- Do faith schools have a place in a plural society? - Which types of school contribute most effectively to a plural society? This fascinating monograph seeks to answer these questions and more by exploring the fit between personal, spiritual and academic goals in contemporary educational experience and individual school cultures. Jo Cairns, a well-respected authority on faith schools, argues that educational ideology in plural societies has to find a way of recognizing and responding to the 'predicament' of pluralism as it is experienced by individuals and communities. This provocative and challenging book will undoubtedly stimulate debate among educationists across the world.

First published in 2005, this timely volume challenges those who see faith schools as contributing positively to the well-being of society and responding to parent choice to think through the implications of September 11 for our multi-ethnic and multi-faith society without taking a position on the ultimate necessity of faith schools. The authors conducted research in several faith-based schools representative both of older religious traditions in England and Wales, and of those which have been more recently established. The focus was on state-funded faith-based schools, but a range were visited to provide an overview of issues facing all faith-based schools, as well as those specific to newly funded institutions.

Provides an accessible overview of the debates, issues and practicalities of faith-based education. It sets out the challenges and opportunities of different approaches to faith schools and addresses the choices faced by parents.

A fully updated second edition of this essential look at the continuing tensions between religion and American public schools. Today, the ongoing controversy about the place—or lack of place—of religion in public schools is a burning issue in the United States. Prayer at football games, creationism in the classroom, the teaching of religion and morals, and public funding for private religious schools are just a few of the subjects over which people are skirmishing. In Between Church and State, historian and pastor James W. Fraser shows that these battles have been going on for as long as there have been public schools and argues there has never been any consensus about what the “separation of church and state” means for American society or about the proper relationship between religion and public education. Looking at the difficult question of how private issues of faith can be reconciled with the very public nature of schooling, Fraser’s classic book paints a complex picture of how a multicultural society struggles to take the deep commitments of people of faith into account—including people of many different faiths and no faith. In this fully updated second edition, Fraser tackles the culture wars, adding fresh material on current battles over public funding for private religious schools. He also addresses the development of the long-simmering evolution-creationism debate and explores the tensions surrounding a discussion of religion and the accommodation of an increasingly religiously diverse American student body. Between Church and State includes new scholarship on the role of Roger Williams and William Penn in developing early American conceptions of religious liberty. It traces the modern expansion of Catholic parochial schools and closely examines the passage of the First Amendment, changes in American Indian tribal education, the place of religion in Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois’s debates about African American schooling, and the rapid growth of Jewish day schools among a community previously known for its deep commitment to secular public education.

This is a time of far-reaching change and debate in American education and social policy, spurred in part by a rediscovery that civil-society institutions are often better than government at meeting human needs. As Charles Glenn shows in this book, faith-based schools and social agencies have been particularly effective, especially in meeting the needs of the most vulnerable. However, many oppose providing public funds for religious institutions, either on the grounds that it would threaten the constitutional separation of church and state or from concern it might dilute or secularize the distinctive character of the institutions themselves. Glenn tackles these arguments head on. He builds a uniquely comprehensive and persuasive case for faith-based organizations playing a far more active role in American schools and social agencies. And, most importantly, he shows that they could do so both while receiving public funds and while striking a workable balance between accountability and autonomy. Glenn is ideally placed to make this argument. A leading expert on international education policies, he was for many years the director of urban education and civil rights for the Massachusetts Department of Education, and also serves as an Associate Minister of inner-city churches in Boston. Glenn draws on all his varied experience here as he reviews the policies and practices of governments in the United States and Europe as they have worked with faith-based schools and also with such social agencies as the Salvation Army and Teen Challenge. He seeks to answer key theoretical and practical questions: Why should government make greater use of faith-based providers? How could they do so without violating First Amendment limits? What working relationships protect the goals and standards both of government and of the organizations that the government funds? Glenn shows that, with appropriate forms of accountability and a strong commitment to a distinctive vision of service, faith-based organizations can collaborate safely with government, to their mutual benefit and that of those they serve. This is a major contribution to one of the most important topics in political and social debate today.

It isn’t just in recent arguments over the teaching of intelligent design or reciting the pledge of allegiance that religion and education have butted heads: since their beginnings nearly two centuries ago, public schools have been embroiled in heated controversies over religion’s place in the education system of a pluralistic nation. In this book, Benjamin Justice and Colin Macleod take up this rich and significant history of conflict with renewed clarity and astonishing breadth. Moving from the American Revolution to the present—from the common schools of the nineteenth century to the charter schools of the twenty-first—they offer one of the most comprehensive assessments of religion and education in America that has ever been published. From Bible readings and school prayer to teaching evolution and cultivating religious tolerance, Justice and Macleod consider the key issues and colorful characters that have shaped the way American schools have attempted to negotiate religious pluralism in a politically legitimate fashion. While schools and educational policies have not always advanced tolerance and understanding, Justice and Macleod point to the many efforts Americans have made to find a place for religion in public schools that both acknowledges the importance of faith to so many citizens and respects democratic ideals that insist upon a reasonable separation of church and state. Finally, they apply the lessons of history and political philosophy to an analysis of three critical areas of religious controversy in public education today: student-led religious observances in extracurricular activities, the tensions between freedom of expression and the need for inclusive environments, and the shift from democratic control of schools to loosely regulated charter and voucher programs. Altogether Justice and Macleod show how the interpretation of educational history through the lens of contemporary democratic theory offers both a richer understanding of past disputes and new ways of addressing contemporary challenges.

The questions raised by government support for faith-based schools are now proving to be increasingly relevant and contentious. In one form or another they have a long history and are embedded in classical disagreements about the proper relationship between State and Church, or between secular power and religious freedom. They have been given a sharper edge by recent events, and by the emphasis laid by some governments on the importance of increasing public support for schools attached to different denominations and religions. Is it appropriate in a pluralist society to support some forms of religious expression and not others? What are the basic reasons for mingling (or indeed refusing to mingle) political and religious issues? What are the larger social effects of encouraging separate schooling for distinct sectors of society? These are among the questions raised and illuminated by this case study – historical and comparative in character – of the developing relationship between the State and the Catholic communities in three very different societies.