Dissertations and theses: exercise for a research identity on Religious Education

It is through the research that occurs with method and reliable sources that an object can be dimensioned effectively, in such a way that researchers in different regions are able to discuss the results of these works. Specifically, in the case of Religious Education, the academic research through dissertations and theses in the Brazilian scenario is recent, an approximate course of forty years in fields such as education, Religious Studies, theology, law, anthropology and sociology. Seeking to establish how this course was built, the Education and Religion Research Group (GPER) has established a program called Conceptions and Resources of Religious Education, with the project Conceptions and Scientific Production of Religious Education, whose objective is to analyze the continuous process of construction of the identity of Religious Education, as a curricular component, from the scientific production on this theme. This article is the result of such a project, aiming to establish the understanding of the methodological choices made to favor the identification of the works on the object. Organized in three nuclei, the research presuppositions, the context and, specifically, the dissertations and theses on Religious Teaching, aims to establish a course to understand the profile, by the methodological bias, even if its verification is absent or incomplete, according to verified by the authors.