This volume explores numerous themes (including the influence of ethnography on religious education research and pedagogy, the interpretive approach to religious education, the relationship between research and classroom practice in religious education), providing a critique of contemporary religious education and exploring the implications of this critique for initial and continuing teacher education.

This book brings together the latest research in education in relation to science and religion. Leading international scholars and practitioners provide vital insights into the underlying debates and present a range of practical approaches for teaching. Key themes include the origin of the universe, the theory of evolution, the nature of the human person, the nature of science and Artificial Intelligence. These are explored in a range of international contexts. The book provides a valuable resource for teachers, students (...) and researchers in the fields of education, science, religious education and the growing specialist field of science and religion. Science and Religion in Education is a compelling read for current and future generations of academic researchers and teachers who wish to explore the fascinating intersect between science education and religious studies. The research findings and insights presented by these international scholars offer new dimensions on contemporary practice. - Vaille Dawson, Professor of Science Education, University of Western Australia Science and Religion in Education offers a fascinating and diverse collection of chapters surveying the current state of thinking about how science and religion can be understood in education. The book offers a wealth of thought-provoking material for anyone interested in the natures of science and religion, their relationship, or their representation within the curriculum. - Professor Keith Taber, University of Cambridge Science education and religious education are uncomfortable bedfellows. This book, written in part as a response to the – perhaps too clear – accounts of Ian Barbour, provides suitably nuanced pictures of how science and religion are dealt with in schools. Whatever the views of specialists, young people ‘receive’ an education in both science and religion: hearing their voices is refreshing in such a serious academic account. - Julian Stern, Professor of Education and Religion, York St John University Humans have long endeavored to make sense of the world often using science and religion. Yet, these two great traditions are frequently seen as incompatible. This useful volume features thoughtful contributions from experts whose work straddles the divide and provides educators with arguments, engaging strategies and historical perspectives to help build a bridge and allow a fruitful discussion in schools. - William F. McComas, Distinguished Professor of Science Education, University of Arkansas Equal parts critical examination of existing models for the relationship between science and religion, scholarly exposition of newer models, and insights toward practical application in classrooms, this book is an invaluable resource for science and religion educators. If you have been thinking it is time we looked beyond Barbour’s taxonomy, you will want to read this book. If you have not, I implore you to read this book. - Jason Wiles, Associate Professor of Biology and Science Education, Syracuse University. (shrink)

What is the role of religion(s) in a human rights culture and in human rights education? How do human rights and religion relate in the context of public education? And what can religious education at public schools contribute to human rights education? These are the core questions addressed by this book. Stimulating deliberations, illuminating analyses and promising conceptual perspectives are offered by renowned experts from ten countries and diverse academic disciplines.

In Religion in Secular Education Cathy Byrne explores the secular principle as a guiding compass for religions in state schools. Historical and contextual research and international comparisons explore the ideologies, policies, pedagogies and practices affecting national and individual religious identity.

Halafoff, Anna After last week's (20 June) High Court challenge verdict on funding chaplains in schools, religious education is back in the headlines. The role of religion in Australian schools has been vigorously debated for more than a century. Recent events including the landmark High Court case, the pending Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) case outcome in Victoria, the decision to review Special Religious Education programs in NSW, and the move towards a National Curriculum all highlight (...) the need to examine the role of religion in Australia's schools. (shrink)

L’ouvrage soigneusement édité par I. Salvo et T.S. Scheer se penche sur les diverses manières dont religion et éducation entrent en interaction dans la Méditerranée hellénophone. Il propose les actes d’un colloque organisé à Göttingen en 2017, dans le cadre d’un projet financé par la Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Comme il est souvent répété dans les introductions sur le thème, la religion grecque antique ne connaît ni clergé, ni autorité centralisée, ni révélation traduite en un référentie...

The priority task of the state educational policy is the continuous improvement of the quality of education, and at the secondary level - also the improvement of educational methods. In this regard, in recent years, the opinion has been increasingly expressed that one of the conditions for optimizing the educational and upbringing process in school can be the cooperation of secular and confessional institutions in the educational sphere. The question of including a course on religion in the school (...) curriculum leads to the need to determine its alleged educational status and content. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to articulate a new perspective on British multi-faith religious education that both complements and, in part, subsumes existing critiques. My argument, while controversial, is straightforward: it is that British religious education has misrepresented the nature of religion in efforts to commend itself as contributing to the social aims of education, as these are typically framed in liberal democratic societies. Contemporary multi-faith religious education is placed in context and its underlying (...) theological and philosophical commitments identified and criticised. It is concluded that current representations of religion in British religious education are limited in their capacity to challenge racism and religious intolerance, chiefly because they are conceptually ill equipped to develop respect for difference. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to articulate a new perspective on British multi-faith religious education that both complements and, in part, subsumes existing critiques. My argument, while controversial, is straightforward: it is that British religious education has misrepresented the nature of religion in efforts to commend itself as contributing to the social aims of education, as these are typically framed in liberal democratic societies. Contemporary multi-faith religious education is placed in context and its underlying (...) theological and philosophical commitments identified and criticised. It is concluded that current representations of religion in British religious education are limited in their capacity to challenge racism and religious intolerance, chiefly because they are conceptually ill equipped to develop respect for difference. (shrink)

The social impact of robotics applied to domains such as education, religion, nursing, and therapy across the world depends on the level of technology as well as the culture in which it is used. By studying how robots are used in Iran, a technologically-savvy country with a long history and a rich culture, we explore their possible impact on interrelated areas of religious and ethical features in education in an Islamic society. To accomplish this task, a preliminary (...) exploratory study was conducted using two social robots as teaching assistants in Islamic religion classes for 42 elementary students. More than 90% of the participants in the study absolutely preferred the robot-assisted religion class over one taught by a human. Building on the results from the students’ viewpoints and exam scores, the acceptability and potential of using social robots in the education of Islamic religious concepts in Iran are further discussed in this paper. (shrink)

_Issues in Religion and Education, Whose Religion?_ is a contribution to the dynamic and evolving global debates about the role of religion in public education. It provides a cross-section of the debates over religion.

This is the sequel to Logic. A disciplined mind is one of the most conspicuously missing things in our society. This book can help alleviate that malady. The subtitle of this book is, "Communication of useful knowledge in religion, in the sciences, and in common life." This is a lithograph of an 1833 edition printed in London which also contains "A Discourse on the Education of Children and Youth.".

_Religion and Education: The Forgotten Dimensions of Religious Education?_ explores fundamental questions about the role of religion and education in contemporary religious education. Drawing from a range of educational and religious traditions and perspectives, it investigates the future of religious education for all.

R. M. Hare, one of the most widely discussed of today's moral philosophers, here presents his most important essays on religion and education, in which he brings together the theoretical and the practical. The main themes of the book are the relations between religion and morality and the question how children can be educated to think for themselves, freely but rationally, about moral questions.

Dealing with conflicts seems to be a great challenge in society today. But not only in society. Higher education displays an air of resoluteness with certainty and security that disguises the conflicts and the fear of conflicts in a substantial number of subjects. If not in a state of denial, higher education avoids taking up conflicts over issues, for learning. The detailed investigation of Tagore’s pedagogical writings, with a focus on the importance of conflicts in education, reveals (...) a genuine embrace of conflicts for education. Conflicts are natural and necessary for the development and change of both the individual and society and the start of a ‘creative imagination’ to solve the problems we face in life. Contradictions in conflicts are not incompatible incongruities that are irreconcilable and mutually exclusive, but to the contrary, in need of each other. Contradictions do not represent different worlds but are substantial parts of one world: together they form a unity. Conflicting forces are necessary to create harmony. Creativity, imagination, love, art, and critical encounters are key elements in Tagore’s practical education aimed at finding similarities among people instead of emphasizing differences. Relations between people over the Identity of people. In other words, we need conflicts to become creative and imaginative human beings. The paper continues discussing conceptual and practical issues that seem necessary to get the teaching of conflicts in education off the ground. On the conceptual level, in particular our dealing with uncertainty and fear, the valuation of conflict and the need for uncertainty-researching education. On a practical level, I propose a certain teaching model, a supportive curriculum, a way of choosing genuine conflicts for education and finally, I argue for specific support and education of teachers, acknowledging the vital role teachers play in delivering the education that we need. (shrink)

Inequity in Education represents the latest scholarship investigating issues of race, class, ethnicity, religion, gender, and national identity formation that influenced education in America throughout its history. This exciting collection of cutting-edge essays and primary source documents represents a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives that will appeal to both social and cultural historians as well as those who teach education courses, including introductory surveys and foundations courses.

A persistent sociological thesis posits that the spread of formal education causes an inevitable decline in religion as a social institution and diminishes adherence to religious beliefs in postindustrial society. Now that worldwide advanced education is a central agent in developing and disseminating Western rationality emphasizing science as the ultimate truth claim about a humanly constructed society and the natural world this seems an ever more relevant thesis. Yet in the face of a robust “education revolution,” (...) religion and spirituality endure, and in certain respects thrive, thus creating a sociological paradox: How can both expanding education and mass religion coexist? The solution proposed here is that instead of educational development setting the conditions for the decline and eventual death of religion, the two institutions have been, and continue to be, more compatible and even surprisingly symbiotic than is often assumed. This contributes to a culture of mass education and mass religion that is unique in the history of human society, exemplified by the heavily educated and churched United States. After a brief review of the empirical trends behind the paradox, a new confluence of streams of research on compatible worldviews, overlapping ideologies, and their enactments in educational and religious social movements illustrates the plausibility of an affinity argument and its impact on theory about post-secular society. (shrink)

This article addresses what appears to be a retrenchment into narrower forms of identification and an increased suspicion of difference in the context of educational policy in the UK – especially in relation to ‘Religious Education’. The adoption of standardized management protocols – ‘managerialism’ – across most if not all policy contexts including public educational spaces reduces spaces for encountering or addressing genuine difference and for discovering something new and creative. A theory of the ‘feminization of religion’ associated (...) historically with Barbara Welter, provides some useful insights as to why this might be, suggesting that those in British society who would prefer to see greater separation from ‘religion’ in ‘secular’ schools may well also be caught up in forms of gender stereotyping. (shrink)

Many think that the aim of Hume’s Dialogues is simply to discredit the design argument for the existence of an intelligent designer. We think instead that the Dialogues provides a model of true religion. We argue that, for Hume, the truly religious person: believes that an intelligent designer created and imposed order on the universe; grounds this belief in an irregular argument rooted in a certain kind of experience, for example, in the experience of anatomizing complex natural systems such (...) as the eye; and retains this belief, on the basis of these reasons, even after careful scrutiny. We argue that two of the Dialogues’s characters, Philo and Cleanthes, exhibit true religion. A third character, Demea, exhibits false religion and a persistent impiety. Taken as a whole, we see the Dialogues as an educational performance for the benefit of Pamphilus, Cleanthes’s ward, as well as for the benefit of readers of the Dialogues. Specifically, we think, given that its lessons concern theology and the principles of religion, the dynamics of the Dialogues’s discussion and the interplay between its characters can be seen as a demonstration of a method for becoming truly religious. (shrink)

On 29 July 2017, an international colloquium entitled ‘Re-Imagining Curricula for a Just University in a Vibrant Democracy – Carrying the Conversation Forward’ was held at the Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa. A wide range of scholars from African and non-African countries provided variegated perspectives on how tertiary theological and religious education could contribute positively to the development of contemporary societies – African and non-African. This article focuses on the colloquium’s African contributors by means of (...) the concept of ecodomy, envisaged as a constructive process. Whilst the attending academics came from Europe, the USA, South Africa and Ghana, this article takes into consideration only the contributions provided by African scholars. The purpose of this selection is to identify ecodomic or constructive ways to argue in favour of university education in the fields of theology and religion which share the potential to be applied across the whole African continent. Bearing in mind that Africa has been dealing with decolonisation awhile, these African contributions investigate issues such as contextualisation, science, practice, illumination and holism from the governing principle of decolonisation, which is also the overarching societal umbrella for academic development in Africa. This study concludes with an assessment and a proposal written from an exclusively South African vantage point which demonstrates the viability of tertiary theological and religious education for the ongoing ecodomic development of African societies. (shrink)

Murphy, Elysia Government funds should not be used to endorse religion in state schools. The presence of chaplains and scripture teachers in public schools diminishes the secularity of the state school system. Given the plethora of faith-based schools for families seeking a religious education, it is not unreasonable for non-religious families to expect a secular education from the government sector.

This article explores the question of whether it is morally permissible for the liberal state to require schools to teach religions “neutrally” to children. I examine this question through the normative analysis of Canadian Supreme Court case Loyola High School v. Quebec. I argue that it is in principle morally impermissible for the liberal state to oblige all schools to adopt a neutral approach to teaching children about religious diversity. I propose a normative framework for evaluating the legitimacy of such (...) an imposition and identify a strategy in support of accommodating schools like Loyola that does not appeal to the existence of a strong parental right to control their children’s education. (shrink)

One of the most important discourses in contemporary religious studies is the definition of the essence and role of religious education and the problem of its coexistence with the secular. On this occasion in the circle of researchers there are diverse, sometimes opposite, points of view. The following headings of the reception of expediency of the implementation of religious education are as follows: 1) the emphasis on the current legislation on the separation of church from the state, in (...) particular the laws of Ukraine "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations" and "On Education"; 2) comparison of foreign experience in implementation of the implementation of religious education in the practice of social life, comparative analysis of the positions of supporters and opponents of religious education; 3) outline the problems of religious and spiritual education in the context of the formation of state-church relations, the complexity of incorporation of the religious component into the system of secular education, their demarcation; 4) the relevance of the distinction and delineation of religious and religious studies, the specificity of their functional orientation. (shrink)

John Locke's theory of toleration is generally seen as advocating the privatization of religion. This interpretation has become conventional wisdom: secularization is widely understood as entailing the privatization of religion, and the separation of religion from power. This book turns that conventional wisdom on its head and argues that Locke secularizes religion, that is, makes it worldly, public, and political. In the name of diverse citizenship, Locke reconstructs religion as persuasion, speech, and fashion. He insists (...) on a consensus that human rights are sacred insofar as humans are the creatures, and thus, the property of God. Drawing on a range of sources beyond Locke's own writings, Pritchard portrays the secular not as religion's separation from power, but rather as its affiliation with subtler, and sometimes insidious, forms of power. As a result, she captures the range of anxieties and conflicts attending religion's secularization: denunciations of promiscuous bodies freed from patriarchal religious and political formations, correlations between secular religion and colonialist education and conversion efforts, and more recently, condemnations of the coercive and injurious force of unrestricted religious speech. (shrink)

In September 2020, relationships and sex education (RSE) became compulsory in all English secondary schools, and relationships education became compulsory in all English primary schools, marking a significant step forward in the fight to establish children's rights. Although the new RSE regime will help to ensure that many English schools provide pupils with a far more comprehensive RSE curriculum than ever before, the statutory guidance underpinning it includes a number of caveats that mean, although the subject is compulsory, (...) not all children will receive the same content. Arguably, along with the right to withdraw (which is often exercised on religious grounds), the most insidious of these ‘carve-outs’ allows faith schools to teach RSE according to their ‘distinctive religious character’. This exemption has been used to defend the use of religious RSE resources that critics maintain are misogynistic, homophobic and often draw heavily on pseudoscience, as well as to justify leaving certain topics (such as same-sex relationships or trans rights) out of classroom discussion altogether. Drawing on empirically informed normative case studies and recent reforms to the curriculum in Wales, I argue that faith-based carve-outs to RSE policy imperil children's access to a distinct package of educational goods. Using a recent framework for educational decision-making based on these goods developed by Brighouse et al. I go on to conclude that such policies are politically and morally unjustifiable (at least if one agrees that the relevant package of goods is desirable). I further maintain that, even when considered from the perspective of human rights law—which is often given as a pragmatic reason to allow more permissive policies with respect to teaching topics that may impinge upon parents’ deeply held convictions—there are no necessary grounds for governments to legislate for the subject to be circumscribed by the religious beliefs of parents or the faith ethos of the schools children attend. (shrink)

As a starting point this paper takes Dewey’s nowadays often stressed modernity and examines his social philosophy against the background of the current debates on republicanism and communitarianism. Particularly, the anaysis of Dewey’sThe Public and its Problem concludes that the attention being paid to Dewey is problematic as specific religious assumptions — explicitly developed inA Common Faith -lie in the background of his social philosophy, and are hardly being recognized. However, as it shall be shown, without considering the religious basis, (...) neither Dewey’s social philosophy nor his educational theory can be properly understood. (shrink)

The state of the debate surrounding issues on science and religion in Latin America is mostly unknown, both to regional and extra-regional scholars. This article presents and reviews in some detail the developments since 2000, when the first symposium on science and religion was held in Mexico, up to the present. I briefly introduce some features of Latin American academia and higher education institutions, as well as some trends in the public reception of these debates and atheist (...) engagement with it in Mexico and Argentina. The primary conclusion of this article is that, even though the discussion is new to Latin American academic circles, it is gaining traction and will certainly grow in the coming years. (shrink)