Religion not only promotes tolerance among societies with different backgrounds, but also serves to enhance human society. In contrast, however, religion is seen to be the cause of conflict and division around the world. Hence, it is crucial that schools handle the teaching of religion with greater care. This paper aims to share schools'…

On the one hand, research on religious education is done according to a transnational scientific paradigm, on the other hand, it is performed within particular institutional contexts which vary from nation to nation.This raises the question of how institutional context affect research on religious education. The paper addresses this question on…

With the dawn of a constitutional democracy, South Africa has enacted contentious policies, such as outlawing capital punishment and legalizing same-sex marriage. Within the educational environment, the religious education (RE) and comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) polices remain the most controversial to date. A comparative analysis of…

Despite unimaginable geopolitical reform and re-humanisation, which saw South Africa transition from colonialism, to apartheid, and now, to a democracy, Muslim education has retained both its character and content. Overdue questions remain unanswered as it becomes evident that while politics and the world of Muslims have shifted -- locally and…

The article presents examples of early childhood education as a form of Catholic pedagogy in Africa and South America. The presentation is based on interviews with 20 Sisters Servants, who initiated and continue the endeavour of Catholic child education as part of their mission. The illustrative part of the article is preceded by an exposition of…

Scholars of Religion Education (RE) have promoted a non-confessional approach to the teaching of religions that explores and examines the religious history of humankind, with due attention paid to its complexity and plurality. In this promotion, the public representation of religion and its impact on RE has not received sufficient attention. An…

The role which subject Religious Education (RE) plays in promoting religious literacy matters in my view, acknowledging that I am biased in my judgement, as my professional raison d'etre, thus livelihood, rests on it continuing. However, others similarly are biased, whether from a specific moral and religious or ideological perspective or their…

Student-teachers are exposed to different approaches to teaching Religion Education in South Africa. Amongst these have been the phenomenological-reflective-dialogical approach of Cornelia Roux and the empathetic-reflective-dialogical approach of Janet Jarvis. These different approaches made immeasurable contributions as they started to shift how…

When the purified National Party (NP) came to power in South Africa in 1948, they introduced educational policies based on the ideology of apartheid. At that time 7,183 pupils attended primary education in 110 Lutheran Norwegian mission schools in Zululand and Natal. When the State took over these schools after the passing of the Bantu Education…

The study reported in this paper centred on the question whether the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 had any effect on the status of religion / religious education in South Africa. Although South Africa is geographically far removed from Eastern Europe, the socio-political situation in South Africa was deeply affected by the fall of the Wall,…

This article argues for the inclusion of Empathetic-Reflective-Dialogical Restorying as a teaching-learning strategy for Religion Education. This strategy, employed in three small-scale research projects in a South African Higher Education Institution, addresses decolonisation of the Religion Education curriculum in the following ways: changing…

The doctoral project developed a self-assessment tool that was provided to individuals who have participated in seminars conducted in their countries to ascertain their evaluation of the impact of Haggai Institute's training vis-a-vis increased evangelistic engagement. Data was gathered from alumni from the following countries: Brazil, Colombia,…

Owing to the mixed-bag effects of religion on society, and particularly South Africa's history with religion as embedded in the oppression of and liberation from apartheid, a recent curricular review has seen the introduction of teaching about religion in the Life Orientation (LO) curriculum. From our standpoint as academics in Religion Education,…

In this article, I reflect on my attempts to decolonise religious education at a historically white university in a post-apartheid South Africa. This pre-service education project conducted in 2017 happened against the backdrop of two events, namely, a renewed curriculum policy, Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) and the #RhodesMustFall…

Post-apartheid South African education reforms shifted the role of religion from a primary foundation for all subjects to one of several strategies to develop civic, moral, and ethical values among the nation's youth. A concurrent decline in the number and size of postsecondary religious studies departments, however, caused achievement of the…