Religious education

About: Religious education is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 9554 publications have been published within this topic receiving 65331 citations. The topic is also known as: faith-based education & RE.

Religion and education in Ireland: growing diversity – or losing faith in the system?

Abstract: This paper examines the evolution of the state-supported denominational education system in Ireland in the context of increasing social diversity, and considers the capacity for incremental change in a system of institutional pluralism hitherto dominated by a single religion. In particular, we examine challenges to the historical arrangements emerging in two recent contentious issues: cuts in special funding for Protestant secondary schools and proposed diversification of the patronage of primary schools, revealing pressures on the dominant role of the Catholic Church and on the privileged place of religion in education. We identify a shift towards a more varied pluralism, or greater ‘diversity of schools’, in which multi- or non-denominational schools now feature more prominently, rather than towards either a secular system or privileged recognition of religious schools. These developments entail a change in the historical balance of religious equality and freedoms: from leaning more towards collective r...

Religious Education for Plural Societies: The Selected Works of Robert Jackson

Abstract: ́Ολες οι απόψεις και οι ιδέες που εκφράζονται στην έκδοση είναι απόψεις και ιδέες των συγγραφέων και όχι του εκδότη (Πανελλήνιος Θεολογικός Σύνδεσμος ΚΑΙΡΟΣ-για την αναβάθμιση της θρησκευτικής εκπαίδευσης). /The opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors and not of the publisher (KAIROS Greek Theological Association for the improvement of the Religious Education).

Religion and Politics in Post-Communist Romania

Abstract: Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu. Religion and Politics in Post-Communist Romania. Religion and Global Politics Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. 288 pp. $55.00, cloth.Given that 2007 signalled a turning point for the Romanian Orthodox Church, it could hardly have been more appropriate timing for the publication of the first comprehensive study dedicated to understanding its relationship to Romania's transition to democracy and its accession into the European Union in January 2007. Two major recent events have challenged the image of the church and created internal turmoil in a venerable institution that is, by turns, both respected and contested. The first, which generated a strong defensive reaction in the church, was provoked by the negative assessment in the recent report issued by the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of Communist Dictatorship in Romania, released in January 2007, of its role during the communist regime (1945-1989) through its collaboration with the state and support for government repression. The second was the death of the Patriarch Teoctist in July and the subsequent election of Patriarch Daniel as head of the church in September 2007, as its sixth leader since 1925. Intramural factional disputes resulted. But it is the problematic relationship between state and religion both before and after 1989, as well as the challenges faced by the Orthodox Church in functioning in a society increasingly shaped by the values of a liberal democracy, which is primarily addressed by Stan and Turcescu.Based on a well documented analysis of a wide range of topics - which includes the relationship between religion and nationalism, the manner in which the Orthodox Church is now confronting its past, its relationship with the Greek Catholic Church after 1989, the interplay between religion and electoral politics, religious education, the church's position in respect to sexuality and gender and, lastly, its attitude towards the European Union - the authors make a compelling argument that the relation between state and church after December 1989 has lagged behind the liberal democratic project. Instead, successive governments have adopted a "managed quasi-pluralistic model" of church-state relations in which government representatives have simultaneously interfered in the internal affairs of the church and encouraged its emancipation. This model was chosen by political elites as a compromise between the pressure for a strict separation between church and state and the support for religious diversity and tolerance. This was advocated by some segments of civil society and the European Union on the one hand, yet on the other the Orthodox Church demanded that it be recognized as the state church and elevated above other denominations. …