A PRAGMATIST APPROACH TO RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

In this article, the approach of religious education with pragmatist views and the ideas of the educators advocating it have been discussed. Religious education perspective of in question approach, the educational paradigm on which it is based and the major assumptions on knowledge and learning are assessed. This approach is centered on understanding rather than knowledge as the aim of religious education. In the teaching processes, more attention is given to the subjective experience of children in terms of personality development arguing that experience is more effective than knowledge in the existence of man. In this approach, which has a transformational educational perspective in the anti-positivist character, postmodernist traces are seen in personality-related assumptions as well as pragmatist acceptances related to knowledge and learning. In the first part of the article, the socio-cultural and pedagogical backgrounds of this new religious education approach; in the second part, some hypothesis of this approach related to knowledge in terms of philosophical basis; and in the last part of this article main criticisms towards this approach will be given