The Role of Religious Teachings in the Citizenship Education of Students: Explaining the Point of View of Teachers and Education Specialists

The purpose of the present study was to explain the views of elementary teachers and education specialists on the role of religious teachings in the citizenship education of students (2022-2023).  This research was conducted in a qualitative approach using thematic analysis. The participants of the research were elementary school teachers of Marvdasht city and educational experts of Shiraz University, who were selected purposefully (14 primary school teachers and 6 education specialists) using theoretical saturation criteria method. The research tool was semi-structured interview. The method of data analysis was Attride-Stirling's (2001) theme analysis, which led to the identification of the global, organizing and basic themes. The validity of the findings, the method of building an audit trail and matching members was used. The results obtained from the analysis of the interviews include 124 basic themes (enhancement of hope, trustworthiness, confidentiality, avoiding hasty judgments, respect and politeness, preserving the environment, observing the laws of the country, commanding good and forbidding evil, paying attention to the health of the soul. and the body and.....). The six organizing themes of  first dimension including (belief-moral; social-political; economic-professional; aesthetic-cognitive-artistic; biological-physical and scientific-technological) corresponding to the domains of the fundamental transformation document and 18 organizing themes in the second dimension was based on the classification of each domain in three dimensions: cognitive, emotional, and behavioral, and finally, an global theme called religion and citizenship. The results obtained regarding the role of religion in citizenship education indicated a comprehensive and deep view of religious teachings on how to educate citizenship in individual-social dimensions, which should be the attention of experts, teachers, planners and parents.