Original version
Studia Theologica - Nordic Journal of Theology. 2021, 75 (1), 67-78, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0039338X.2021.1914896
Abstract
This article presents reflections over an internship module in the master programme “Leadership, Ethics and Counselling” at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo in the spring of 2020. This newly established master (2019) is equipping groups of students with different religions and worldviews for chaplaincy and leadership. The religiously and culturally plural learning environment that the master is aiming for doesn't just foster understanding of cross-religious and cross-cultural situations and contexts. It also has ambitions of shaping and altering the learning perspectives in professional chaplaincy training towards acknowledging the importance of co-formation, not just formation, in order to emphasize the meaning of relationships in learning processes and not merely the enhancement of individual knowledge and skill acquirement. This article will reflect on the learning situation of an internship module during the spring of 2020 in the master programme mentioned above, when social – or rather physical – distancing suddenly was the rule among the population due to the covid-19 pandemic. How does one teach and learn the skills necessary for generic chaplaincy, existential care and religiously-/worldview-based leadership while being confined to home? The article draws on practice theory and empirical research from other contexts in order to derive learning outcomes for this particular internship module and establishes crucial questions around internship within academic theology in the Nordic context. The main questions are: What is the educational gain from the pluralily referred to above, and what happens to internship training when the spatial circumstances for professional practice are changed into mandatory physical distancing? The article claims that working on these two questions relates to overarching questions around the place of practice in Nordic academic theology. An implicit question is whether it is possible to view practice as something happening only in a confined space.