The article acknowledges the limits of the categories of similarity and difference in undergraduate comparative religion courses. To challenge these limitations, including the potential for dualistic or "us/them" thinking, several pedagogical attempts to increase relationality in Christian-Muslim courses are explored. Relational methods…

Tensions across religious and LGBTQ concerns have played out in education for some time. In this paper, I make efforts to respond productively to this context by theorising what it might mean for young people in religious schools to dissent from the heteronormativity of religion in religious education (RE). To do this, I survey perspectives across…

In the United States, Christianity is the religion of the majority, about 70% of people. Almost 23% are unaffiliated, and slightly less than 7% practice other religions (Sandstrom, 2016). While 7% may not sound like a lot, it means that a growing number of Americans have neighbors, schoolmates, and colleagues who practice diverse, often…

This article brings James Smith's three-volume "Cultural Liturgies" into dialogue with fieldwork in 'Midlands Madrasah', drawing out questions and points of discussion that are applicable to Christian education of children, especially within a church context. The article begins with an overview of madrasah education and the main…

This article reports findings from a sacred text scholarship project in Religious Education/Religion and Worldviews (RE/RW) lessons. In the "Texts and Teachers" project secondary school teachers found that RE became more "meta" through a more scholarly treatment of texts, and led to "leap moments" with pupils who…

The Library of Congress has acquired the Omar ibn Said Collection, including an exceptional artifact, the autobiography of Omar ibn Said, written in ancient Arabic by an African enslaved man. In this article, I analytically examine the role of literacy in Omar ibn Said's life as informed by African cultures, ethnicities, histories, languages, and…

This paper attempts to look at the Colombian case of secularisation, touching on the current state of religion and Religious Education from three perspectives: the law, the Catholic Church, and the wider society, to determine the challenges acquired by the gap developed between religion, religiosity and secular legislation. With this in mind, the…

France's secular political culture, Catholic heritage, and tumultuous relationship with Islam have had a significant impact on 21st-century interpretations, perceptions, and politicisations of religious education in French society. Since religious education is relegated to the French private school system, it is decentralised, complex, and vastly…

The aim of this article is to interact critically with Matthew Clayton and David Stevens's recent critique of non-confessional religious education, constituted as a separate, compulsory subject in the school curriculum. Three different critical arguments are considered: the contention that religious education is an unsuitable vehicle for fostering…

This paper explores the notion that religious texts and the tradition of religious story telling are the content, form or "the movable feast" by which we form and preserve our culture and group identity, and by which we pass them down to the next generations. All these texts are composed of language that is open for analysis and multiple…

The present writer is drawn to write on this topic based on the realization that the Nigerian society seems to be one that is bereft of the practicalisation of the ideal standards of virtues. There is apparent lack of objective measures of rightness and wrongness of actions, especially in the present dispensation, irrespective of the so much…

Many history departments choose to begin their Year 7 curriculum with an introduction to the nature of history and the processes in which historians engage as they develop, refine and substantiate claims about the past. In this article, Adbul Mohamud and Robin Whitburn report on an such an introductory unit, designed with a specific focus on the…

Despite more than 25 years of existence of Kazakhstan in a new political reality after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the government and society are still afraid of religious institutions and alternatives in many areas of social life, including education. This article reviews the reasons for such an attitude and the issues that arise with…

Pope Francis incarnates a praxis of encounter in an age of polarization. For Francis, encounter entails displacement, dialog, and discernment. Relational pedagogy illuminates the fecundity of relationships between the teacher and student at the heart of education. Nel Noddings, preeminent proponent of relational pedagogy, grounds an ethics of care…

From the assumed physical threat of a ceremonial Kirpan in an elementary school carried by a Sikh child, to the fictional possibility of rich, Arab, Muslim University students utilising their implicitly understood patriarchal power to subjugate all women from access to common swimming pools, Canada has become increasingly replete with examples of…