Summary: | The purpose of this paper is to study how some upper secondary teachers define and understand the terms New Religious Movement, New Religiosity and cult. We also look at what the teachers teach about and why they pick those specific parts of the course. Firstly, to get a wider view of this subject we looked at previous research about the teaching of New Religious Movements. In addition to the previous research we did our own research where we interviewed upper secondary teachers from two different schools. Secondly, for our results we analysed the transcripts by using two different theoretical frameworks: religious didactics in the form of abductive perspective in connection to the didactical questions - what, why and how? We have also used a hermeneutic interpretation when looking at the empirical material.Through our research we found that teachers have some difficulties defining the terms “New Religious Movements”, “New Religiosity” and “Cults”. They also have a problem with differentiating them from each other. The research shows that even the teachers’ selection, planning and implementation of their teaching varies between the schools for different reasons. Some of this stems from the teachers’ capacity within the subject, different interpretations of the syllabus and the influence that students have on the teaching.
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