In 2002, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in response to the staggering amount of sexual abuse allegations against clergypersons in the Catholic Church. The adoption of this Charter led to the creation and country-wide mandate of The Safe Environment Program and…

As a ministry of the Catholic Church, Catholic schools are charged with educating students' hearts and minds. Multiple standardized academic tests and other student assessments are available for monitoring both student and teacher outcomes in Catholic schools, but fewer measures exist for considering the school's faith-related mission. Although…

This article overviews the contemporary context for teaching Religious Education (RE) in Ireland and profiles changing religious demographics in an increasingly secular context. It presents the findings of a two-year mixed-methods study undertaken in two third-level Catholic colleges in Ireland, investigating four hundred third-level Initial…

This case study explores the perceptions of students regarding their engagement in interreligious learning and teaching in one Australian Catholic Primary School. The study probes the learners' understandings of what interreligious learning and teaching looks like in their context and how it might relate to their understandings of their evolving…

The current study explored the reasons for students' preferences for the teach-first and task-first lesson structures, and whether students' preferences were influenced by their perceptions of the teacher's preference. Students (n=18) from two composite Year 3 and 4 classes (aged 8-10 years) completed a post-lesson drawing task and participated in…

This study set out to explore levels of religious affect (measured by the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity) and personal affect (measured by the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire) among samples of Catholic students in the Republic of Ireland attending fifth- and sixth-year classes (N = 3015) and Catholic students in Northern Ireland…

This paper reports on a two-week Earth Science programme, designed and delivered by the New Zealand Crown Research Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Limited (GNS Science) referred to as the GeoCamp. This initiative has offered 10- to 13-year-old students learning experiences outside the classroom in several regions throughout New…

This article explores adolescents' and teachers' interpretations of shared education through interviews with participating teachers and pupils in one school partnership in Northern Ireland. As an initiative explicitly designed to bring pupils from Catholic and majority Protestant schools together, shared education offers potential for building…

There is evidence that student attitudes towards mathematics become more negative as students move through their schooling. However, less is known about the different factors that shape student attitudes at various stages. This qualitative study sought to shed light on this issue and consider how stage of schooling influenced self-perceived…

While there is growing international interest in meditation and mindfulness initiatives in schools, little research has focused on exploring the impact of such practices on students' spirituality. This paper reports data from a mixed method study involving primary school classes engaged in the regular practice of Christian meditation between Years…

This paper investigates the transition experiences of students with intellectual disability, as they move from primary to secondary school in New South Wales, Australia. Employing a multiple case study approach, the authors investigated the transition from the perspective of the students experiencing it. During the study, ten students with mild to…

This article reports on the impact visits to community-based museums in a divided society, Northern Ireland, had on young people's historical, political, and cultural understanding of the commemorated past. It examines the responses of two student groups, one predominantly Protestant and the other Catholic, to two museums, each presenting its own…

It is generally accepted that education has a significant role to play in any society transitioning from conflict to a more peaceful dispensation. Indeed, some have argued that the education system potentially represents the single most effective agent of social change with the capacity to bridge ethnic division in conflict affected countries.…

In the emergence of the existing curriculum--K to 12, where the students are the primary emphasis, the perceptions of the students are important in quality monitoring systems which are crucially needed to enable monitoring and evaluation of these important outcomes, such as the student activities. This study examined the perceptions of students…

In the midst of the debate surrounding the question of whether Australia's National Assessment Program: Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) test is high-stakes, it is evident that children's own accounts of their experiences remain sparse. This paper describes the findings of a case study which documented the experiences of 105 children across two…