A collection of articles which look at the future development of religious education in the light of the 1988 Education Reform Act and at how religious education should now develop in schools. It contains practical guidance for meetings and workshops and questions to stimulate further discussion.

A collection of articles which look at the future development of religious education in the light of the 1988 Education Reform Act and at how religious education should now develop in schools. It contains practical guidance for meetings and workshops and questions to stimulate further discussion.

This book explores the meaning and identity of religious education within the cultural context of today.

From being on the margins of scholarly debate for much of the past century and a half, religion is being recognized once again as an area of concern for scholars, politicians, and public policy makers, and thus, the role of religious and spiritual education has taken on a new importance. Apart from its socio-political ramifications, the place of religiousness and spirituality in the make-up of individuals has been given renewed prominence through updated brain science, and neuroscientists regularly refer to elements of this brain science in terms such as spiritual intelligence and even mystical consciousness. This book explores many of the new directions being taken in the field of religious and spiritual education, as new developments challenge the priorities of formal education, and open up new avenues for incorporating religion and spirituality into the modern curriculum. It asks whether the educational aims of teachers should be focused on specifically personal development, or whether religious education should be used to develop understanding of more global and social issues such as citizenship, conflict, and ethics. The book also addresses neuroscientific insights, which suggest a need to engage with cognition and emotion in order to create a rich learning environment, something to which a particularly contested subject area like religion and spirituality is well-placed to contribute. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Beliefs & Values.

"It's widely acknowledged that American parents from different class backgrounds take different approaches to raising their children. Upper and middle-class parents invest considerable time facilitating their children's activities, while working class and poor families take a more hands-off approach. These different strategies influence how children approach school. But missing from the discussion is the fact that millions of parents on both sides of the class divide are raising their children to listen to God. What impact does a religious upbringing have on their academic trajectories? Drawing on 10 years of survey data with over 3,000 teenagers and over 200 interviews, God, Grades, and Graduation (GGG) offers a revealing and at times surprising account of how teenagers' religious upbringing influences their educational pathways from high school to college. GGG introduces readers to a childrearing logic that cuts across social class groups and accounts for Americans' deep relationship with God: religious restraint. This book takes us inside the lives of these teenagers to discover why they achieve higher grades than their peers, why they are more likely to graduate from college, and why boys from lower middle-class families particularly benefit from religious restraint. But readers also learn how for middle-upper class kids--and for girls especially--religious restraint recalibrates their academic ambitions after graduation, leading them to question the value of attending a selective college despite their stellar grades in high school. By illuminating the far-reaching effects of the childrearing logic of religious restraint, GGG offers a compelling new narrative about the role of religion in academic outcomes and educational inequality"--

In the current climate, and in an age of increasing hostility towards religion and the study of religion, religious education is a much-debated area. Bringing together an interdisciplinary team of contributors from the USA, Britain and Ireland, and Australia, representing a variety of religious perspectives, Does Religious Education Matter? provocatively demonstrates that it is vital that religious education is presented as it ’really’ is: a valuable and rich resource that, when taught and engaged with appropriately, stimulates essential qualities for global and responsible citizenship: critical thinking, tolerance, respect, and mutual understanding.

Learning to Teach Religious Education in the Secondary School provides insights from current educational theory and the best contemporary classroom teaching and learning, and suggests tasks, activities and further reading that are designed to enhance the quality of initial school experience for the student teacher. Key themes addressed include: the place of Religious Education in the curriculum state and faith community schooling developing schemes of work language and religious literacy teaching religion at 16 plus religion and moral education collective worship. This second edition has been thoroughly updated throughout to take account of changes to policy and the curriculum. It includes two additional chapters on ‘Religious Education and Citizenship’ and ‘Teaching Religious Education at A level’, as well as new versions of three original chapters ‘Teaching Children with Special Educational Needs’, ‘Religious Education and Moral Education’ and ‘Resources for Religious Education’. Supporting teachers in developing levels of religious and theological literacy, both of individual pupils and the society as a whole, this comprehensive and accessible text will give practising teachers and students an introduction to the craft of teaching Religious Education in the secondary school.