The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia has exposed social fault-lines and inequities not often recognised in such an affluent country. This study explores the relevance of Bible stories about plagues and disasters for the work of preachers, teachers, and pastoral practitioners who were independent voluntary contributors to this study.…

This paper contributes to the ongoing discourse on the rationale and purpose of religious education (RE) in Catholic schools. RE in Australian Catholic schools has always been a feature of the curriculum and the expectation is that all students take part in this. Several salient features of contemporary culture that impact on faith-based schools…

School chaplaincy in Australia is highly contentious. The federal government funds a chaplaincy programme in Australia's secular public schools, which, combined with the declining influence of institutional Christianity, places Christian chaplains at the nexus of debates on the public role of religion. Yet little is known about how these chaplains…

The planned integration of Catholic social teaching (CST) across the curriculum was the primary focus of the 'Identity and Curriculum in Catholic Education' (2013-2018) initiative in Catholic schools in the state of Queensland. Initial reconnaissance involved a survey of teachers' views regarding the identity, purposes and characteristics of…

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…

A recent global reconnaissance of Christian higher education found a number of key themes that shaped current developments, such as the pressing challenges of secularization and nationalization but also the advantages of privatization and massification. This article provides an update to this older analysis by taking a birds-eye view of trends…

Acceleration of digital communication has changed the nature of reading and young people today need to engage multimodal skills for reading success in the digital world. While historically there have been social justice issues for marginalised students in terms of reading, the digital age is creating new equity issues across the globe. This…

Historically, Australian higher education has been statist, uniform, and secular. Indeed, up until 1989, even communist Poland had more Christian universities than Australia. Only in the last 3½ decades have eight different Christian universities and colleges emerged. This article first explores the origins of these new institutions and the…