10ISSN: 2181-1385 ISI: 0,967 | Cite-Factor: 0,89 | SIS: 1,9 | ASI: 1,3 | SJIF: 5,771 | UIF: 6,1
FORMATION, CHANGE AND STABILIZATION OF ATTITUDE IN
RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
One of the main concerns of education in many country has always been the creation and shaping of religious beliefs and behaviors. For this reason, since the beginning of the establishment of the country's education system, religious education has always been a large part of the budget and efforts of those involved in this system. At the same time, reviewing the historical flow and observing the current state of the country shows that the more efforts in this field, the less positive results have been brought. Therefore, naturally, an important question can be asked in this connection, what is the reason for the failure of all these efforts and why our education and higher education system have not been very successful in this field?
The present article aims to answer these questions and has tried to answer the said question within the capacity of one article by reviewing the works and results of the research conducted on religious education.
What has been obtained from this study and review is that one of the factors of this failure is not paying attention to the foundations that determine human behavior and psychological characteristics. Human behavior and psychological characteristics are usually influenced by attitudes that are formed in the form of mental characteristics resulting from life experiences and are manifested in daily interactions. This formation often occurs outside of people's control, and they are influenced by factors that are often outside of human control. Therefore, after discussing the basic issues of human behavior and attitudes, it is recommended that for the success of religious education, attention should be paid to the effective foundations of the formation, change and stabilization of religious attitudes, and instead of blaming the teachers and students, the problems should be He searched in the education system itself.
Keywords: attitude, religious attitude, education, religious
Mohammad Zaher Fahimi
Assistant Professors at Kabul Education University
Subhanullah Mohammadi
Assistant Professors at Kabul Education University
ABSTRACT
teachings
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ISSN: 2181-1385 ISI: 0,967 | Cite-Factor: 0,89 | SIS: 1,9 | ASI: 1,3 | SJIF: 5,771 | UIF: 6,1
INTRODUCTION
One of the major issues that has always been raised in our educational system and in the Islamic world has been the formation and stabilization of religious attitudes in teachers and students. For the importance of this issue, it is enough to know that since the beginning of the establishment of the public education system in Afghanistan, almost a quarter of the costs and material and spiritual capacity of this system has been devoted to religious education and a major share of the country's budget has been directed to this field. has been However, contrary to expectations, what has been obtained from all these expenses has often been the opposite of the intentions and intentions of the people involved and public opinion, or at least it has not resulted in any significant benefits.
In this situation, people express different and sometimes conflicting views. Some blame the teachers, some blame the teachers and coaches, some blame the families, some blame the educational system, some blame the society and the media, and some blame other factors.
But the situation does not change and the conditions remain the same. Therefore, this question weighs on the minds of experts in social, cultural and educational affairs as always, why the huge expenses and extensive efforts in the field of religious education are not fruitful and the teachers and students, as they should, In terms of beliefs, they don't need strength?
It seems that there is no expert approach to the subject in our educational system, the officials of the system and even the public opinion have shown loyalty to the traditional approaches by simplifying the subject and referring the problems of religious education mainly to the teachers, students and their families. they give
The present article is based on the premise that the problems of religious education and training of teachers and students come from neglecting educational foundations, one of which is the concept and mechanism of attitude formation, change and stabilization. In this article, an attempt has been made to explain this concept and its mechanism as one of the most effective topics in the process of religious education.
The concept and factors of attitude formation
Attitude is one of the familiar concepts and words that all people are familiar with. But in psychological literature, this term is a combination of beliefs and emotions that prepare a person in advance to look at others, objects and groups in a positive or negative way. Attitudes summarize the evaluation of objects and as a result predict or guide future actions or behaviors
(Hilgard and Atkinson, 2011).
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According to Patricia Niles, one of the contemporary psychologists, this combination is formed under the influence of three factors: individual experiences, social environment and the interaction of human emotions with the environment (Niles 1982). From the point of view of the second factor, although it is more effective than the other two factors, the role of the other two factors is also significant and it is enough that they can be placed next to the second factor.
However, according to David Kerch and Richard Crutchfield, two American psychologists who have conducted relatively more complete research in this field and achieved more comprehensive results, the attitude is influenced by four factors. These four factors are: needs, concentration of experience, belonging to a group and personality type of people. (Kerch, 1948)
The needs the needs or how to provide them is a factor that can affect the attitude of a person towards all those things that are related to it. In every stage of his daily life, man has needs to survive and live, which he tries to provide with the means and facilities available to him. Naturally, in the course of this work, a series of obstacles and problems are usually placed on his way, and a series of background and helping issues are found for him. Objects and things that help to meet the needs of a person and satisfy his needs attract a positive attitude of a person towards him, and objects and things that block his way to reach his goal and prevent him attract a negative attitude. Therefore, the needs and how to meet them is a factor that can create an attitude in a person towards something, a subject or a person and people. These needs can be material needs such as the need for food, clothing, shelter and the like, and they can be spiritual and psychological needs such as the need for social approval, the need to be noticed by others, the need to be respected or even calm. To remember and the like.
Density of experience. The density of experience or cognitive experiences is all the information that a person acquires about a particular object, subject or person throughout life. This information and knowledge, their form and content, which is condensed and formed for a person during his lifetime, is another factor that can shape a person's attitude towards that thing (Niles, 1980). Therefore, people's informational and cognitive resources play an important and effective role in forming people's attitudes, because these sources, whatever information they give to people, will also affect people's attitudes towards that information. For this reason, mass and group media, which today play a decisive role in shaping the cognitive experiences of the society and their information and information is obtained
through them, are of special importance and sensitivity.
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In addition to the media, families, schools, colleges, books, clubs and all the environment with which a person is in contact has an important and determining role in the formation of a person's attitude. Because these centers and environments are the main sources of information and human information about other matters and issues. A person knows things and subjects and people through family members, especially parents, school principals, university professors, books, fellow students, classmates, and the like.
Group belonging the way the group is defined in sociology, the group is: Afra collection
Personality. In psychology, a difference is made between personality traits and attitude (Eysen, 1374, p. 23) and therefore they are different from each other, but the noteworthy point is that the personality traits of people are one of the factors that have a great impact on how attitudes are formed. . This is why there are differences between individuals and members of a group despite having a kind of general harmony in attitudes. These differences are due to the personality traits that exist among the people of this group, because each person has attitudes that are compatible with his specific personality traits and pattern. For example, "authoritarian personality, which is associated with characteristics such as intellectual stagnation, extreme prejudice, lack of forgiveness towards others' mistakes, racism, and the like, and is embodied in individuals and groups of neo-Nazis, also brings forth specific attitudes from which These are: hatred towards non-white races, opposition to the presence of foreigners or immigrants and refugees in one's country, support for dictatorial and violent systems, violence against opponents" (Kirimi, 2008) and the like.
A point that can be made in this context based on what Kerch and his colleagues have said and has been quoted in many sources are the factors that are effective in the process of formation and formation of people's attitudes based on their research. It seems that although these four elements act as direct factors forming attitude, but if we consider the indirect factors and at the same time the root of attitude, then it can be said that the process of attitude formation is generally subject to the educational process and It is learning. That is, hereditary and environmental factors and backgrounds that are effective in people's personality and learning can also be effective in forming people's attitudes. Because these are the factors that make a person's personality to be formed, and what groups he joins and how he is influenced by his group, how he fulfills his needs or how his needs are fulfilled, and also what knowledge he has towards phenomena and surrounding environment.
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In any case, if we are to consider the direct factors of attitude formation and act based on the same, it should be said that a person's attitude towards religion will be positive if:
First. The physical and spiritual needs of people or in other words their material and spiritual needs should be recognized and followed by religion and its orders in order to satisfy those needs. It means that people find out what their needs are in life? What is the priority and importance of these needs? What things can satisfy them? And what role does religion play in this context?
Therefore, if religion is presented in such a way that people feel that it is an obstacle to fulfilling their material and spiritual needs, then they will have a negative attitude towards it. Of course, how these needs should be explained and how people should pay attention to them, and whether these needs are balanced in people or whether their balance has been disturbed due to various factors, especially advertisements and external stimuli (mostly (people are like that) is another thing, but our assumption is that people are in a balanced state in terms of feeling their needs and there are no extremes in this field. In this case, in the first step, people's needs should be known and introduced to them, and in the second step, religion should be introduced in such a way that people can find their needs fulfilled in it. If people's needs reach the stage where they try to satisfy them, then anything that prevents them from satisfying them will belong to a negative attitude. For this reason, it seems that one of the things that needs to be done in order to provide the basis for the formation of a positive attitude towards religion is to create conditions in which the spiritual and real needs of human beings are more diverse and people meet their own spiritual needs. feel and try to fix it.
Second. Favorable and positive information and information about religion should be presented in such a way that people will recognize religion as acceptable, acceptable and welcome as a result of this information. Therefore, the information and cognitive sources of people, i.e. family members, teachers, media and especially radio and television, have a serious role and importance. Knowledge and information that make religion seem illogical, unreasonable and unacceptable, whether it is presented in favor of religion or even in appearance against religion, can change people's attitude towards Religion, education and its rulings have a negative shape. Therefore, irrational and unreasonable defense of religion is very harmful for a positive attitude towards religion.
Third. Try to expand groups with religious and religious
values, norms and norms among the existing groups.
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Fourth. People should be brought in such a way that they do not have anti-religious personality. It means that people should come in such a way that they can easily adapt to religious teachings and teachings.
Of course, this question can be raised whether we have an anti-religious personality or not, which means that the personality of people is formed in such a way that they cannot come to terms with religion at all and are personally averse to religion and anti-religion? But what is certain in this context is that some of the factors that are undoubtedly important and effective factors in the formation of people's personality have been the concern of the elders of Islam. Therefore, specific orders and orders have been presented in Islam and adherence to them has been emphasized.
Change of attitude
What was mentioned as the effective factors in the formation of attitude was related to the way in which an individual's attitude towards something, subject or object for the first time.
Learning pattern or conditioning
This model was proposed by behavioral psychologists and it is based on the principles of learning explained by them. According to this model, all the attitudes of all people can be changed under one condition, that is, the reinforcing factor for changing the attitude is stronger than the reinforcing factor that maintains the existing attitude, therefore, in all cases, if the factor that strengthens the opposite attitude is stronger If it is a factor that strengthens the existing attitude of people, then the attitude of the changed people will be replaced by the opposite attitude, but if the strengthening factor of the opposite attitude is weak, then the existing attitude will remain strong. Based on this, if we want to change the anti-religious attitude of the people to a favorable religious attitude, we must first identify the factors that have strengthened this anti-religious attitude in the individual and then present a stronger factor to strengthen the religious attitude.
An example of theories or learning model for attitude change is the model of Howland and his colleagues. Howland's model, which is the most famous learning model in attitude change, has several stages that lead to attitude change from the initial stimulus and then to the stage of attention, perception and acceptance.
In Howland's model, a message that seeks to change attitudes depends on three things: those three things are: the characteristics of the messenger, the characteristics of the message itself, the context in which the message is
presented, the medium that conveys the message, and personality
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characteristics. Which is present in the message of the receiver or audience.
Messenger
Regarding the messenger, the most important factor that can be very effective in changing attitudes is his acceptability. It means how acceptable the message is to the audience. In this field, several factors are at work in order to make a messenger acceptable to the audience. These factors include:
a. The appearance of the messenger and whether he is attractive to the audience or not, what clothes he is wearing, what his name is, how he walks, how his hand and face movements are, and... All this. Factors are effective in favoring and accepting a messenger.
b. The expertise and competence that the messenger has to deliver the message. It means that whether the messenger has the necessary scientific competence to present the message or not to influence and is effective in the attitude change process. Maybe the issue of expertise is the most effective factor for the acceptability of the messenger.
J. The importance or not of the messenger for the audience is another factor that has been emphasized in changing the attitude.
d. After all, what is very important in changing the attitude is that they know whether the messenger is trying to deceive them or whether he is really honest in what he says. The reliability or lack of reliability of the messenger is very important in the attitude change process.
Message
There are many factors involved in determining what features the message itself should have in order to be more acceptable and to change the attitude easily. One of the factors that are effective in this field is whether the message is presented unilaterally or bilaterally. The studies that have been carried out have shown that the messages presented in a two-sided manner, that is, in which both the favorable side of the case is considered and mentioned and its arguments are given, and the favorable side of the case is mentioned and its arguments are stated. will be acceptable.
Apart from this, an effective message will create excitement in the audience. In the studies they have conducted, social psychologists have especially emphasized the impact of fear on changing attitudes. In a research conducted by two psychologists, Fischbach and Janis, it was found that the message can be more effective if it is accompanied by a little fear. The two mentioned psychologists combined the message related to oral and dental health with the fear factor and tested it on a number of high school teachers. In this experiment, the factor of fear was graded in three degrees: mild, moderate and severe
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fear and the result of each was recorded separately. In the end, it was found that the message that was accompanied by mild fear had more effects and was more able to influence the attitude of the teachers. Some have said that fear excitement and attitude change have an inverse correlation and if fear increases, the problem of attitude change will also increase, but some other studies have shown that this is not the case and that fear and attitude change have a positive correlation.
The background and space of the message. It means that the message should be presented in such a way that the receiver of the message can easily understand it.
Apart from all these, who are the recipients of the message and what are their personality traits is important in changing the attitude. Among the features of the audience that are more effective than other features in this matter is their intelligence or lack of intelligence. Apart from this factor, self-esteem is another factor that is effective in this matter.
Cognitive patterns
In contrast to the conditioning model, in which more emphasis is placed on changing the attitude unconsciously, in the cognitive model, the focus is on the cognitive process and mental analyzes of humans.
Cognitive models, which are a collection of several models for changing everyone's attitude, are based on the premise that people's attitudes change during a process, and in this process, people own thoughts are very important. Of course, in how this process is done and through which stages, the supporters of this basis have also differed, and for this reason, despite having a basis, many and different views and opinions have been raised by them. Here are some of them
Individual characteristics
Apart from the characteristics of the attitude itself, the characteristics that can exist in a person, including the level of intelligence of a person, are also effective in the stability of the attitude. Of course, the results of the discussion are not very clear about the effect of intelligence and whether being intelligent makes attitudes more changeable or more resistant, but in any case, intelligence is one of the factors that can change the process. It is certain and fixed to influence the attitude. It has been said that being intelligent makes people's attitudes change easily, because intelligent people can quickly understand social issues that are always changing and changing, and require people to take a position in harmony with it and not have a state of intellectual stagnation. Therefore, intelligent people are prone to change their attitudes on their own, and if the factors of change are provided,
they change much more easily.
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On the other hand, this point is also noteworthy that people with low intelligence are more influenced and subordinated to others and are influenced by the propaganda and become the same color as the group (same) than intelligent people who usually base their thoughts and ideas on their own understanding and intellectual results. LT is. Therefore, hyper intelligence causes attitude stability and low intelligence causes attitude instability.
What seems to be the case is that attitude is also important. If the attitude is one of the things that are always changing, then it is possible that more intelligence will cause the attitude to fluctuate more (of course, this assumption is correct if we accept that intelligent people as quickly as possible social issues They understand that he becomes subject to them as quickly as he changes his opinion according to them and does not stand in the position of creation) but if it belongs to the attitude of things that are stable and durable by themselves, like many non-social issues, then there is no reason. To say that intelligent people change their attitude very quickly.
Another characteristic of a person that is effective in the stability of attitude is the courage of a person. Because as it was said, it has been scientifically proven that fear is one of the factors that can help change or at least facilitate its change.
Another feature that is effective in this field is the level of self-esteem or feeling of inferiority. Based on the studies that have been done, it has been found that the feeling of digging in people, especially in men, causes a wavering in the attitude and makes him more flexible to the opinions of others (ibid.).
Social factors
In relation to what is related to the person's presence in the society and his life in relation to others, two things are important in the wavering or attitude of a person. The stability of a person's attitude against change is determined. Attitudes that reflect group values and traditions are more stable, while attitudes that do not have such characteristics are more unstable (ibid.).
In addition to all the factors that have been mentioned as effective factors in attitude stability, there are other factors that have an effect on the wavering or resistance level of attitudes. Among these factors, we can mention extraordinary social conditions. Attitudes in normal conditions are more resistant to change than in extraordinary social conditions. For example, in a war situation in a society caught in a war, the attitudes towards propaganda are more flexible than in a normal situation, for this reason, the existence of a social psychological crisis can provide the basis for the influence of the propaganda of the enemies of a society (ibid.).
Also, another factor that can be effective in resisting attitude based on the research of social psychologists is pre-
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awareness or pre-preparedness. Pre-awareness means that a person becomes aware of the existence of an opposing message before the message itself is communicated. In a research conducted, it has been found that if the audience of a message is justified to a certain extent before its presentation, then after presentation, the attitudes created will be more resistant to opposing arguments became.
Summary and conclusion
It seems that it is not reasonable to expect to achieve desirable educational results without taking into account the effective factors in the formation, change and stabilization of attitudes. What can be obtained from the review of the works and the results of the conducted research is that, firstly, in order to create any favorable religious or non-religious changes in people, he paid attention to the principles and rules governing people's attitudes. Because the behavior of people, whether educated, students, or even other people, appears under the influence of the attitudes formed in them, and sometimes the behavior and way of functioning of people is actually and truly outside of their control. Secondly, the factors influencing the formation, change and stabilization of attitudes are important. People's attitudes are usually formed, changed and stabilized beyond their control. Therefore, if we expect the formation of desirable attitudes and behavior in the course of education and training by simply providing a set of information and information, it seems that this expectation is unrealistic and unrealizable. Therefore, if our children, teenagers and young people do not behave in a religiously desirable way after spending money and spending heavy money over a relatively long period of time and have weak religious attitudes and attitudes, they should not be blamed. Take Instead of these blames, we should reconsider the process and manner of educational measures in which the factors affecting attitude and behavior are less taken into account and reconsider in cases of necessity.
Among the direct factors of attitude formation in general and religious attitude in particular, four factors of physical and mental needs, the attractiveness of religion for students, the formation and expansion of groups with values and norms should be mentioned.
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