Despite the increased trend towards secularisation in state schooling, issues of religion and spirituality have remained important. Increased pluralism within societies through expanding migration patterns is changing the religious and cultural contours of many countries in Europe and North America, and is creating a need for a deeper…

In 1874, 6000 Old Colony Mennonites, an ethno-religious minority sect, immigrated to the Canadian prairies from Russia, after negotiating a charter of privileges with the federal government. Chief among these freedoms was the right to educate their children without government interference. Between 1890 and 1922, tensions mounted between the…

A new textbook in religious education is analysed, first, in comparison to earlier ones, and, second, with respect to its content and goals. The aim of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) is threefold--to educate into religion, to foster the ethnic Russian identity and to make youngsters loyal to the state. Actually, the state rather than society is…

The REDCo project addressed the question of how study of religions and values in schools could contribute to either dialogue or tension in Europe. Researchers in the humanities and social sciences co-operated in order to gain better insight into how European citizens of different religious, cultural and political backgrounds could enter into…

This book seeks to assess how, after 70 years of hostility and restriction in the former Soviet Union, religion could be made accessible to students and to young men training for the priesthood. A study of religious and theological education in Russia and the Ukraine is reported in which over 50 institutions were visited, including independent…