With many of the Catholic student population disengaged from regular ritual experiences their working vocabulary of the prayers and knowledge of the Church is limited. A beneficial bridge for many of these disconnected students, specifically male adolescents has been the use of storytelling in connection to Catholic themes to lay the foundations…

All Catholic school teachers are called to be evangelists and catechists. Religion teachers have a special duty to teach religion systematically in a classroom. This book is meant to be a handbook or guidebook with practical elements of teaching and sample lesson plans and projects.

This paper highlights the need for studies to be undertaken on Irish women who became 'female religious' in Roman Catholic religious communities and who taught in Australian schools up until 1922. The paper is structured in three parts. It opens by outlining the international context that gave rise to the existence of these personnel in Australia.…

Catholic colleges and universities seek to transform the students who attend them. As the subtitle of this article indicates, this aspiration prompts some difficult questions. For example, just what is the warrant for an institution of higher learning to trifle, as one might put it provocatively, with people's hearts? After clarifying terms, the…

This article is concerned with the role of encounter in the development of identities of compassion in the communities of l'Arche. The relational practices of compassionate care and the welcoming of vulnerability, learned by newcomers to l'Arche communities through encounter with long-term members of the communities, especially those with…

Religious education, like all learning, can take place in informal, nonformal, and formal settings. In Uganda, the Education Bill 2007 triggered discussions about religious education and control over schools by founding religious bodies. In this context, the role played by the Mugigi course to supplement the religious education imparted in schools…

This article considers three fundamental perspectives for Catholic education, all mentioned in the encyclical letter "Populorum Progressio" of Paul VI, which have also been present in the teachings of successive pontiffs. The first perspective is the need to build a new civilization and the idea that "the world suffers due to lack…

Catholic educational historians note that although preserving Catholic identity has been a constant in the mission of Catholic schools, their curriculum and instructional practices evolved in ways that were similar to public schools, thus enabling Catholic parents to select schools that were both faith based and modern. Since there is an absence…

Initiatives in intercultural education have frequently involved the promotion of contact between members of different groups as a means of improving intergroup relations. Experience from Northern Ireland suggests, however, that such schemes have often been organised and delivered in such a way that opportunities for sustained, high-quality contact…

This paper reports on the opinions of teachers in Queensland Catholic schools regarding the identity, purposes and characteristics of Catholic schools. It draws on survey data from 2287 teachers in Catholic schools as well as semi-structured interviews with 20 teachers. Respondents were asked about their reasons for working in Catholic Education…

This article reports on research into the influence of teachers' religious beliefs in religious education. Drawing on accounts from eleven teachers in Controlled Schools in Northern Ireland, it shows the contested space many of them occupy in relation to handling personal beliefs, teaching about diverse religions and articulating a public…

This is the first empirical study to explore the ways different types of primary school in the Republic of Ireland integrate children from diverse religious backgrounds. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with principals and teachers, the article focuses on the role of ethos and leadership in the integration processes in one denominational…

Christian institutions are founded on a diverse set of historical and theological backgrounds and strive to integrate faith, learning, and living in a way that not only educates and develops students, but also responds to the Christian call of service. Community engagement, therefore, becomes a way for Christian institutions to achieve said…

The aim of this paper is to show how changes in the social fabric of Malta have resulted in amendments to the school curriculum in respect to the teaching of moral values. The curriculum now caters for a new subject in schools called Ethics, which is aimed at students who opt out of the mainstream Catholic Religious Education classes. As educators…

The Jesuit project of education in India that began with St Francis Xavier and flourished due to the support of colonial masters at its establishment was distinctive in its aims and objectives. The Jesuits taught the lowly and the mighty with the sole aim of "evangelisation", a term that has changed its meaning depending on contexts and…