A recent global reconnaissance of Christian higher education found a number of key themes that shaped current developments, such as the pressing challenges of secularization and nationalization but also the advantages of privatization and massification. This article provides an update to this older analysis by taking a birds-eye view of trends…

This article examines why liberation theology needs to be a core resource in religious education settings, especially in Catholic secondary schools. It will first touch on key tenets of liberation theology and the reasons why it was silenced and underused. It will then analyse poverty in the Jewish tradition as an interfaith resource and…

The progressive spirit of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) spawned a myriad of graduate departments of religious education in American Catholic colleges and universities. These departments evolved to include other master degrees (e.g., pastoral studies, pastoral counseling, divinity, spirituality, and social justice). As the numbers of…

Dialogue about Catholic identity has been taking place at American Catholic colleges and universities since the publication of Ex Corde Ecclesiae in 1990. That student affairs professionals do their work within the context of the mission of the university is a concept that has been accepted from the earliest stages of the establishment of student…

This article introduces the research initiated by Cardus on private religious Protestant and Catholic schools in North America and provides an overview of the succeeding articles presented in this special section of the "Journal of School Choice". Through mixed method study by multiple research teams the inquiry was designed to seek to…

This study investigates the relationship between Catholic teachers' faith and their school commitment in Catholic high schools. A national sample of 751 teachers from 39 Catholic high schools in 15 archdioceses in the United States participated in a self-administered website survey. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the Pearson…

Times of war are times of crisis for theologians and educators. This article examines how Msgr. George Johnson, the vice president of the Religious Education Association and the most prominent Catholic educator in the 1930s and 1940s, dealt with the ethical and educational issues surrounding U.S. involvement in the Second World War. It argues that…

Mary Perkins Ryan remains one of the least recognized of the twentieth-century figures in the modern renewal of Catholic education in the United States. The reasons are many but none satisfactory. Ryan was an intellectual without a scholarly credential. She was an educator without an affiliation to an academic institution. She was a leading voice…

The work of Sister M. Rosalia Walsh and the Mission Helpers of the Sacred Heart gave impetus to the reemergence of the use of story in catechetical materials designed and published in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. Focused on catechetical needs of Catholic children who did not attend Catholic schools, The Mission…

This article presents responses from Thomas C. Hunt, James L. Heft, S.M., and Ronald J. Nuzzi to the report of the Notre Dame Task Force on Catholic Education's (2006), "Making God Known, Loved and Served: The Future of Catholic Primary and Secondary Schools in the United States." Hunt analyzes the 12 recommendations offered by Notre…

The Society of Mary's ministry in education needs to be placed in the context of the Marianist family. The Marianist family is comprised of men and women who are religious brothers, sisters, and priests and vowed and non-vowed members of Marianist lay communities. The implementation of the Marianist mission is the result of the collaboration among…

In the wake of globalization, higher education institutions almost inevitably have adopted and implemented internationalization policies as their primary strategy for responding to the challenges and opportunities brought about by globalization. This study concerns the comparison of the motivations, program strategies, and organization strategies…

George Bernard Shaw famously quipped that "a Catholic university is a contradiction in terms." While the party-line response to Shaw is that the term "Catholic university" is instead a tautology, those who work, study, and teach at such institutions often find themselves pondering Shaw's oxymoron, asking themselves: how are…

This article presents a historical overview of Catholic schooling in the United States from colonial times to the present. Presented in order of eras in American history, the growth of Catholic schools and the challenges they faced are documented. The author concludes with a discussion of contemporary trends, realities challenges, and…

The effect of Catholic religiosity as indicated by church attendance on the demand for Catholic schooling at the primary and secondary levels is estimated. It is shown that parents' religiosity has a large effect on the probability that their children attend Catholic schools. Furthermore, estimates of bivariate probit models indicate that parents'…