1). Please Express Your Opinion by Answering Each of the Following Questions Related To

I

TASK ONE

1). Please express your opinion by answering each of the following questions related to how religious you are:

Table 1

2) Based on your answers, compare and contrast how religious you are with how religious Jakob, Gulay, and Nathalie are based on their video transcripts on page 6. What kind of similarities and differences do exist? What might possible explanations be for such similarities and differences.

TASK TWO

Please express your opinion by answering each of the following questions related to the involvement of religion in politics and policies.

Table 2

TASK THREE

Please express your opinion by answering each of the following questions related to the involvement of religion in politics.

Table 3

TASK 4

1) Take your average score for Table 1, Table 2 and Table 3 and write them down in the table below. One might expect that those individuals with a highaverage score for Table 1 would have a corresponding high average score for Table 2 and a low average for Table 3 (or vice-versa). Compare your average scores. Are they as suggested here? If yes, why do you think this is the case? If no, why do you think this is the case?

Table 4:

2) On the board, calculate the average score of your class for each table, write it on the table below and compare and contrast it with yours. Reflect on similarities and/or differences.

Table 5

TASK 5

1) Pick two random countries from the maps below. For each question fill in the

score band each country falls in and rewrite your scores from Table 1, Table 2, and Table

3 and compare and contrast two countries and your scores for each question

Table 6

Table 7

Table 8

TASK 6

1)Calculate the overall average score band of each country for each table and compare and contrast it with your average score and/or your class average score. Share your results with class and discuss the possible reasons behind similarities and differences

Table 9

TASK 7

An important explanation for the decreasing influence of religion in the lives of people can be found in the modernisation theory. With modernisation a large number of fundamental social changes is meant, which appears simultaneous in economically, technological, political, socially and cultural areas. Prosperity increased and welfare states were built. With the development of welfare states, the security for people increased as well. Where in former days religion provided certainty to people, now the welfare states offer this certainty and therefore the belief became, so to speak, superfluous. As a result, the role of religion has been marginalised and, therefore, nowadays religion has none or little influence on daily lives of people. (Dogan, 1995).

Do you agree with Dogan’s argument in terms of the relationship between modernization and the role of religion in political area? How does this relationship manifest itself in your country?

Interviews about religion:

Jakub from Banská Bystrica.in Slovakia

I went to church last week. I don't go there often, but now and then I do. … I am a believer, I am a christened protestant. I think that religion gives answers to almost all aspects of our lives, for example some family problems, spiritual needs of course, as well as aspects of our society and some of its problems. Religion also helps us in our casual, everyday life. It gives a certain manual of how to live. Besides church I also talk to God, I pray, so that should be the way of communication. I am a protestant and as for religion, I am not especially interested in some supernatural things, Divine, but I am interested in things surrounding me, just as every human, so that's my relation with religion. There are more forms of religion in the world, for example Islam, Hinduism or Christianity, but every religion has something as its own and we can't say, that one religion is more important that the other or that someone else's is less important than our own. I think we can't say that and I also think that it is difficult to know how the world was created because all the religions explain it their own way. My explanation is that it was perhaps created from one thing and all the things were probably made by God, because nothing can just be created spontaneously.

Gulay from Istanbul in Turkey

I am not kind of a person mostly going to the mosques apart from the funeral services. I may go just at holy nights. I am not kind of a very religious person. It is true that I am a person having respect for the boons provided by God, generally trying to do the things God wants us to do and obey the rules given by God, fasting during the Ramadan month, going to the mosque at certain holy nights with my family and praying. That is, I do some things that I have to do, but I am not a very religious person. My family neither forces me much nor exercises power on me for that. I am a muslim with my own.. wish, will. … The mosque has nothing to do with the family and family problems. … {T}here is no relationship between social problems and the mosque. … {People} meet their {religious} needs since people can express themselves and their spiritual needs to the God generally in the mosques. … It could be better if I pray to God on my own in a quiet room. Yes, I believe that there is just one true religion. This is because certain religions had come out before the Islam and before our prophet came. However, they could not spread even though they tried to spread. Just one religion which is of the muslim world spread. No other religion came since this was known as the true religion. Therefore, Islam is the only true religion.

Nathalie from Berlin in Germany

I´ve never attend worship, only when I was forced to in school or on trips. When I was 12 years old I never were in church, not voluntarily. I´m not religious. I´m not religious, I do not believe in God. But if someone could proof, that there is a god I would change my mind. The church gives people help in case of ethical problems, especially because of the Ten Commandements. In the bible you could find a lot of informative stories. These help people in need and help them to find back to themselves. As I said, I´m not religious and there is nothing else I believe in. I believe in myself and that’s an important thing for me. Holy and miraculous are adjectives. It´s sometimes fascinating in which religious people believe. And sometimes I also believe in this. But for the most part I´ve a critical meaning to this. I accept each kind of religion and I appreciate every person, whether they believe in something or not.

Evaluation Questions (For Pupils)

The purpose of this activity is to enable you to form an idea about the place of religion in modern society through understanding the differences between people’s levels of devotion to religion and probable causes of it, examining the impacts of religion on politics and policies based on your own personal opinion and views of the class as well as data relating to the European countries. After examining your own personal opinion, view of the class and data relating to two European Countries, please write the conclusion you have reached with regard to the impacts of religion on politics and policies and the place of religion in modern society.

Do your personal data, data of the class and data obtained from maps relating to European countries support the conclusion you have reached? If there is any data not supporting it, what can be the probable causes of it?

Which aspects of this activity did you like? Please explain the reason of it.

Which aspects of this activity did you dislike? Please explain the reason of it.

If any, please mention anything you want to mention with regard to this activity.

Teacher’s notes

General purpose of this activity is to examine people’s levels of devotion to religion and the impact of religion on politics and policies. To this end, in the first place, students are asked to be aware of their own levels of devotion to religion and understanding the relationship between religion and human being from different perspectives through comparing their awareness with views of others devoted to the religion in different levels. In the following step, they are asked to compare the impact of religion on politics and policies based on their own personal opinions, views of their class and data relating to two European countries they will choose, finding the similarities and differences between them and in this way seeing the relationship between them. Finally, they are expected to reach a conclusion about the impact of religion on society in general and the impact of religion on politics specifically and preparing a thesis in this matter, through synthesizing the information presented in the text relating to the place of religion on modern society with their information.

This activity was prepared by taking 16-17 age group into consideration.

Activity is expected to last for 2 course hours.

This activity can be taught in the courses of geography, citizenship, English and religious culture.

In this activity, students are expected to comprehend the concepts of religion, politics, place and society and to reach generalizations through establishing relations between these concepts.

Guide to Lesson Tasks

Task one:Deepening understanding, describing differences (and recognizing similarities):

Purpose of this task is to help students understand the relationship between religion and human being from different perspectives through comparing their personal levels of devotion to religion with views of others devoted to the religion in different levels. To this end, in the first place, students are asked to fill in a questionnaire relating to religion and then understating similarities and differences through comparing their opinions with views of people devoted to the religion in different levels; and then think about probable causes of these differences. This task will contribute students to understand the relationship between religion and human being and comprehend that religion could have place in human life in different levels. In addition, this task will contribute students to understand people devoted to the religion in different levels and develop tolerance towards them.

This individual activity will help students understand their awareness about religion which is an important part of their lives and develop meta-cognitive skills through starting to question themselves.

In this activity, students are asked to answer the questions about their levels of devotion to the religion as one referring to yes and zero referring to no.

Task two: Deepening understanding:

Purpose of this task is to help students get aware of their opinions about the impact of religion on public sphere. To this end, students are asked to answer four questions relating to the impact of religion on public sphere according to a rating scale varying between one and five. One indicates that the student agrees with the given opinion while five means he / or she totally disagrees.

This task will contribute students to understand the relationship between religion and politics and policies according to their viewpoints and develop an awareness in the matter of these perceptions and opinions can impact the society.

This task will be conducted individually, too.

Teacher’s guiding the students in the matter of possible meanings of values between one and five while students are filling up the questionnaire can be beneficial. For instance, one refers to totally agreeing with this opinion, two refers to agreeing with this opinion generally, three refers to indecisiveness, four refers to disagreeing and five refers to totally disagreeing, etc.

Task three: Deepening understanding

In a similar way to the task two, purpose of this task is to help students get aware of their opinions about the impacts of religion on politics. To this end, students are asked to answer two questions relating to the impact of religion on public sphere according to a rating scale varying between one and five. One indicates that the student agrees with the given opinion while five means he / or she totally disagrees.

Students’ getting aware of their own opinions about the impact of religion on politics will cause them to question themselves and to think about how these opinions can impact the society.

This task will be conducted individually, too.

Task four: Describing differences (and recognizing similarities), deepening understanding:

Purpose of this task is to help students see the relationship between their opinions about the religion and their opinions about the impacts of religion on politics and policies, and compare it with the situation in their classes. To this end, students are asked to compare the averages of the answers they gave to the questions in Table 1, Table 2 and Table 3. In this way, students will get aware of their opinions about the religion and impacts of religion on politics and policies and form opinions about probable causes of this relationship.

It is expected having high averages in Table 1 and 2 to have low average in Table 3. Students will understand whether the situation is as expected or different by comparing their averages in these three tables. If there is a different distribution from the expectations, students are expected to think about probable causes of it. In this way, this table provides students with an opportunity to evaluate whether or not there is a consistence between their opinions. Logical consistence and self-evaluation on students’ own opinions will contribute them to develop meta-cognitive skills and become a more critical citizen.

Afterwards, teachers are asked to find the averages of the entire class in these three fields and compare the averages of students with average of the entire class. In this way, students will see whether or not there is any similarity or difference between their opinions and the opinion of the class. This will enable students to think about paying regard to the possibility that there could be different opinions about the impacts of religion on politics.

The teacher may have to help their students during calculating arithmetic averages. It is necessary to add up the answers given to all of the questions and divide them to the number of questions during the calculation of arithmetic average. However, there is a point to be paid attention at this point. Since answers are taken as 0-1 in Table 1, average will correspond to a number between zero and one. In other two tables (Table 2 and Table 3), since values vary between one and five, averages will come to be a number between one and five.

It is expected first part of this task to be performed by students individually, and second part of it to be performed by the whole class together with the teacher.

Task Five: Relating the attitudes represented in the maps of the AoEV to their own, describing differences (and recognizing similarities):

The purpose of this task is to help students understand similarities and differences by comparing their opinions about devotion to religion and the impacts of religion on politics and policies with data of two European countries. To this end, students are asked to find data belonging to two European countries they have chosen in the maps and write them together with their own values in Table 6, Table 7 and Table 8.