This article, which is developed from a keynote given to the Humanists UK RE conference on 28 November 2020 draws attention to the interest groups that operate in and around the world of professional religious education (RE) in England. It argues that reform of RE could still fail. Two factors could spell its end. First is the "politics of…

Religious education is queer. At first, it may seem as if "queer" and "religious education" barely belong in the same sentence; however, a fresh look at the definition of queer within the current understanding of religious education reveals a deep connection. Playing on the historical question of Harrison Elliott, "Can…

Since its establishment, Islamic religious pedagogy at German-speaking universities has primarily faced basic questions like: What kind of methodological and didactic approaches can be employed in Islamic Religious Education (IRE) and how should the structural framework be designed? Analyses concerning these questions are often drafted via…

Despite extensive research regarding the application of Transformative Learning Theory in adult education, there is very little literature promoting applying these principles and practices within Christian Worship Studies. Transformative Learning Theory is an educational theory that researches and promotes perspective-changing teaching and…

First-Year Seminars (FYS) are a high-impact practice (Keup & Young, 2018; Skipper, 2017). However, outcomes of pedagogical approaches linked to those seminars have not been as well researched. An expectation of Christian higher education is to consider what kind of spiritual and personal formation is happening through classroom assignments and…

When you think back to your own experiences as a student, what was meaningful? Memorable? Had a lasting effect? Who are the teachers that stand out? And why? Throughout our lives, we have instructors both in and beyond the classroom, and upon intentional reflection, we can pick up on some qualities that make certain teachers more effective than…

The purpose of this article is to investigate the perception of teachers on tolerance and the way in which tolerance can be taught in education institutions. It is based on interviews with 152 teachers from 28 high schools in four cities (Batu, Jember, Lamongan, and Nganjuk) in East Java, Indonesia, as well as Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with…

This article explores principles of teaching and learning found within the "Bhagavad Gita", a sacred Hindu text. After an in-depth thematic hermeneutic analysis of two translations of the text, we found eight themes, including the disciple's role: questioning and emulating the "Guru"; the "Guru's" role: teaching as…

This article proposes the notion of 'worldliness' as a necessary companion to the Religion and Worldviews curriculum. We posit that an understanding of 'worldliness', grounded in empirical research, in which the individual negotiates commitments to one's home (filial) and host (affilial) communities, is pedagogically relevant and heuristically…

At present, there are relatively few international studies that reflect research in religious didactics from a metatheoretical perspective. Against this background, the fundamental question of this contribution is whether there are research designs that are typical for research in religious didactics. For this purpose, research was conducted for a…

Perceptions about remote theological education inevitably cluster around questions of embodiment, community, and unity. The letters of the apostle Paul have quite a bit to say about these themes. This essay examines Paul's treatment of distance in the formation and education of Christians, focused around the image of the "body of Christ"…

In this article, we examine conceptions of giftedness through a Christian perspective and through a talent development paradigm (Subotnik et al., 2011). We intersect aims of Christian education with a developmental view of giftedness in order to inform pedagogical approaches in educating gifted/high-potential students. In applying the…

A liberal arts education for Christians is about finding God's truth; therefore, Christian students need to be educated in a broad range of subjects, including music. While a music appreciation course is thought to be about gaining knowledge of music, some music scholars have pointed out that a music curriculum should involve students in…

The participant-centered, discipleship-focused train-the-trainer prototype identifies the changes discipleship requires of us and correlates those with various techniques and approaches used in effective participant-centered andragogy. The result is a train-the-trainer curriculum that teaches Christian leaders more effective training skills while…

Exemplary religious education (RE) teachers were identified by school based RE leaders and interviewed as part of an ongoing study of the implementation of a new senior high school religious education program in Catholic schools in NSW, Australia. Contextualisation was provided by examining dominant social influences utilising Dobbelaere's concept…