Introducing students to the similarities and connections among the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and Qur'an is a means to introduce students to a shared source of humanity, beauty, wisdom, and solace. This article outlines a literature class that uses comparatist strategies to introduce these three foundational religious texts as literary works.…

Tensions across religious and LGBTQ concerns have played out in education for some time. In this paper, I make efforts to respond productively to this context by theorising what it might mean for young people in religious schools to dissent from the heteronormativity of religion in religious education (RE). To do this, I survey perspectives across…

Sacred teaching takes many forms across religious traditions, focusing on creation and sacramentality in Christianity, God's nature and creation of human beings in Judaism, and spiritual and social practices in both. At the heart of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian traditions are accents on the sacredness of life, creation in the image of God, and…

Pedagogue's fallacy occurs when epistemological principles are applied by educators that in fact do not tell of, or explain, or help understand, the subject at hand. It is identified and introduced in this article to raise an important issue in the construction of pedagogical models of religious education: knowledge is reduced and/or distorted to…

This article shows how discussion of the 'world religions paradigm' in integrated natural and social science teaching affects how religious plurality is handled. A concrete case study is used to illustrate how a teacher designs lessons on world religions. Based on this single case study, the article argues that the use of specific teaching…

This article explores the implications of a proposed move towards a religion and worldviews curriculum in England for contact-based interfaith programmes in schools, through a case study of the Faith and Belief Forum's School Linking programme. Quantitative and qualitative data collected through 1,488 teacher and student surveys, teacher focus…

This article examines the key category defining multiculturalism in Israeli history education: the representation of North African and Middle Eastern Jewry, aka "Mizrahim." Applying Nordgren's and Johansson's conceptualisation, the article explores the changes in this subject from the establishment of Israel to the present day. The…

What are controversial issues? Who decides whether something is controversial, and how does it affect how a subject is taught whether a topic is presented as either controversial or not so? Although there has long been a lively debate within educational research on what criteria should be used to determine whether or not an issue is controversial,…

In a recent volume of the "Journal of College and Character," Matt Mayhew and Alyssa Rockenbach presented their frameworks by which they have designed and utilized their IDEALS study over the past several years. In this present article, the authors contend that despite their rigorous research, the researchers and measurements oftentimes…

Living in a pluralistic society where groups are ethnically, nationally and religiously different and sometimes live in conflict with one another requires teachers to be prepared to deal with conflict-laden issues. In such societies, educational institutions in general and especially teaching colleges should not be ethnocentric but should…

With more investigation into the reception of evolution in non-Christian majority cultures, and the increased awareness that anti-evolution sentiment is a global phenomenon, new educational resources are being developed to meet newly understood needs. This article explores the situation in Israel regarding conceptions of the compatibility of…

In response to current tensions around U.S. immigration policies and the expression of diverse religious identities, the author presents a case study in which a university art museum engaged local children and adults to share images and stories of their experience as practitioners of five of the world's major religions. These contemporary, local…

Interfaith education appears to have a strong potential for prejudice reduction and for overcoming Islamophobia and antisemitism. Common in-group identity theory contends that awareness of interreligious similarities would reduce intergroup streotypes and anxiety. However, optimal distinctiveness theory assumes that pointing to similarities would…

Different religions are treated in different ways in Norwegian sixth form textbooks. We carried out an exhaustive content analysis of the chapters devoted to individual religions in textbooks for the Religion and Ethics course currently available in Norway, using rigorous indicators to code each word, image and question according to whether they…

This paper originates from an earlier comparative study of professional learning in a Christian, a Jewish, and a Muslim Australian independent school, in which teachers and school leaders were asked to engage in critical reflection as to the school's distinctive characteristics. The paper recognizes the tension that may arise in all schools from…