Law, Education, and the Place of Religion in Public Schools


Book Description

This text presents a comparative, cross-cultural analysis of the legal status of religion in public education in eighteen different nations while offering recommendations for the future improvement of religious education in public schools. Offering rich, analytical insights from a range of renowned scholars with expertise in law, education, and religion, this volume provides detailed consideration of legal complexities impacting the place of religion and religious education in public education. The volume pays attention to issues of national and international relevance including the separation of the church and state; public funding of religious education; the accommodation of students’ devotional needs; and compulsory religious education. The volume thus highlights the increasingly complex interplay of religion, law, and education in diverse educational settings and cultures across developing and developed nations. Providing a valuable contribution to the field of religious secondary education research, this volume will be of interest to researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in religion and law, international and comparative education, and those involved with educational policy at all levels. Those more broadly interested in moral and values education will also benefit from the discussions the book contains.




Handbook on Comparative and International Studies in Education


Book Description

This Handbook is a comprehensive reference book for libraries, scholars, and comparative and international studies researchers. It contains 33 chapters on all major educational topics, including research using all qualitative and quantitative methodologies, with research from 23 countries and all inhabited continents. Here you as a scholar will find research from countries not usually known for published educational schooling topics. The globalization of educational research has not typically kept pace with the globalization of economies or communication technologies. This Handbook includes expanded research capabilities from both developed and less developed countries throughout the world.




Law, Education, and the Place of Religion in Public Schools


Book Description

This text presents a comparative, cross-cultural analysis of the legal status of religion in public education in eighteen different nations while offering recommendations for the future improvement of religious education in public schools. Offering rich, analytical insights from a range of renowned scholars with expertise in law, education, and religion, this volume provides detailed consideration of legal complexities impacting the place of religion and religious education in public education. The volume pays attention to issues of national and international relevance including the separation of the church and state; public funding of religious education; the accommodation of students’ devotional needs; and compulsory religious education. The volume thus highlights the increasingly complex interplay of religion, law, and education in diverse educational settings and cultures across developing and developed nations. Providing a valuable contribution to the field of religious secondary education research, this volume will be of interest to researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in religion and law, international and comparative education, and those involved with educational policy at all levels. Those more broadly interested in moral and values education will also benefit from the discussions the book contains.







Islamic Religious Education in Europe


Book Description

Against the backdrop of labour migration and the ongoing refugee crisis, the ways in which Islam is taught and engaged with in educational settings has become a major topic of contention in Europe. Recognising the need for academic engagement around the challenges and benefits of effective Islamic Religious Education (IRE), this volume offers a comparative study of curricula, teaching materials, and teacher education in fourteen European countries, and in doing so, explores local, national, and international complexities of contemporary IRE. Considering the ways in which Islam is taught and represented in state schools, public Islamic schools, and non-confessional classes, Part One of this volume includes chapters which survey the varying degrees to which fourteen European States have adopted IRE into curricula, and considers the impacts of varied teaching models on Muslim populations. Moving beyond individual countries’ approaches to IRE, chapters in Part Two offer multi-disciplinary perspectives – from the hermeneutical-critical to the postcolonial – to address challenges posed by religious teachings on issues such as feminism, human rights, and citizenship, and the ways these are approached in European settings. Given its multi-faceted approach, this book will be an indispensable resource for postgraduate students, scholars, stakeholders and policymakers working at the intersections of religion, education and policy on religious education.




Does Religious Education Work?


Book Description

Society for Educational Studies Annual Book Prize winner: 2nd Prize This ground-breaking volume draws upon a rich and variegated range of methodologies to understand more fully the practices, policies and resources available in and to religious education in British schools. The descriptions, explanations and analyses undertaken here draw on an innovative combination of policy work, ethnography, Delphi methods, Actor Network Theory, questionnaires, textual analysis as well as theological and philosophical insight. It traces the evolution of religious education in a post-religious age from the creation of policy to the everyday experiences of teachers and students in the classroom. It begins by analysing the way in which policy has evolved since the 1970s with an examination of the social forces that have shaped curriculum development. It goes on to explore the impact and intentions of a diverse group of stakeholders with sometimes competing accounts of the purposes of religious educations. It then examines the manner in which policy is, or is not, enacted in the classroom. Finally, it explores contradictions and confusions, successes and failures, and the ways in which wider public debates enter the classroom. The book also exposes the challenge religious education teachers have in using the language of religion.




Law, Religious Freedoms and Education in Europe


Book Description

This collection considers how contemporary cultural and religious diversity challenges and redefines national constitutional and legal frameworks and concepts, within the context of education. It offers a critical reflection on the extent and meanings given to religious freedom in education across Europe. The contributions deal primarily with Western Europe although the book also includes a study of the US vibrant debates on Creationism. This volume considers issues such as religious expression, faith schooling and worship in schools, in a multidisciplinary and comparative approach. The book first examines key concepts, before presenting national models of religion and education in Europe and analyzing case studies relating to religious symbols worn at school and to the teaching of religious education. Legal questions are examined in a wider context, in the light of the intentions of state policy and of current national and transnational debates. Controversies on the legal implications of personal and national identities are for example analyzed. From a comparative perspective, the chapters examine the possible converging power of human rights and anti-discrimination discourses and reveal the difficulties and risks involved in seeking to identify the best model for Europe. This topical study of a highly sensitive area of education presents a valuable insight for students, researchers and academics with an interest in cultural and religious diversity, human rights and education.




Religious Tolerance, Education and the Curriculum


Book Description

The creation of a secular education system was one of the great social experiments designed to break down religious intolerance within society. One element of this design was administrative, involving the creation of non-denominational schools, and another element involved a centralised curriculum. In this collection of essays, political philosophers, lawyers, sociologists, theologians and educators explore the role of state schools in promoting tolerance within 21st century multicultural, religiously pluralistic societies. How may different models of liberalism in the secular state have different outcomes in relation to religious tolerance in the education system? Does a state education system have a role in teaching values such as tolerance, and if so, how is this best achieved? How are epistemology and truth connected with tolerance? How does the ideal of a ‘value free’ secular education mask the values that the secular state teaches? The essays are written from both theoretical and practical perspectives and engage with each other directly to address one of the significant issues of our day. This is the fourth volume arising from a series of conferences on the theme of ‘Negotiating the Sacred’. Previous volumes have included /Blasphemy and Sacrilege in a Multicultural Society; Blasphemy and Sacrilege in the Arts; and Medicine, Religion and the Body.




Religion in Secular Education


Book Description

Cathy Byrne presents the secular principle as a guiding compass for religion in government schools in plural democracies. Using in-depth case studies, historical and contextual research from Australia, and comparisons with other developed nations, Religion in Secular Education provides a comprehensive, at times confronting, analysis of the ideologies, policies, pedagogies, and practices for state-school religion. In the context of rising demands for students to develop intercultural competence and interreligious literacy, and alongside increasing Christian evangelism in the public arena, this book highlights risks and implications as education develops religious identity – in individual children and in nation states. Byrne proposes a best practice framework for nations attempting to navigate towards socially inclusive outcomes and critical thinking in religions education policy.