Fair Play: Prejudices, World Views, and the Teaching of Religious Studies in Schools By Carole Cusack

https://www.academia.edu/738421/Fair_Play_Prejudices_World_Views_and_the_Teaching_of_Religious_Studies_in_Schools This paper draws attention to peculiar potential problems in the teaching of Studies in Religion. Based on experience as both a student and teacher in this field, the phenomenological approach to the study of religion will be examined. Within Studies in Religion, the issue of personal belief is a contentious one. Phenomenology dictates that one suspends presuppositions in regards to religious systems, and examines them based on evidence garnered from observation. The difficult act of discarding presuppositions is the focus of this research. Demographically, a substantial number of Australian students of Religion are Christians or nullifidians of Christian background. Religions in which one is raised, or is familiar with, have the potential to seem more 'real' than those that are divorced from personal experience. This paper outlines some problematic perceptions of faiths that fall outside of the Judeo-Christian framework, and examines intellectual gazes that may help to overcome apostatical anxieties and ingrained cultural bias. ...