Church education workers and baptismal instruction in the Church of Norway
The main research question of this article is how educational workers in the Church of Norway experience their contribution in connection with baptism in their local congregation. The article is based on qualitative research interviews in two dioceses in the Church of Norway, with six educational church workers in six different congregations. They have different titles, partly due to educational background, and two work in city churches, two in suburban churches and two in countryside churches. The theoretical perspectives are taken from the national terms of employment for catechists and the national plan for Christian education, different concepts for knowledge and learning, and how educational workers in the Church of Norway construct identity in relation to church education. Several of the educational workers seldom teach about the content of baptism. In spite of this, they see baptism as important and as the point of departure for all Christian education. Both the national terms of employment for catechists and the national plan for Christian education emphasise that their responsibility is to further baptismal instruction and equip children to live a baptismal life, but it does not seem that all the educational workers interpret this to comprise teaching the content of baptism, which they often delegate to the ministers. Their pedagogy is marked by a focus on practical issues connected to baptism. It seems as they to a little extent connect their identity to work with baptism, maybe because of the long tradition of the minister as responsible for this area. The author calls for more research with a larger number of respondents and challenges the churches to reflect and discuss how to continue a cooperation between ministers and church education workers now that the church education reform is running.
