Revinkel O. Religious education in secondary schools of the new federal states of Germany

The thesis is devoted to the analysis of the formation and development of religious education (RE) in the secondary schools of the new federal states of Germany in years 1981-2012, which takes into account socio-political, organizational and pedagogical assumptions. The research is carried out due to the systematic analysis of the scientific-pedagogical literature, archival materials, periodicals and other German sourcesfor the purpose of investigation of the main stages of formation and development of the Evangelical and Catholic RE in all types of the secondary and high schools in the new federal states of Germany in years 1989-2012. The subject of Religious education (RE) in the German secondary schools drew attention of home researches still in the soviet times: the scientists analyzed the purpose, tasks, and forms of religious education in ideological interpretation and drew the conclusions about RE as a negative phenomenon of the bourgeois pedagogy. After the Reunification of the GDR and FRG in 1991 German experience of religious education mainly drew attention of Russian and Ukrainian scientists on its practical issues-what to teach (content) and methods of teaching (how to teach). Although ever since there was no attempt made in carrying out a complex systematic research of the problem of RE in the Eastern Germany - the former pro-communist territory, where during forty years of the XX century Marxism-Leninism was taught at schools and traditional Christian norms and values were forbidden. Religion, after K. Marks was opium for people. In our investigation we singled out three periods of development of RE in the new federal states of Germany apart from the time of discussion this issue in the eastern German society in 1989-1990 up to the Reunification of both Germanys: 1-st period of the preparation of the theoretical and material foundation for the introduction of the RE in the state secondary schools started immediately after the Agreement about the Unification was signed, e. i.e. October 1991 and lasted till the first year of the experimental introduction of RE in 1993; 2-nd period of experimental teaching RE on the denominational principle - Evangelic RE and Catholic RE - started in August 1993 and lasted till the Federal Conference of Education in 2002, where the first criteria for the evaluation of the students' results in RE were presented; 3-rd period of the standardization of the RE - the highlight point of which is the religious competence - began in August 2002 and goes on till now.