This volume shows how and why our public schools should prepare to understand and deal with religious diversity in the United States and the world. Defending Religious Diversity in Public Schools: A Practical Guide for Building Our Democracy and Deepening Our Education makes a powerful case for exposing students to the multiplicity of faiths practiced in the United States and around the world—then offers a range of practical solutions for promoting religious understanding and tolerance in the school environment. Nathan Kollar's timely volume centers on the common issues associated with respecting religion in people's lives, including religious identities, the religious rights of students, bullying and other acts of intolerance, and legal perspectives on what should and should not happen in the classroom. It then focuses on the skills teachers, counselors, and administrators need to master to address those issues, including forming an advocacy coalition, listening, cultural analysis, conflict resolution, institutional development, choosing a leader, and keeping up to date with all the latest research developments from both the legal and educational communities.

This volume shows how and why our public schools should prepare to understand and deal with religious diversity in the United States and the world. Defending Religious Diversity in Public Schools: A Practical Guide for Building Our Democracy and Deepening Our Education makes a powerful case for exposing students to the multiplicity of faiths practiced in the United States and around the world--then offers a range of practical solutions for promoting religious understanding and tolerance in the school environment. Nathan Kollar's timely volume centers on the common issues associated with respecting religion in people's lives, including religious identities, the religious rights of students, bullying and other acts of intolerance, and legal perspectives on what should and should not happen in the classroom. It then focuses on the skills teachers, counselors, and administrators need to master to address those issues, including forming an advocacy coalition, listening, cultural analysis, conflict resolution, institutional development, choosing a leader, and keeping up to date with all the latest research developments from both the legal and educational communities.

Although it is often charged with hostility toward religion, First Amendment doctrine in fact treats religion as a distinctive human good. It insists, however, that this good be understood abstractly, without the state taking sides on any theological question. Here, a leading scholar of constitutional law explains the logic of this uniquely American form of neutrality—more religion-centered than liberal theorists propose, and less overtly theistic than conservatives advocate. The First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion is under threat. Growing numbers of critics, including a near-majority of the Supreme Court, seem ready to cast aside the ideal of American religious neutrality. Andrew Koppelman defends that ideal and explains why protecting religion from political manipulation is imperative in an America of growing religious diversity. Understanding American religious neutrality, Koppelman shows, can explain some familiar puzzles. How can Bible reading in public schools be impermissible while legislative sessions begin with prayers, Christmas is an official holiday, and the words “under God” appear in the Pledge of Allegiance? Are faith-based social services, public financing of religious schools, or the teaching of intelligent design constitutional? Combining legal, historical, and philosophical analysis, Koppelman shows how law coherently navigates these conundrums. He explains why laws must have a secular legislative purpose, why old, but not new, ceremonial acknowledgments of religion are permitted, and why it is fair to give religion special treatment.

The fight over the role of religion in public schools is far from finished, and the last and final words have not been written. This collection of original essays reveals and updates the battlefield. Included are essays on school prayer, the evolution/intelligent design debate, public funding of religious groups on university campuses, religious themes in school-taught literature, and more. With diverse tones and points of view, these essays offer quality scholarship while revealing and honoring the heat these themes generate.

Religion is a prominent legal force despite the premise constructed and promoted by Western constitutionalism that it must be separated from the State in democracies. Education constitutes an area of human life that leaves ample scope for the expression of religious identity and shapes the citizens of the future. It is also the place of origin of a considerable number of normative conflicts involving religious identity that arise today in multicultural settings. The book deals with the interplay of law and religion in education through the versatility of religious law and legal pluralism, as well as religion’s possible adaptation and reconciliation with modernity, in order to consider and reflect on normative conflicts. It adopts the angle of the constitutional dimension of religion narrated in a comparative perspective and critically reflects on regulatory attempts by the State and the international community to promote new ways of living together.

Originally published in 1992, the purpose of this book is to provide a means by which teachers of religious education can develop mutual understanding and respect for both for, and between, those of different religions as well as those without religious belief. The book has two main strengths, firstly it is based on discussion with people from different faith communities. This gives the reader an insight into how religion actually works out in practice. Secondly, the teacher is given practical advice for dealing with different issues as they may arise in the classroom.