The Christian Council was at the heart of promoting sex education in Ghana in the mid-twentieth century, through its own institutions and through schools. It was responding to perceived and real shifts in Ghanaian society, and the need to control sexuality, as the nation pushed for 'modernity', whilst some worried about the loss of 'tradition'.…

This article argues that in the ongoing effort to promote ubuntu spirit as an instrument for decolonization, the church in Zambia can learn lessons from how Rev Pai Min-soo deployed the indigenous model of samae spirit to construct adult Christian education for Korean rural development. The samae spirit is utilized to underline the necessity for…

Settler archives are situated across the U.S. and housed within institutions such as university campuses. They were invented and placed strategically to help attune the world both to ideal representations of knowledge, understanding, and humanity and to their promises of salvation, progress, and development. In this essay, I argue settler archives…

During the early Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union used adult literacy education to wield influence in "Third World" countries. Frank C. Laubach, the "Apostle of Literacy," wrote prolifically about adult literacy and conducted and advised literacy campaigns in more than 100 countries, yet his work is understudied…

This article describes a seminar I taught on Christianity and colonialism. I wanted to introduce students to some content while also allowing them to practice some of the expert skills that we use in religious studies, and more specifically in my own sub-discipline, the anthropology of religion. In particular, I wanted to make more visible some of…

This is a co-written narrative essay about our lives as religious educators in white-dominant spaces of education and educational structures. This co-narrative expression embodies for us the different ways that People of Color and Women of Color have to function as part of the guild and as part of honoring our vocational commitments to…

In the mid-20th century, as the global colonial order collapsed, language and education were two of the most affectively, politically, and economically challenging domains of decolonization efforts. "Parler Algérien" (Speak Algerian), an experimental method for the teaching and learning of Darija (Algerian vernacular Arabic), created by…

This paper surveys and evaluates the contribution of Jules Isaac to the reorientation of relations between Christians and Jews. Jules Isaac, French educator, historian and bureaucrat committed his life to the repair of relations between Christians and Jews. He played a pivotal role in promoting consideration of Jews and Judaism at the Second…

Student-teachers are exposed to different approaches to teaching Religion Education in South Africa. Amongst these have been the phenomenological-reflective-dialogical approach of Cornelia Roux and the empathetic-reflective-dialogical approach of Janet Jarvis. These different approaches made immeasurable contributions as they started to shift how…

When Lebanon gained its independence from France in 1943, it adopted a system that divided political power along clearly defined sectarian lines. The institutionalized sectarian nature of the country resulted in tensions that led to civil war in 1975. Lebanon quickly disintegrated into a number of irreconcilable cantons and seemed to be destined…

Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the 15th century, informal education existed in Ghana with the goal of introducing young people into the society. The traditions and values of the community, as well as the meaning of life, were taught to the child. By using postcolonial theory as a framework for analysis, it is evident that the Western formal…

This project is a regional case study of higher education institutions, employees, and students in the occupied Palestinian town of Bethlehem. A three-article format, this project employs autoethnography to explore the ways the author's religious community conceived of the holy land; mapping and photo documentation to explore the infrastructures…

Since the beginning of 19th century, England for political reasons tried to make relations with Iran. Englishmen besides political tricks tried to establish their trace in Iran society by cultural permeation. European religious commissions who proceeded in different parts of the world since 19th century, though apparently had religious…

Beginning in the nineteenth century, a plethora of western Christian and secular philanthropies introduced "top-down" philanthropic initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa to promote education and "development". There seems to be a complex link between the agendas of international philanthropies and their home governments' broader…

Education was an instrument in Christian missions' and colonial powers' civilisation projects. At the same time, education was also instrumental in fostering opposition. This article approaches perceptions of education mainly from the perspective of Norwegian Lutheran missionaries in French colonial Madagascar during the 1940s. The focus is on how…