Dilemmas surrounding the role for religious beliefs and experiences permeate the school lives of teachers and teacher educators. Inspired by the need for teachers and students to more fully understand such dilemmas, this book examines the relationship between religion and teaching/learning in a democratic society. Written for pre-service and in-service teachers, it will engage readers in thinking about how their own religious backgrounds affect their teaching; how students’ religious backgrounds influence their learning; how common experiences of school and classroom life privilege some religions at the expense of others; and how students can better understand diverse religious beliefs and interact with people from other backgrounds. The focus is specifically on classroom issues related to religious understandings and experiences of teachers and students, and the implications of those for developing democratic citizens. Grounded in both research and personal experience, each chapter provides thought-provoking evidence related to the role of religion in schools and society and asks readers to consider the consequences of varied ways of responding to the dilemmas posed.

DIVPublic schools can play a role in promoting respect for religious differences/div

This innovative volume is focused on the impact of religion on the realization of democratic citizenship. The researchers contributing provide empirical evidence on how religion influences attitudes towards citizenship and democracy in different countries. The book also tackles the challenges and opportunities for citizenship education. Experts contributing from sociology, political science, theology, and educational science look at the impact of religious beliefs and practices on democratic attitudes and behavior. Chapters also concern how religion influences the recognition of others as citizens. The text appeals to graduates and researchers in these fields with a secondary market for the general interest reader.

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.

Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy highlights the use of religious identity to fuel the rise of illiberal, nationalist, and populist democracy. In Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy, David Elcott, C. Colt Anderson, Tobias Cremer, and Volker Haarmann present a pragmatic and modernist exploration of how religion engages in the public square. Elcott and his co-authors are concerned about the ways religious identity is being used to foster the exclusion of individuals and communities from citizenship, political representation, and a role in determining public policy. They examine the ways religious identity is weaponized to fuel populist revolts against a political, social, and economic order that values democracy in a global and strikingly diverse world. Included is a history and political analysis of religion, politics, and policies in Europe and the United States that foster this illiberal rebellion. The authors explore what constitutes a constructive religious voice in the political arena, even in nurturing patriotism and democracy, and what undermines and threatens liberal democracies. To lay the groundwork for a religious response, the book offers chapters showing how Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism can nourish liberal democracy. The authors encourage people of faith to promote foundational support for the institutions and values of the democratic enterprise from within their own religious traditions and to stand against the hostility and cruelty that historically have resulted when religious zealotry and state power combine. Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy is intended for readers who value democracy and are concerned about growing threats to it, and especially for people of faith and religious leaders, as well as for scholars of political science, religion, and democracy.

"In this thoughtful and provocative book Philip Barnes challenges religious educators to re-think their field, and proposes a new, post-liberal model of religious education to help them do so. His model both confronts prejudice and intolerance and also allows the voices of different religions to be heard and critically explored. While Education, Religion and Diversity is directed to a British audience the issues it raises and the alternative it proposes are important for those educators in the United States who believe that the public schools have an important role in teaching students about religion." Walter Feinberg, Professor Emeritus of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. "Philip Barnes offers a penetrating and lucid analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of modern religious education in Britain. He considers a range of epistemological and methodological issues and identifies two contrasting models of religious education that have been influential, what he calls a liberal and a postmodern model. After a detailed review and criticism of both, he outlines his own new post-liberal model of religious education, one that is compatible with both confessional and non-confessional forms of religious education, yet takes religious diversity and religious truth claims seriously. Essential reading for all religious educators and those concerned with the role of religion in schools." Bernd Schröder, Professor of Practical Theology and Religious Education, University of Göttingen. "What place, if any, does religious education have in the schools of an increasingly diverse society? This lucid and authoritative book makes an incisive contribution to this crucial debate." Roger Trigg is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Warwick, and Senior Research Fellow, Ian Ramsey Centre, Oxford. The challenge of diversity is central to education in modern liberal, democratic states, and religious education is often the point where these differences become both most acute and where it is believed, of all curriculum subjects, resolutions are most likely to be found. Education, Religion and Diversity identifies and explores the commitments and convictions that have guided post-confessional religious education and concludes controversially that the subject as currently theorised and practised is incapable of challenging religious intolerance and of developing respectful relationships between people from different communities and groups within society. It is argued that despite the rhetoric of success, which religious education is obliged to rehearse in order to perpetuate its status in the curriculum and to ensure political support, a fundamentally new model of religious education is required to meet the challenge of diversity to education and to society. A new framework for religious education is developed which offers the potential for the subject to make a genuine contribution to the creation of a responsible, respectful society. Education, Religion and Diversity is a wide-ranging, provocative exploration of religious education in modern liberal democracies. It is essential reading for those concerned with the role of religion in education and for religious and theological educators who want to think critically about the aims and character of religious education.

Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu examine the relationship between religion and politics in ten former communist Eastern European countries. Contrary to widespread theories of increasing secularization, Stan and Turcescu argue that in most of these countries, the populations have shown themselves to remain religious even as they embrace modernization and democratization. Church-state relations in the new EU member states can be seen in political representation for church leaders, governmental subsidies, registration of religions by the state, and religious instruction in public schools. Stan and Turcescu outline three major models: the Czech church-state separation model, in which religion is private and the government secular; the pluralist model of Hungary, Bulgaria and Latvia, which views society as a group of complementary but autonomous spheres - for example, education, the family, and religion - each of which is worthy of recognition and support from the state; and the dominant religion model that exists in Poland, Romania, Estonia, and Lithuania, in which the government maintains informal ties to the religious majority. Church, State, and Democracy in Expanding Europe offers critical tools for understanding church-state relations in an increasingly modern and democratic Eastern Europe.

. Renewal of Life by Transmission. The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise, it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued action. While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its identity as a living thing. As long as it endures, it struggles to use surrounding energies in its own behalf. It uses light, air, moisture, and the material of soil. To say that it uses them is to say that it turns them into means of its own conservation. As long as it is growing, the energy it expends in thus turning the environment to account is more than compensated for by the return it gets: it grows. Understanding the word "control" in this sense, it may be said that a living being is one that subjugates and controls for its own continued activity the energies that would otherwise use it up. Life is a self-renewing process through action upon the environment.

While the fierce debate over religion in public schools receives ample media attention, we rarely consider the implications of religious schools on moral education and liberal democracy. In this groundbreaking work, Walter Feinberg opens up a critical new dialogue to offer a complete discussion of the important role religious schools play in the formation of a democratic citizenry. Feinberg, a leading philosopher of education, approaches the subject of religious education with a rare evenhandedness, drawing on examples from Christian, Jewish, and Muslim schools and exploring topics as disparate as sex education and creationism. For Goodness Sake provides a much-needed take on a controversial topic, demonstrating that the relationship between religion and schooling is not simply the exclusive concern of members of a given religious community, but a relevant and vital issue for everyone who cares about education.

The National Association for Multicultural Education in Washington, D.C., listed a number of issues that the school curriculum should address with reference to multicultural education, including racism, sexism, classism, linguicism, ablism, ageism, heterosexism, and religious intolerance. It is noteworthy that of all these issues, religion is about the only one that throughout history people are willing to die for, although whether what is at issue is really religion or other things such as territory is another matter. It is also interesting that all the others have isms in their names but religious issues are characterized by intolerance. Perhaps we should try to understand this intolerance and look at what steps might help to alleviate it. However, while intolerance might seem a simple thing, understanding what is behind it and how it plays such a crucial role in religion requires what we refer to in the Introduction chapter as a multifaceted approach at multiple levels. It is not enough just to try to dispel stereotypes of followers of other religions, or to point out commonalities in world religions. We should, for example, try to understand and appreciate how adherents of other religions try to answer questions regarding their adaptation to the contemporary environment. It is through understanding how different religions coexist side by side at various levels that we truly come to learn about religion in multicultural education.