Drawing on research in deliberative pedagogy, this paper will develop in depth one piece of a larger project that envisions peace education as an essential component of youth ministry. The paper proposes a sacred pedagogy that engages theological concepts through deliberative, democratic discussion, teaching young people skills in engaging across…

This article describes a seminar I taught on Christianity and colonialism. I wanted to introduce students to some content while also allowing them to practice some of the expert skills that we use in religious studies, and more specifically in my own sub-discipline, the anthropology of religion. In particular, I wanted to make more visible some of…

The affordances of the comic book medium facilitate individual, interpretive readings of narrative and as such challenge the notion of a single message or meaning. This article explores how secondary school students encounter and re-orientate themselves to personal concepts of religious and educational authority and authenticity as a consequence…

The primary goal of religious education (RE) in Germany is to enable students to develop a personal worldview. According to the literature, this goal can best be achieved when RE a) presents material from various worldviews and b) relates this material to the student's daily life. Denominational RE, which is the organisational format of this…

This article critically reviews the European religious education landscape and argues that a religious notion of religion prevails in most models, not only in confessional RE but also in integrative models and even in so-called alternative subjects that are compulsory for pupils who do not take part in confessional RE. Thus, schools in Europe…

In this article, the authors reflect on the results of their previous research at cooperation schools in the Netherlands, where students and teachers from nonaffiliated and Christian backgrounds come together. Dewey's perspective on educating democratic values is combined with empirical results of this research, answering the question what Dewey's…

The term "self-directed learning" has since its seminal definition in 1975 by Malcolm S. Knowles acquired a range of meanings, which has led to communication difficulties about this subject. Examination of self-directed learning from a biblical ontological-anthropological perspective reveals that, although the notion of self-directed…

This article draws from a Teaching and Learning Research Initiative research project that aimed to explore how three early childhood centres support children to experience and learn about their local area, including its stories, geology, biodiversity, and cultural meanings. The project helps children envision socioecological futures. This article…

During the twentieth century, an increasing amount of data was collected in connection with engineering of the modern states including their education systems. In the Nordic welfare states post WW2, such data were also generated in experimental projects aiming at reforming curriculum and education, and the data were accumulated either as…

The courts' role in educational disputes is much researched, but while the legal and socio-political implications of judicial decisions are often scrutinised, judges' pedagogical assumptions have generally been overlooked. This paper focuses on educational competency by considering judges' understandings of the pedagogical effect of religious…

This study was conducted in order to fill an existing gap within the field of religious education, specifically regarding standardisation within evangelical education aimed at teaching the youth within the church. There is currently no standardisation of education between sects nor within individual sects of evangelical Christianity, and this…

Today's postsecondary students struggle with increasing depression and anxiety, in part influenced by the troubling state of the world. Our students desperately need hope; yet, too often, their university classes diminish rather than increase hope. A key role of the Christian educator is to teach students to live in biblical hope, rooted in the…

An assessment of character development naturally entails assessing the narrative sources that a person draws upon in that formative process. I argue that narrative metaphor provides a lens to gain insight into this process. This article lays a theoretical groundwork that connects narrative metaphor to character formation and outlines a range of…

Christian religious belief systems may influence higher education teaching and learning. We investigated how this manifests in relation to critical citizenship education at the Department of Visual Arts of Stellenbosch University. During the facilitation of a Visual Communication Design course, which included community interaction (CI), students…

Not only does teaching about gender and sexuality diversity lead to some very interesting and often emotionally evocative, pedagogical exchanges; it can also create challenging issues for teachers and students alike. This article focuses on what happens when a module that addresses compulsory heterosexuality and schooling is broached in an…