-called distanced open mind, and five students range from being rather critical to strongly negative. Furthermore, the general conditions for religious education are the same as in the previous case study.

The existential irrelevance of biblical texts is most evident here in mythical texts: in the context of the thematic unit “[d]ealing with finitude—dying and death”, forms of burial, near-death experiences, and insights into the discussion concerning euthanasia are addressed. Moreover, the two New Testament texts on resurrection in 1Cor 15 (in excerpts) and in 1Thess 4,13–18 are compared. The basic statements with similarities and differences of the two Pauline letters can be worked out quickly by group work. Cultural contextualization using Hellenistic and Jewish worldviews is provided by the teacher; however, the teaching process then becomes entangled. Whereas the four “church-socialized” students, regardless of their denominational assignment, sympathize well with 1Cor 15 and are somewhat suspicious of 1Thess 4, the three students with a “distanced open mind” can only with great difficulty express their own existential orientation, and they remain diffusely unclear. A firm group dynamic develops between the critics, and they argue from a modern scientific point of view against everything fairy-tale-like and absurd that can be found in the Bible.

This case study highlights the fact that there are biblical texts that have a high degree of plausibility due to general evidence and can usually be supported by most students. An example of this would be the prohibition of killing in the Decalogue. In addition, there are understandings that presuppose a culture of faith of their own, as this example shows. Finally, there are also a number of texts that, because of their propositional content or their presuppositions, can only be marked as “texts of terror” (Trible 1984), and are marked by contradiction. Only with the fundamental possibility of criticizing biblical texts, called de-canonization, a reading procedure is realized under the conditions of the Enlightenment (Becker and Scholz 2012; Lüdemann 1996; Schuessler Fiorenza 1988). Against this background, culture–sensitive didactics of the Bible can didactically open up these axes and dimensions and encourage individual approaches (Theißen 2003). This allows one to not only perceive the complexity of biblical texts, but above all, to take into account the heterogeneity in (church) socialization.

3. Bible Didactics as a Tension Field in Religious Education

The analyzed case studies do not provide a holistic presentation of the connection between Bible didactics and social inequality, but are to be understood as empirical approaches to this field of tension. In the following, theological–pedagogical implications, as well as didactical challenges, will be critically examined.

3.1. Between Aspiration and Reality

The understanding of education in the Lutheran and Catholic churches clearly points to the processing of social inequality (Lackner 2006; Reitemeyer 2017; Heitger 2007; Dressler 2015; Schweitzer 1999). Given this, the effects of different theologies of the second half of the 20th century can also be seen, which are summarized as liberation theological approaches (Freire 1998; Schwartz 2021). For example, the EKD educational policy document “Gaining Religious Orientation” formulates the expectation of religious education: “[r]eligious education, as it is understood here, contributes to the formation of religious language and orientation skills. It supports the acquisition of interreligious and intercultural competencies and the connection between rationality and religion. In doing so, it also reaches children and young people from homes that otherwise have little contact with the church or religious institutions” (Kirchenamt Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland 2014, p. 12; Englert 2015). Consequently, education from a Lutheran perspective is also oriented towards addressing heterogeneities due to social inequality being an educational task: “[f]rom the Lutheran point of view, education […] is to be oriented toward education for peace, respect for the liberal legal order, promotion of social justice, care for vulnerable life, and understanding with people of other cultures and religions” (Kirchenamt Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland 2009, p. 42). In contrast, the case studies analyzed have made it clear that religious education can contribute to reinforcing and perpetuating existing heterogeneities and accompanying social inequalities or disadvantages. Thus, there is an obvious discrepancy between aspiration and reality. This gap is reminiscent of the fact that the socio-political dimension is central to Christian educational work: education is both a faith motive, as religiosity helps to open up the world, and students are to be supported in reflecting upon and deepening their faith existence (Bohlinger 2004; Ortmann 2003). However, Christian education is also a consequence of faith, in that it is perceived coram mundi as a diaconal task; therefore, dealing with disadvantages due to social heterogeneity is constitutively part of it (Bergold 2019; Scharer 1995).

3.2. Decoding the Book of the Seven Seals

With regard to the medium of religious education, another current area of tension becomes apparent. Education and Bible understanding are two sides of the same coin, which are inseparably related to each other. In connection with the Reformation movement, education receives an enormous and sustained boost (Roggenkamp 2018; Licht and Mokry 2017; Scheunpflug 2017). The ability to read is declared to be the basic precondition of one’s own understanding of the Bible, and conversely, the Bible was thereby used as a reading guide by default (Zimmermann and Zimmermann 2013, p. 2). Up to the present, it is clear that understanding does not end with linguistic competence (Lafont 2021). Bible comprehension, in particular, involves an extremely complex and strongly interconnected cognitive process, and at this point, it shows the complexity and the demanding character of religious education as a whole. It begins with the insight that the Bible is not a book but rather a library (Becker and Scholz 2012); it continues with the observation that biblical narratives originate from other times and cultures long past (Zimmer 2013); likewise, various traditions of interpretation or contextualization reduplicate the biblical horizon of understanding (Lüdde 2020); media changes from wax tablets to printed books, or digital media reduplicates the representation of the Bible, making it more difficult to be recognized (Wischmeyer 2004; Clivaz 2017), and so on. In other words, the textual patterns of the Bible are so expansive and unbounded that the Bible can be described as a supertext (Habermann 2008) or a hypertext (Eisenlauer and Scholz 2008). Both terms try to make clear the reference frame of the Bible in its almost singular size. As a consequence, an immensely large overview knowledge is necessary to adequately comprehend the cultural significance of the Bible. At the same time, in the eyes of students, due to frozen childhood faith experiences, the Bible often appears as an infantile storybook (Wedding 2010), which can hardly keep up with the innovative power of currently interesting “artifacts”. In addition, if the motivation curve also drops noticeably during school activities, as analyzed in the case studies, the expectation of sustainable learning progress can scarcely be set low enough. Thus, Bible didactics have to deal with a difficult subject, the “book with seven seals” often seems less exotic and fascinating to students, rather than irrelevant, inaccessible, incomprehensible, and strange (Benk 1998).

4. Biblical Didactic Opportunities and Potentials

After considering tense challenges in the context of biblical didactics and the Christian understanding of education, the focus will now be turned to resources and possibilities of biblical didactic work in the context of heterogeneity and social inequality.

4.1. Facets of Biblical Understanding Approaches

Bible didactics do not only include Bible text comprehension with the hurdles, difficulties, and problematic effects described above. Bible didactics also incorporate the pedagogical handling of impact–historical extensions, whether these are to be found in the visual arts, the motives in films, the thematization of transformations concerning biblical ideas, as well as conspiracy theories on the Internet. Finally, biblical didactics concern self-exploration that is in dialogue with biblical figures and narratives. This means that biblical didactics not only participate in philological moments of biblical hermeneutics, especially linguistics, cultural history, and the history of ideas, but they also draw attention to the broad space of reception, from politics to art, and shapes formats of existential processes of negotiation. The danger of confusing students with the “educational package of Bible didactics” is therefore given, and the criticism that Bible didactics is sprawling and difficult to handle is reasonable, whereas reading in German lessons, or in lessons pertaining to a foreign language, can be better structured and also completed; however, the immense volume of Bible didactics can also now be turned into an advantage or opportunity: in particular, in the context of heterogeneity and social inequality, the enormous reservoir of biblical didactic possibilities allows a very conscious choice of suitable methods, content, and focuses.

4.2. Central Lines of Development and Focal Points

The multifaceted character of the Bible’s didactic focuses in Germany can be seen in the important religious education concepts in German-speaking countries from the middle of the 20th century onwards: whereas liberal and kerygmatic biblical didactics are primarily interested in the dogmatic interpretation of the Bible, hermeneutical biblical didactics emphasize exegetical and epistemological perspectives (Lachmann 2013). Problem-based Biblical didactics provide a significant pedagogical impetus (Klappenecker 2013), existential interpretations of the Bible generate a further push toward student orientation (Baldermann 2013), and symbol didactics (Heumann 2013), correlation (Mendl 2013), and elementarization (Schweitzer 2013) establish decisive focal points in this regard. Semiotic (Dressler 2013) and constructivist (Stimpfle 2013) approaches basically focus on the learning and perception processes of the learners, whereas children’s exegesis (Zimmermann 2013) starts with the students’ imaginations. Finally, performative biblical didactics (Husmann 2013) perceive elements of staging and design as important learning processes. This run-through should be enough to illustrate two tendencies. First, there is a movement away from dogmatic interests and toward more pedagogical interests. On the other hand, approaches have been developed that make it possible to increasingly focus upon individual students. This has potential for suitable learning formats, especially in heterogeneous settings.

5. Bible Didactics Sensitive to Social Inequality

The preceding considerations identify important developments and approaches for difference–sensitive biblical didactics, which will be highlighted further in the following section.

5.1. Overcoming Social Inequality

The case studies from different school contexts, and the reflections on the complexity and positioning of Bible didactics, have shown that heterogeneities and social inequalities are also at risk of being fixed and perpetuated in religious education. At the same time, due to its wide range of content and methods, biblical didactics offer the potential to contribute to dealing with, and if possible, overcoming such disadvantages; therefore, methodological considerations connect here and ask for options for a solution (Flake and Zimmermann 2013). Two basic strategies result from this: one direction focuses on forms of learning that can be understood as relatively low-threshold elements due to the disposition of the students. They refer less to the (reading) text elaboration or content reproduction activity, but rather, they focus on aesthetic, expressive, or subject-oriented interactions. The other direction addresses the barriers related to text literacy and uses the expertise of the (foreign) language classroom with students who have word-processing problems. This takes into account the insight that Bible didactics, especially given its diversity, cannot dispense with both a textual coverage of the content and the promotion of reading comprehension as a whole. This is because a didactically justified rejection of orientation knowledge with regard to biblical culture can also mean a reduction in opportunities for social participation in multi-religious contexts.

5.2. Low-Threshold Bible-Didactic Learning Forms

At this point, they should once again receive special attention. Low-threshold Bible-didactic forms of learning can be found especially in the field of aesthetic learning. They emphasize above all the perception, exploration, contemplation, and description of students and their interpretative competencies (Meurer 2002; Reese-Schnitker 2010) and find their application in the following methodical approaches: the classical field of children’s Bible didactics refers to this, as well as the work on pictures with biblical motives. Here, another line of inquiry that can be followed leads to the interweaving of Bible and film (-didactics) (Zwick 2013). In this context, it is not necessary to think first of the theologically often unsuitable film adaptations of the Bible; but rather, the search for traces of biblical elements in current productions can be taken up here (Kirsner 2009; Reuter 2000; Brünjes 2011). Furthermore, different forms focus on establishing a reference to art education (Leonhardi 2017; Brennfleck 2005). In this context, both visual and theatrical–expressive methods should be considered, which, depending on the motivation level of the students, can be classified as low-threshold or exactly the opposite. In addition, the method of bibliologue can stimulate the interactive interpretation of biblical texts in a learning group, during which the group moves into the biblical situation described and interprets a text together (Grube 2014). Finally, the most demanding medium is the theological conversation and discussion in order to work on biblical didactic learning content in the area of verbal exchange (Freudenberger-Lötz 2012). This enables students to express their own position and insights.

5.3. Encouraging Literacy and Text Competency

The variety of Bible didactic forms offers, as just shown, helpful possibilities to connect with students who experience frustration with methods of (biblical) text processing; however, this poses the problem of avoiding more direct engagement with biblical texts, and in the process, losing learning opportunities. Therefore, religious education should not refrain from promoting reading and text comprehension in a student-sensitive way, and thus, it should consider overcoming barriers regarding text comprehension as an overall school project, and consequently, as own field of responsibility as well (Jobst 2021; Torkler 2013). For instance, in the Lutheran context, there is no longer only a debate concerning the importance of the Bible as a whole in religious education (Kaufmann 1973), but also whether or not the Lutheran Bible should be used, and which alternative Bible editions are to be applied (Käbisch et al. 2015; Jahr 2017). Especially with regard to students with reading difficulties, the use of Bible editions that are easier to decode, such as the Basic Bible or the Bible in Easy Language, can also be beneficial (Crüsemann 2021; Faßbender 2014). In addition to the choice of edition, text size and text design play a role in the level of difficulty of the text. Furthermore, small-scale tasks can promote text comprehension by performing precise character analyses (Schweighofer 2015; Pichler 2012).

5.4. And What about High-Performing Students?

Having previously focused on socially disadvantaged students in heterogeneous classrooms, the situation of high-performing students will now also be taken into account. If overlooked, this can lead to students with above-average abilities being disregarded, underchallenged, and demotivated, thus denying them learning opportunities. Germany as a whole has long struggled to accept the specific support of high-ability students as an element of democratic education and to expand it in terms of infrastructure (Lasthoff 2021; Allendörfer 2005; Heller and Ziegler 2007). With few exceptions, it has taken a different path than France, for example, which, despite its commitment to égalité, has a very pronounced culture of elite promotion (Weigand and Imhof 2014, p. 7f). At this point, it is not prudent to engage in, or map, the pedagogically driven discourse on the meaning of elites (Imbusch 2019; Helsper et al. 2019); however, references to religious education, and more specifically, Bible didactics will be given. If religious education is particularly associated with infantilizing dynamics, underchallenged students may see a substandard level of performance as inappropriate in relation to their own abilities. The challenging situation of any inclusion effort therefore affects religious education in particular (Kalbheim 2004; Guttenberger and Husmann 2007). Thus, in heterogeneous study groups, needs-based support can be organized either in terms of being phase-structured or subgroup-specific. For this purpose, deeper and more detailed extensions of generally introduced tasks are possible, as well as the increased inclusion of detailed requests that come from this group of students, which possibly exceed the horizon of the other students. The challenge of motivating students of different ability levels is, of course, the general theme of any inclusive pedagogy.

6. Conclusions and Research Perspectives

Finally, based on the empirical evidence of the analyzed case studies and the theoretical framings, concrete expectations for biblical learning in religious education in relation to heterogeneity and social inequality can now be formulated.

6.1. Conclusions and Outlook

(1)

Christian education in general, in addition to its specific content, has to take into account and work on the question of the conditions, problem areas, and possible solutions to social disadvantages and inequality (see Section 3.1). This includes an ideology–critical clarification of Christianity’s own contributions to these inequalities: where have Christian (educational) institutions themselves legitimized, concealed, or ignored social inequalities? In this context, topics concerning the history of ideas of theology are to be questioned above all, in order to reflect, for example, on motives that increase social inequalities, such as “faith as assurance” or “the justification of worldly conditions as the will of God”, but also the deeply rooted idea of Christianity’s claim to absoluteness. At the same time, it is necessary to ask about the potential of religious education to reduce social inequalities. As an example, the topics of ecumenical or global learning can be mentioned here, which focus the Christian world and educational responsibility locally as well as globally (Simojoki 2021; Noormann 2017).

(2)

Religious education in particular needs a consistent methodology that consciously reflects on the application of methods of heterogenous classrooms (see Section 2.2). It is not enough to analyze methods in purely age-specific terms or to contextualize them with regard to certain types of schools; therefore, deficits in methodology can intensify social inequalities in heterogeneous classrooms instead of contributing to their reduction. This is exemplified by the second case study: a method of text work that may at first be age-appropriate can intensify the differences in the learning group due to social heterogeneity, and lead to experiences of frustration if the students are overchallenged. The feeling of being left behind, which is often found among middle school students, is confirmed. In particular, students with migration experiences can be very clearly affected by this; therefore, a general understanding of inclusion has to methodologically shape the teaching design as a concurrent dimension (Knauth et al. 2020).

(3)

More specifically, Bible didactics must be considered as a central area that knows, and can consciously address, both the failure of heterogeneous study groups and the acceptance and handling of performance-related diversity in the classroom (see Section 3). Learning about the Bible is not like teaching any other topic, as it has a basic position within religious education. The fourth case study has shown that even a teaching profile such as vocational religious education, which clearly prefers ethical topics, has to consider heterogeneous settings very carefully when it comes to biblical didactic units. This is even more true for learning groups in elementary and middle schools, as case studies 1 and 2 have shown. In such cases, biblical didactic units take on an even more significant role.

(4)

On the one hand, the didactic barriers of the subject Bible have to be perceived in a differentiated way and taken into account for learning decisions (see Section 3.2). The complexity of the Bible, due to language, time, cultural background, and so on, can lead to excessive demands in the learning process. Previous experiences, characterized by redundancy, strangeness, and absence of relevance, or also possible negative imprints, make learning motivation more difficult. Case study 1 showed that even the simple comprehension of a text can lead to massive demotivation in some students. Case study 2 also shows that certain students can quickly become overtaxed if the specific performance skills of individual students are incorrectly assessed.

(5)

To this end, the potentials of Bible didactic learning processes for teaching in heterogeneous classrooms must be named in particular (see Section 5.2). Due to the best-equipped theological infrastructure in science and churches, Bible didactics has a manifold palette of methods, focal points, and competence definitions, which can now also be applied in this context. Especially in case studies 1 to 3 significant difficulties in text reading comprehension are highlighted. Using the framework of pedagogical decision-making, other methods, using pictures, sounds, narratives, or creative–formative methods can be chosen, as has already been outlined. At the same time, the multifaceted character of Bible didactic methods should not avoid the promotion of reading skills and abandon textual reading entirely.

(6)

The focus on students with difficulties in the classroom, especially in text work, may not ignore the fact that in heterogeneous classrooms, there are also students with above-average performances who also need appropriate support (see Section 5.4). It would be fatal if the attention paid to social heterogeneity and the processing of disadvantages associated with it were to lead to a systematic downgrading of the level of teaching. This would not only lead to a loss of reputation for the subject of religion, but would also neglect so-called high performing students, and deny them the education and support which they need.

(7)

Finally, the intersectionality of social disadvantage and gender should be taken into account in biblical didactics (see case studies in Section 2). Students are sometimes doubly affected by disadvantages when social stigma, due to family, geographic origin, attending a less prestigious school or type of school, coincides with gender stigma. Simultaneously, Bible didactics is at risk of mirroring and reinforcing this stigmatization by predominantly taking up figures such as Abraham, Moses, David, or Jesus. Due to the specific discrimination of gender in interacting with further social declassification effects, gender-sensitive Bible didactics has to, on the one hand, pay attention to giving female perspectives in the Bible a resonance space, and on the other hand, to deconstruct patriarchal biblical thought patterns in a student-oriented way (Spiering-Schomborg 2017; Deylen 2019).

6.2. Research Perspectives

(1)

Within the framework of biblical didactic research perspectives, ecumenical and interreligious perspectives are becoming more important than has been the case so far. Torah didactics (Schröder 2015; Liss 2015) and Koran didactics (Kuld 2015; Cavis 2021) have to deal with very similar and divergent conditions in schools. Likewise, the inclusion of Christian Orthodox traditions and didactic reflections seems paramount, with regard to students with migration biographies from the areas of the former Soviet Union, as well as from Arab and African countries (Schambeck et al. 2019). Inter-confessional and inter-religious research perspectives as diverse, complementary, and contradictory approaches to Bible didactics thus correlate in this context with the heterogeneous compositions of contemporary groups of students.

(2)

Finally, migration processes and their effects should be mentioned as an important factor for social heterogeneity and inequality in German-speaking countries. They can also be understood as the result of colonial practices that continue to influence the living situations, roles, privileges, communication possibilities, and opportunities of children and young people worldwide. A significant feature of this is the proportion of students with migration experiences in case studies 2 and 3. This requires a decolonial perspective that critically examines Christian educational work for unconscious assumptions and discriminatory behavior. Constitutively, this includes raising awareness of the connection between social heterogeneity and colonial continuities in religious education (Winkler and Scholz 2020), as well as strengthening biblical didactic implications that identify migration as a motive and learning site of faith in the Bible.