During the past decade, Catholic leaders have been exploring options to revitalize the faltering Catholic school system especially in urban centers. One route being explored by dioceses and religious orders is opening what have been called "religious charter schools." Though not technically religious schools, they integrate many of the…

Assuming religious education to be the same as other subject areas of a Catholic school's curriculum by, for example, applying the outcomes based philosophy and language of other subject areas to religious education renders a category mistake. A prominent notion in the work of metaphysical philosopher Gilbert Ryle, a category mistake arises when…

Research into the relationship between the Anglican tradition and its schools is relatively undeveloped in England. The research reported here draws on Benne's (2001) significant components of the relationship between educational institutions and their founding religious tradition to examine whether these components are a helpful way of describing…

Amid the growing coalescence between the religion and ecology movements, the voice of Muslims who care for the earth and its people is rising. While the Islamic position on the environment is not well-represented in the ecotheology discourse, it advances an environmental imaginary which shows how faith can be harnessed as a vehicle for social…

Islamic education has always recognized spiritual and moral values as significant elements in developing a "balanced" human being. One way of demonstrating spiritual and moral concepts is through effective teaching methods that integrate and forefront these values. This article offers an investigation of how the authors' teaching…

This paper problematises clean distinctions between secular and religious by tracing the history of modern higher education of Muslims in British colonial India. Grounded in the interpretive research tradition and with an empirical focus on the formative mid-nineteenth century, the article argues that relational notions between singular secularism…

This article presents the rationale and arguments for the presence of morals, values, ethics and character education in science curriculum and science teaching. The author examines how rapid science and technological advancements and globalization are contributing to the complexities of social life and underpinning the importance of morals, values…

Matthew Clayton claims that "comprehensive enrolment"--raising one's children in accordance with one's own conception of the good--is illegitimate. In his argument against comprehensive enrolment, Clayton refers to Rawls's idea of public reason. In a recent response to Clayton, Christina Cameron not only rejects…

Every society craves naturally to live in communion and understanding with the persons and the groups found in it. This is also in line with the aphorism that man is a "being-with-others", as against the separatist and segregationist opinion of each person living "for-itself". Whereas the first denotes man as altruistic and…

The questions that I address are: "What ought to become of Religious Education (RE)?" and "To what extent do non-religious beliefs belong in RE?" I will argue that there are compelling reasons for studying religious and non-religious views alongside each other, but that there are serious objections to doing this in the context of any subject…

Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C. (aka "Father Ted") is one of the leading living figures in the philosophy of Catholic higher education in the United States. He is not only recognized for a long and impressive tenure as president of the University of Notre Dame, but also revered as a priest whose intellectual and critical leadership blends a practical…

This article discusses the transition from philosophy to psychology as the main source of inspiration for education during the mid-twentieth century in the Netherlands, situated between Germany in the east and the English-speaking world in the west. Claims have been made that educational theory in the Netherlands was dominated by German philosophy…

Religious organisations have long relied on education to transmit cherished values, working within society to preserve their worldview. Therefore, when a religious education system is restructured, it can act as a barometer of change, revealing societal values and reflecting negotiated roles. Like other faiths, the Church of Jesus Christ of…

In looking to the future, some writers on religious education (RE) have attempted to evaluate current approaches to the subject. Some have characterised any significant change in approach as a "paradigm shift", a term derived from Thomas Kuhn's work in the philosophy of science. This article examines the uses of the terms…

There has been limited engagement with Gadamer in the pedagogy of English religious education (RE) to date. Currently there remains confusion about the subject matter of RE and the application of the National Framework attainment targets, learning about and learning from. Instrumental justifications of RE are in tension with the desire to defend…