Religious Teachers and Their Involvement in Parish Catechesis

Research among Religious Education Teachers in the Split-Makarska Metropolis

Abstract

Research of religious teachers and parish catechesis as individual realities is frequ-ent and rich in the Republic of Croatia, while their interconnection is a less attrac-tive goal of systematic scientific research. A more detailed research on the quality of catechesis in the parish community and the involvement of religious teachers in it was necessary due to a precise and systematic research on the topic.
The aim of this research was to describe the current engagement of religious teachers in parish catechesis47 in the area of the Split-Makarska Metropolis, and to describe some of their internal attitudes related to the Church and possible personal coope-ration in the parish community. A total of 181 people participated in the study. The methods of descriptive and inferential statistics were used.
The results show that the length of cooperation in the parish community has a significant and positive correlation with the age of the research participants and their years of service in school. It was found that 30.39% of the surveyed religious teachers do not cooperate in the parish community at all, while the amount and type of cooperation of other participants varies. As the most common way of engage-ment, participants cite reading at Mass or choir membership.
The paper is divided into theoretical and methodological part. Theoretical part shows religious teachers in their position between the school and the parish, psycho-logical aspects of cooperation in parish catechesis and previous research on this topic. In the methodological part, the research sample is described together with the inclusion criteria, and the results are presented together with the discussion. This work is important for future interventions in order to improve the conditions that would make it easier for religious teachers to engage and be satisfied with personal cooperation in the parish.