Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) schools, which provide an alternative to state-supported and other church schools, began in the United States, but their growth in Australia has been rapid. In 1977, there was only one ACE school in Australia, but by 1982 there were 10. The schools, which are committed to Christian fundamentalism, are run by…

Over the past 20 years independent lines of research in the fields of classroom environment and student attitudes to Christianity have been conducted. A study brought these two fields together by investigating the relationship between student perceptions of religious classroom environment and their attitudes toward Christianity. A personal form of…

The Shared Christian Praxis model for religious education, developed by Thomas Groome and described in the diocesan religious education curriculum, "Sharing Our Story" (SOS, 1991) has been highly influential in Australian Catholic religious education. This paper explores the planning, implementing, and evaluating of religious education…

This paper describes a study of links between school environment and classroom environment in Catholic high schools in Australia. A sample of 893 students in 40 grade-9 and grade-12 religious education classes and 80 teachers of religious education in Catholic high schools was used to assess 4 dimensions of school environment (Empowerment, Student…

An ethnographic study of a primary and secondary Australian Catholic boys school--the Christian Brothers College (CBC)--examined the historical relationship between Catholic schools, Catholic religious formation, and social mobility in Australia. The methodology used includes classroom observation, interviews, participation in social and religious…

Much Catholic school and church rhetoric suggests that Catholic schools possess distinctive learning environments. However, little empirical evidence has been found to support this assertion. Research has been hampered by the lack of an appropriate assessment instrument. This paper describes the development of a seven-scale instrument to assess…

This paper reports learning environment research conducted in Australian Catholic high schools. A two-stage methodology involving quantitative and qualitative data-collection methods was employed. In the first stage, a sample of 1,719 students and 160 teachers responded to a specially developed classroom-environment questionnaire. Results…

In Perth, Western Australia, summative assessment has not been a teaching tool in the teaching of religious education courses in the Catholic schools. This study investigated whether the use of formal assessment procedures in the teaching of religion had an effect on student learning outcomes. Subjects were 128 students (4 classes) in year 8 of an…