Showing papers in "Religion & Education in 2011"

From Confessional to Cultural: Religious Education in the Schools of Québec

Abstract: Quebec has had a unique history in North America regarding religious instruction in public schools. To understand Quebec's new Ethics and Religious Culture Program, it is important to have an appreciation of some of the major historical events and contexts that led to the program. This article presents the history of Quebec religious instruction from its roots in New France to the present day. It highlights the key elements of the evolution from a confessional religious program to an ethics and religious culture program that is now a requirement for all students.

Cultivating Reflection and Understanding: Foundations and Orientations of Québec's Ethics and Religious Culture Program

Abstract: This article focuses on the conceptual foundations and orientations of Quebec's “Ethics and Religious Culture” program (ERC). Its primary aim is to provide a careful and comprehensive reading of the program. It first situates the ERC program within the Quebec Education Program. It then examines the ERC program's competencies and underscores the importance of these competencies for meeting the challenges of living in a pluralistic-democratic society. Critical questions are also raised, particularly with respect to the program's move away from the subjective in both the ethics and religion competencies. In the final section, the article examines the Ministerial decision to favor procedural neutrality as the ideal professional posture of teachers.

Integrating Religious and Professional Identities: Christian Faculty at Public Institutions of Higher Education

Abstract: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to investigate how Christian faculty members integrate their religious identity with their professional identity within public colleges and universities. Semi-structured interviews with 12 Christian faculty members shed light on their perceived religious ‘‘calling’’ to public higher education, as well as revealed insights as to how they overtly and covertly attempt to express their religious identity within the workplace.

Teaching About Religion in Public Schools: Where Do We Go From Here?

Abstract: A 2010 survey released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found “large numbers of Americans are uninformed about the tenets, practices, history and leading figures of major faith traditio...

Teaching Tolerance in Public Education: Organizing the Exposure to Religious and Life-Stance Diversity

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to discuss how pupils’ exposure to religious and life-stance diversity should be organized through the formal curriculum of public education in order to best foster tolerance. The article examines 2 proposals: the integrated French model and the Norwegian religious education model. In view of normative considerations and considerations of effectiveness, it argues that, although each model has its merits, they are both problematic because they, in different ways, fail to adequately balance the need for relevant exposure to religious and life-stance diversity with sufficient neutrality. By taking the Norwegian model as a point of departure, the article concludes by proposing 2 improvements: one calling for a sufficiently neutral value basis, and the other for a more mindful use of educational methods.

Enthusiasm and Ambivalence: Elementary School Teacher Perspectives on the Ethics and Religious Culture Program

Abstract: The implementation of the Ethics and Religious Culture Program has generated a great deal of controversy. Amidst all the controversy we rarely, if ever, hear what teachers think about the program. In this article, the authors present the perspectives of elementary school teachers. First a teacher discusses her experience with the program. This teacher is especially enthusiastic about the program, particularly the way in which it opens up new possibilities for reflection and dialogue. We then present the preliminary findings of a survey of teachers. This survey is the first non-governmental study of teachers. The findings point to considerable ambivalence regarding certain aspects of the program. Finally, we discuss some of the major challenges arising for teacher education, particularly the importance of providing an integrated disciplinary formation in both ethics and religion.

On Ethics and Religious Culture in Québec: Comments and Comparative Perspectives from a Norwegian and European Context

Abstract: In this article attention is drawn to how the term religious culture and how the Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC) subject is related to personal development. Questions are raised whether emphasis on religious culture might be seen as an expression of regionalism. Critical remarks are made regarding the relationship of the ERC subject and students' personal development. This is related to a general discussion in religion education regarding whether students should learn from religions or about religions. In discussing these topics, comparisons to the Norwegian context and the implementation of a mandatory secular religion education in Norwegian schools are made.

Has Deconfessionalization Been Completed? Some Reflections upon Québec's Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC) Program

Abstract: Quebec's Ethics and Religious Culture program is described by the Ministry of Education as “the culmination of a long process” of “deconfessionalization,” in “which the Quebec school system shifted away from essentially confessional Catholic and Protestant structures to lay structures.” The ministerial documents surely indicate that the program is oriented to respect the freedom of religion of all citizens. Nevertheless, it is also possible to draw evidence from the documents that the program is attempting to superimpose a certain view of religion/religions on pupils. This article focuses upon three such “confessional” aspects of the program: (1) the phenomenological presentation of religions, which avoids controversial issues; (2) the ambiguity of “Whose history?”; and (3) the potential reduction of religion into secular ethics. It examines the basic ministerial documents on the program, comparing them mainly with British, American, and Japanese materials. It could be said that the ERC program is one of ...

On the Front Lines: A Teacher's Experience with Québec's Ethics and Religious Culture Program

Abstract: The Ethics and Religious Culture Program (ERC) presents several practical challenges. Many public schools are ill-equipped to effectively teach about religious culture, whereas private schools tend to see the program as potentially undermining their tradition of confessional education. Despite these constraints, some public schools have found creative ways to integrate the religious culture aspect of the program in a secular setting and some private schools have found ways to teach the ERC course while respecting both the ministerial obligation to teach the program and at the same time respecting the religious character of the school. This article is an account of one teacher's private and public school experience working with the ERC program.

Spirituality as a Pragmatic Science: Toward the Establishment of a Holistic Educational Rationale

Abstract: The article presents an outlook that enables us to view spiritual practices brought from Eastern traditions as a form of pragmatic science. Once spirituality is accepted as a legitimate science through our Western ethos constructed by our scientific method, a holistic curriculum that attempts to address man as a spiritual being becomes a legitimate endeavor. The author argues that spirituality, as it stems from yoga (in a broad sense), constitutes a science that can and should serve as a foundation for holistic education. To make this argument, the author uses a Wilberian theory of knowledge and Jamesian pragmatism on the one hand, and an advaitan (non-dual) approach to reality, in which the secular/religious dichotomy is blurred, on the other.

“Voluntary and Secret Choices of the Mind”: The ERC and Liberal-Democratic Aims of Education

Abstract: In this article, I propose that a careful consideration of liberal-democratic aims of education is essential for evaluating the quality of the Ethics and Religious Culture program's (ERC's) stated aims, and the adequacy of its strategy for implementing those aims. The core of the author's argument is that the ERC fails to distinguish clearly between the aim of promoting personal autonomy and flourishing and the aim of promoting democratic civic virtue. This failure, he argues, leads to educational confusion and potentially to grievous mis-educational consequences. In Section 1, he elaborates the two fundamental aims of liberal-democratic education through a discussion of recent work in contemporary philosophy of education. In Section 2, he discusses the dangers of conflating different liberal-educational aims as they arise in the ERC. In Section 3, he focuses on the missing dimension of ethical and political conflict in the ERC's notion of civic education.

Taking Religion Seriously: Another Approach

Abstract: These two ‘‘religious conservatives’’ (the former an evangelical Protestant and the latter a Catholic) will miss our stimulating conversations with Warren Nord about, inter alia, the place of religion in public schools and faith-based schooling as well as his generous counsel regarding our work in these areas over the years. Not content to merely provide us sage advice, he contributed many superb entries to our Praeger Handbook of Religion and Education in the United States (2009). These entries and his present project are, of course, part of Warren’s long engagement with the question of the appropriate place of religion in public educational institutions. Indeed, much in this volume is reminiscent of Warren’s definitive Religion & American Education: Rethinking a National Dilemma published in 1995. In Does God Make a Difference? Taking God Seriously in Our Schools and Universities, Nord is at his best. The warm countenance, twinkling eye, and disarming humility that so graced his deeply thoughtful face-to-face conversations regarding ‘‘Big Questions’’ ooze from the pages of this treatise, which is accessible to both the scholar and the general reading public. We have no major disagreements with Warren’s carefully argued case for taking religion seriously in public institutions. Indeed, religion is seldom given its just due in most of our public educational institutions; many public school teachers are poorly prepared, if prepared at all, to teach about religious viewpoints and beliefs; secular ways of understanding the world are privileged in schools and institutions of higher education; and scant attention is given to

Does Warren A. Nord Make a Difference

Abstract: I do not mean the title of this essay to be blasphemous or even clever. While it is true that I am playing on the title of Nord’s book, Does God Make a Difference? Taking Religion Seriously in Our Schools and Universities, I am also hoping to convey to readers the answer to the personal question that drives this brief essay: What has the work of Warren Nord in the field of religion and education meant to me? In truth, his work has made an enormous difference in my professorial life, both as a teacher and as an author. I only wish that I had the opportunity to convey to Warren Nord while he was alive how important his work has been to me through the years. I cite him often in much of my work on religion and education; and when I am not citing him directly, he has served as one of my formative philosophical muses. I have written several books and articles on religion, spirituality, and teaching. I am also a professor of 40-plus years who, over two decades ago, created, and continues to teach, the first religion and education course ever offered in a professional school in the United States. I have tried to put into practice what Nord has written about in his latest book, so I know first-hand what works in the classroom and what else might be necessary in teaching for religious literacy. In this connection, I will use the question I pose in the title of this essay to talk about the enormous impact that Nord’s work has had on my pedagogy of education and religion in a college that prepares public school teachers, administrators, and other human service professionals. In addition to religion

Does God Make a Difference? Taking Religion Seriously in Our Schools and Universities: An Excerpt

Abstract: In its last issue of the 20th century, The Economist printed an obituary for God. Almost a decade later, its editor and its Washington bureau chief coauthored a book titled God Is Back: How the Glo...

Deweyan Democracy and Education About Religion

Abstract: Quebec's “Ethics and Religious Culture” curriculum shares many similarities with John Dewey's child-centered approach to education. The curriculum suggests how and why Dewey's approach of encouraging students to think critically and engage in sympathetic imagination can be integral to democratic citizenship and essential to the securing of respect for religious freedom in particular. Still, that a Deweyan education about religion is superior to the alternatives does not mean that it is flawless. If the Quebec curriculum for the most part highlights the strength of the Deweyan approach, it also suggests that, at least in the case of religion, an education aimed at developing critical and imaginative skills can sometimes also violate democratic norms of religious respect. The article concludes by briefly considering how Quebec's curriculum could be altered and supplemented to make its implementation practically feasible in the United States and consistent with widely shared views in the United States on rel...

The Examined Life

Abstract: Warren Nord's new book Does God Make a Difference? 1 is endlessly generous. In part, this is due to Nord's meticulousness. Many other authors on religion and education, myself included, focus on th...

Educational and Legal Perspectives: How Do They Differ?

Abstract: In Does God Make a Difference? Warren Nord develops a very powerful and nuanced argument for much more extensive instruction about religious perspectives in high schools and universities. He urges that not only should students be aware of the place of religion in our historical past, they should consider religious outlooks as genuine options for their own efforts to make sense of their lives. The relevance of religion could affect not only their notions of life’s ultimate meaning and personal moral choices, but also a wide range of subjects including economics, politics, and science. The aim of educational institutions, especially public ones, should not be to present any one position on these subjects as correct, but to encourage critical reflection on competing views. Various religious approaches and competing secular ones would be studied and analyzed. Thus, educators could remain neutral among religions and between religion and nonreligion. This ideal of neutrality, at least in its broad generality, fulfills what is most desirable from the standpoint of liberal education and conforms with the Supreme Court’s understanding of the Establishment Clause of our federal constitution. Thus, Nord claims, not only is what he has proposed consistent with the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Establishment Clause, it is supported by it. In these brief comments, I want to suggest that judgments about how to draw legal lines are cruder and more categorical, and desirably so in most instances, than judgments about what is best from an educational point of view. A subsidiary theme is that an important distinction exists between all that various constitutional ideals may imply and how those ideals will be, and should be, manifested in actual legal determinations. I discuss, in turn, how far the norm of neutrality condemns inattention to religion, what we may call the incompetence problem, and the legal boundaries of how religion may be taught in public schools.

Taking Warren Nord Seriously

Abstract: When Warren Nord learned in April 2010 that a special issue of Religion & Education would be devoted to Does God Make a Difference?, he expressed gratitude and excitement but also some concern about timing. At that point, Warren was seven months into what would ultimately be a nine-month losing battle with acute leukemia. Aware that he did not have much time, Warren was anxious to read what people he greatly admired had to say about the book. And he very much wanted the opportunity to respond. Mike Waggoner was accommodating and gracious, doing everything possible to hurry along the process. Warren remained hopeful but not optimistic. In May, he sent me the following email:

The Place of Religious Studies in Warren Nord's Does God Make a Difference?

Abstract: Warren Nord's new book, Does God Make a Difference?, sets forth the bold proposal that “if schools and universities are to take religion seriously they must require students to take at least one co...

Reinvention and Context: Freirean Approaches to Pedagogical Dialogue in Catholic, Jewish, and Public Schools

Abstract: Paulo Freire proposed dialogic pedagogyas a multi-dimensional framework for education-based work in social justice. 1 His work has greatly influenced educational theory and practice based on dialogue, which involves six tenants of hope, love, faith, humility, mutual trust, and critical thinking. Although broadly cited and extensively written about on a descriptive level, few studies have explored the implementation of Freire's framework in classroom practices. This study investigates how beginning teachers in Catholic, Jewish, and urban public school settings implement and reinvent Freire's framework as a means to meet the needs of students. The results identify spirituality as a common theme across all schooling contexts and identify concrete ways teachers implement pedagogy based in social justice. The authors propose ways in which teachers' continuing personal and professional development can be supported through an approach that recognizes teaching as an expression of spiritual as well as social convi...