Second High School Religion and Life Curriculum; existing Challenges (Analysis of teachers' lived experiences)

The success and effectiveness of the various curricula of the educational system requires the identification of field realities and efforts to solve their problems. One of the most important areas and functions of the educational system in our country is religious education, which is designed to develop students' religious and moral virtues. From this perspective, the main purpose of the present study is to investigate and identify the set of problems in the curriculum of religion and life in secondary school based on the perceptions and lived experiences of the teachers of the course. The general approach of this research is qualitative according to its nature and purpose. The necessary data and information were collected and organized through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 20 teachers of religion and life who were selected by purposive sampling. Data collection was performed according to the theoretical saturation principle. Colaizzi's seven-step method was used to analyze and interpret the information obtained. The results showed that the field of religion and life curriculum in the second secondary school of the country's education system faces two main obstacles: educational problems (school-related issues and educational factors) and non-educational challenges (external realities). These barriers, each of which has its own sub-categories, in practice make the religion and high school life curriculum lack the expected educational and training functions and positive effects on students' religious and moral learning. It is obvious that the use of scientific solutions to solve the mentioned problems can make the country's educational system more efficient in the area of religion and life and also provide students with the desired religious virtues.