I'll gladly talk about Jesus or Muhammed but don't touch my beliefs : A qualitative insterviewstudy about the representative classroom and the student as a resourse during religious education lessons.

This study presents the ways secondary school students and their teachers view representation in religious education lessons and how to use the students as a resource for education. With the help of eight qualitative interviews with three certified religious education teachers and five of their students, material was collected to be analysed and discussed in the light of earlier research and Pierre Bourdieu’s theory on religious and symbolic capital. The results show that the students are all positively inclined towards listening to classmates or other religious practitioners as they inform them of new perspectives. However, the results also show that the students themselves have a tendency to feel uncomfortable when the teacher turns to them for religious thoughts or experiences due to judgements from classmates. In Bourdieu’s terminology it is possible to state that when the teacher recognizes a student's high religious capital this often collides with the student's symbolic capital. This in turn creates a conflict within the student and contributes to feelings such as stress and anxiety. The results also show that the teachers are unaware as to how the students feel about being used as a resource since they both operate in opposite fields and prioritize different capitals. Since the students are positively inclined to listen to different religious thoughts and experiences the religious education classrooms would benefit from elements such as guest speakers and study visits. This would create a classroom impacted by representation with a safe climate that would offer the student increased understanding. When this is accomplished the student would be encouraged to speak up in the classroom without the stressful feeling of receiving judgment from classmates.