This article discusses oral history sources that give insight into how a specific group of teaching sisters (also known as nuns or women religious) reflect on their primary identity as vowed women, and their professional identity as teachers. Their identity was bound up with the fact that they had taken religious vows, and entered a congregation…

Because it has experienced a process of secularisation for more than three centuries, France can be considered as a laboratory of the relevance of faith in a society for which it is no longer the cultural matrix. By showing how the central question of secularisation is in fact that of the relationship between faith and culture, this article…

According to Church statistics, 6.9 million children were enrolled in Catholic primary and secondary schools in Europe. Enrolment has remained relatively stable over the last 40 years in comparison to other regions of the world, contributing to education pluralism. This may be in part because in many countries, Catholic and private schools benefit…

The intersection between schools and the higher education institutions that prepare graduates for teaching in schools is driven by secular agendas. These agendas showcase knowledge transfer as a key indicator of effective learning and teaching. However, the preparation of graduate teachers for service in Christian schooling systems cannot be…

The formation of identity in a secularized world is different from formation in a religious oriented society. In this situation, educating young people and guiding their personhood formation is even more a task of connecting to the pupils from out of your own heart. A Catholic religious teacher can be a mirror for these young people when answering…

Jesuit schools, in particular, have been known for a long time to be centres of learning in Chotanagpur area, India, where tremendous efforts were made to achieve a high level of academic excellence; yet it appears that this legacy is not being sustained among rural, tribal, vernacular schools of Chotanagpur these days because of varied reasons.…

Progressive education swept across Canada in the early to mid-twentieth century, restructuring schools, introducing new courses, and urging teachers to reorient the classroom to the interests and needs of the learner. The women religious who taught in Vancouver's Catholic schools negotiated the revised public school curriculum, determined to…

This paper explores some of the ideas expressed in or associated with the work of Don Lorenzo Milani and the School of Barbiana and discusses them in the light of the teachings of the gospels. It draws out the implications of these ideas for a critical education in the Christian spirit. The focus throughout is on Christian education for social…

The Congregation for Catholic Education is a part of the government of the Holy See. The genesis of this Dicastery can be traced to special commissions created by the Roman Pontiffs for maintaining vigilance over the universities in Rome and other educational institutions in the Papal States. A general overview of the history of the Congregation…

This article is an attempt to highlight some main themes in the "International Handbook of Jewish Education", which may resonate with themes that are pre-occupying Catholic educators, and which may help Catholic educators understand some of the pressing issues and concerns of Jewish educators and Jewish education. Its intention is to…

The current development of national curriculum in Australia provides significant opportunities and challenges for the country's 1700 Catholic schools. This article considers the growing interest in the nature of Catholic curriculum from an Australian perspective, at a time of national debate about curriculum. It also offers a case study of the…

Since the enactment of the Private Schools Conditional Integration Act in New Zealand in 1975, leadership in Catholic schools has become increasingly complex. Under the legislation Catholic schools are required to develop and maintain their "Special Character." The Director of Religious Studies (DRS) has become the position with a key…

Ma Xiangbo was born in 1840 and became a pioneer of educational reform during the republican period. He was responsible for introducing the idea that science and humanities should be valued equally in liberal arts education, a concept that became key to the model of university education. Ma's view of education combined Western humanism and science…

This article sketches the development of the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education, Seton Hill University, Greensburg, PA. It does so with broad strokes, which paint a picture of the program of the Center within the context of ecclesial and papal activities and documents. The article describes how the Center entered into dialogue with…

The Brothers of the Christian Schools, popularly known in the United States as Christian Brothers, have made numerous significant contributions to the development of Catholic education. Building and staffing schools, colleges, and orphanages, producing textbooks and catechetical materials, advocating for the poor, and creating new models of…