In recent years, many scholars have drawn a distinction between procedural and programmatic secularism. Procedural secularists seek to build communities wherein 'competing concepts of the good life' are afforded opportunities for expression. Programmatic secularists seek to limit the influence of religion within the public sphere. The 1870…

This article explores how the idea of teachers as agents of change is historically constructed through the institutionalisation, secularisation, and normalisation process of professional teacher knowledges. Authors comparatively examine eighteenth-century Habsburg Monarchy literary sources and nineteenth-century US documents on the formation and…

While Fiji was a British colony, in the early twentieth century, education to Indigenous Fijians was delivered by missions including the Methodist Overseas Mission of Australasia. As argued here, education delivery was influenced by policies for African Americans. Policies from Tuskegee Institute in the American South were transposed to Nausori,…

The educational work of David Stow evolved in three phases. He established a Sabbath school and helped to introduce both infant schooling and teacher training in Glasgow, Scotland in the nineteenth century. He helped to establish the Glasgow Normal Seminary and later he joined the Free Church of Scotland Normal Seminary. Stow was a committed…

The spread of Islam to the nomadic Kazakh community that lived in the steppes of Asia has followed a difficult historical path over many centuries. In recent centuries, a system of Islamic religious education in the regions where Islam was the main religion gradually began to generalize and spread. This process continued until the more recent…

This book presents the theoretical basis and practical steps involved in using Statement Archaeology, an innovative method that enhances understandings of policy development, exemplifying its use in relation to one curriculum subject, Religious Education. The book is the first of its kind to fully describe the theoretical foundations of Statement…

This article studies the relationship between the authorities of newly independent India and mission schools using the case of (and the perspective/sources from) the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in Chotanagpur (then South Bihar, now Jharkhand). These relationships were marked by much tension in the late 1940s and early 1950s. An abundance of…

Languages have played a significant role in the shaping of theological and religious leaders. Historically consisting mostly of biblical and ancient languages, contemporary theological education includes the study of modern foreign languages for research and ministerial purposes. If written and spoken communication in a variety of languages is a…

The political theology of Rev. John Witherspoon (1723-1794) had a profound impact on the development of ideas on religion and government during the Founding Period as a prominent educator, clergyman, and signatory of the Declaration of Independence. This paper uncovers the far-reaching impact of Witherspoon's political theology during America's…

Religious matters have traditionally been considered as a sensitive subject in French state schools. Since 1989 and the first 'Muslim headscarf affair', faith-related conflicts in those institutions have been the subject of a relatively opaque counting policy. Mobilising several state institutions- which alternatively cooperate or compete- this…

In Sweden and in other parts of Europe, the nature of religious education (RE) and its place in schools is the subject of ongoing discussions. Concepts used in the RE classroom can either open or close classroom conversations. A growing consensus can be observed among researchers that the concept of 'religion' is not sufficient to describe -- and…

Women missionaries who came to India with a superior Protestant religious imaginary were keen on critiquing Hindu cultural practices that created divergences and transfigurations. They blatantly proclaimed that the deep-rooted custom of women's "seclusion" was a stumbling block to education, evangelisation and modernisation. This study…

Nigeria's triple music heritage of traditional, Islamic and Western music should have informed her formal music education curriculum. Instead, western music was used by the early Christian missionaries that it became difficult to integrate indigenous music traditions into the curriculum that music could not gain traction as a school subject across…

The article examines the history of "Casa dos Educandos Artífices" [House of the Artificer Apprentices (1841/1889)] in the Province of Maranhão (Brazil), which received underprivileged boys after the continuous increase of poverty caused by the Rebellion of Balaiada (1839-1841). At the "Casa" children were taught basic literacy…

Religious education was established as a compulsory curriculum requirement in all schools by the 1944 Education Act. It was intended to provide instruction to all pupils in the basic tenets of the Christian faith and ensure that every successive generation of pupils understood the role of Christianity in British history and the national sense of…