An Education of religion and ethics has been a long-standing element of the school curriculum in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, delivered as a compulsory subject to primary grades 4 and 5 as well as in secondary schools. Numerous issues concerning this practice have been raised by both the national media and the teacher's unions. In the…

The purpose of the present article is twofold: first, to examine whether epistemic switching is documented in the context of religious education; and second, if it is, to show the challenges as well as the strategies that teachers utilise when they engage in epistemic switching. The context of our study is religious education in the Greek-Cypriot…

This article explores the ways in which a group of primary school teachers in Cyprus interprets the relationship between religious and citizenship education. The contextualisation of the meaning of religious education shows the extent to which social, historical and political elements shape teachers' perceptions about the entanglements between…

This article exemplifies the politicisation of religious education that has polarised the Turkish Cypriot community and explores a possible approach to religious education for primary schools in north Cyprus. In the light of the long-standing debate, this study has a particular focus on the mandatory religious instruction in public primary schools…

This paper explores the ways in which a group of primary school teachers in Cyprus interprets religious education and its contribution to peace. In particular, this phenomenological exploratory study: first, examines how teachers perceive religious education and whether this conceptualization is considered to be (in)compatible with peace in the…

This article investigates Greek-Cypriot primary school teachers' challenges to enact critical hermeneutics in religious education (RE) within a confessional context. Critical hermeneutics combines elements from critical and hermeneutical theories, emphasising the importance of grounding the conceptualisation of religious and secular truth-claims…

The dynamic model of educational effectiveness defines school level factors associated with student outcomes. Emphasis is given to the two main aspects of policy, evaluation, and improvement in schools which affect quality of teaching and learning at both the level of teachers and students: a) teaching and b) school learning environment. Five…

We present results of a longitudinal study in which 50 schools, 113 classes and 2,542 Cypriot primary students participated. We tested the validity of the dynamic model of educational effectiveness and especially its assumption that the impact of school factors depends on the current situation of the school and on the type of problems/difficulties…