Adopting a social cohesion framework, we consider how the shared education model in Northern Ireland reflects distributive, ideational and relational dimensions of social cohesion, and the processes through which its implementation may be contributing to a more socially cohesive society. We use this case study to reflect on the current…

The aim of this article is to interact with Anita Gracie and Andrew W Brown's recent account of the historical development and nature of Controlled schools and of religious education in Northern Ireland in this journal. A complementary perspective is used to illustrate how the relationship between the Protestant churches and Controlled schools has…

The United States occupations of Cuba and Puerto Rico following the War of 1898 instituted immediate reforms to the educational systems of the islands. The imposition of public school systems modeled on those of the United States and a concurrent wave of Protestant schools established by American missionaries are well-known features of the…

The United States is widely characterized as having liberal (limited state) ideology and institutions, while Belgium is relatively statist. Yet the United States relies primarily on local public monopolies to provide elementary and secondary education, while Belgium provides schooling through robust education free markets including and in some…

The Good Friday Agreement (1997) brought political violence in Northern Ireland to an end and provided the basis for shared government. A consociational political structure was adopted which institutionalised community differences while encouraging coalition government. The goal was that a requirement for consensus decisions would encourage…

The Controlled Schools' sector in Northern Ireland is usually described as de facto Protestant. By examining its history and current context, this article considers the veracity of that statement. In many schools RE is often 'squeezed out' of an already overcrowded timetable. This results in the quantity and quality of RE teaching varying widely,…

This article reflects on the place of RE in a pillarised education context, taking into account the fact of religious diversity and pluralisation among the school population on the one hand, and the freedom of religion and education of faith-based schools on the other. Particular attention will be given to Belgium and the Netherlands, which do not…

In Ireland primary RE is a fractured, contested, complex and changing territory devoid of a common language and characterised by a proliferation of syllabi and curricula generated for increasingly diverse school types. For centuries the dynamic decolonising process has led to a questioning of former orthodoxies and an attempted de-linking of the…

In this paper Merry examines in detail the continued--and curious--popularity of religious schools in an otherwise "secular" twenty-first century Europe. To do this he considers a number of motivations underwriting the decision to place one's child in a religious school and delineates what are likely the best empirically supported…

By the mid-19th century, liberal protestant universities had allowed their religious identity to slip away. During the same period, Catholic institutions had maintained their religious identity. Catholicism's stance against modernist thought had held the day. In the 1960s, the Aristotelian-Thomistic hegemony was broken, allowing for a pluralistic…

There is a persistent debate over the role of scale of operations in education. Some argue that school franchises offer educational services more effectively than do small independent schools. Skeptics counter that large, centralized operations create hard-to-manage bureaucracies and foster diseconomies of scale and that small schools are more…

Background: This paper challenges the dominant story of Protestant and Catholic conflict by illustrating the critical role that mission schools played in creating denominational consensus in the West. Focus: Protestant and Catholic missionaries cast aside their differences as they worked toward common goals to "civilize," Christianize,…

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) was an ecumenical council of Catholic bishops from around the world. The bishops made changes both in the internal life of the Church (e.g., the sacraments and daily practices of Catholics) and in the approach that the Church took toward other religions and toward the secular world. These changes transformed…

Discusses the periodic friction between Catholics and Protestants over the American school since the 1840s. (Author/RK)

Protestant and Catholic missionary organizations contributed to the development of American schooling. On the Protestant side, the American Home Missionary Society and the American Sunday School Union provided missionaries who frequently became active in school activities. More importantly, these agencies, typical of the evangelical alliance of…