This article proposes to read events of the educational past not as history but as midrash. It juxtaposes an historical account of a watershed experiment in adult education (Franz Rosenzweig's Freie Judisches Lehrhaus) with an ethnographic account of a presently practicing elementary school teacher. These accounts are generically different and…

There are concerns about the quality of religious education teaching in England and a national framework for religious education has been developed to give the subject a firmer basis. This basis comprises knowledge, skills and understanding that involves thinking about and with reasons. Teachers of young children cannot be experts in all subjects.…

Using the pooled 1998-2000 GSS data, this study examines what kinds of parents tend to select non-public schools for their children, a question that is fundamental but lacks direct, adequate answers in the literature. The results of logistic regression analysis show that religion, socio-economic status, age, nativity, number of children and region…

A century ago, Christian missionaries founded Uganda's earliest schools. Many of these schools continue to espouse values inculcation as a stated goal. In this study of 502 Ugandan children completing primary school (P7), students' personal values and their perception of their school's values were measured using adaptations of the Rokeach Values…

Contrasting explanations of Jewish survival form the backdrop to this article. For Jonathan Sacks (1994) the crucial factor has been the role played by Jewish education; indeed, he claims that the demographic threat currently facing Anglo-Jewry is largely the result of the community having neglected the Jewish education of its children over the…

This article discusses the findings of a small-scale study undertaken with a sample of 10 teachers in Catholic schools in New Zealand. Spirituality is recognised as an important dimension of Catholic schools and this study explored the teachers' perspectives of their own understanding of spirituality, of children's spirituality and the influence…

Delegates at the 2003 AULRE conference were asked to consider the features of a "religiate" pupil, that is, what would we expect of pupils leaving school with a good religious education. This prompted a consideration of how far trainee primary teachers on a one-year PGCE programme could be considered "religiate". In the…

The School Standards and Framework Act, 1998, required the Secretary of State to publish an order listing all the foundation and voluntary schools having a religious character and stating "the religion or religious denomination in accordance with whose tenets religious education is, or may be, required to be provided at the school..."…

This article assesses David Ng's contribution to religious education with children. Ng offered practical strategies for full inclusion of children in faith communities. One limitation in Ng's work on children is its lack of attention to the role of culture, an unusual omission given his interest in multicultural religious education. This gap…

This study investigated whether values were taught or caught in the experiences of Year 3 students in a Uniting Church school for boys. Research indicates the need for values education particularly for boys (Lovat and Schofield, 1998), the importance of the home and family in establishing a values foundation (Astill, 1998a, 1998b) and the role of…

This article gives a report on a recent empirical study on cooperative religious education in German primary schools. Special emphasis is given to the views, needs, and rights of children. Results from interviews with the children and with the teachers as well as from classroom observation form the basis for the authors' suggestions concerning the…

Under the guidelines for Initial Teacher Training, all potential primary teachers are required to learn about teaching religious education. However, religious education is not a high priority on ITT programmes and trainees may often have little introduction to it. Given the sensitive nature of religious education, what is the best way to prepare…

We provide estimates of the effect of attending a Faith school on educational attainment progress during the Primary education phase in England. We argue that there are no credible instruments for Faith school attendance. Instead, we control for selection on religious schooling by tracking pupils over time and comparing attainments of students who…

There has been little research conducted on Taiwanese Aboriginal music education in comparison to Aboriginal education. C. Hsu's "Taiwanese Music History" (1996) presents information on Aboriginal music including instruments, dance, ritual music, songs and singing, but information on music education practices is lacking. The examination…

Steps away from where a concrete wall once divided this city east from west, a group of Muslim 1st graders at E.O. Plauen Elementary School sing a phrase that is unfamiliar to most German ears. Though the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches have long provided voluntary religion classes in Berlin schools, only recently have the courts allowed an…