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.

Reorienting the religion curriculum in Catholic schools to address the needs of contemporary youth spirituality

Abstract: In the light of the changed landscape of contemporary spirituality explored in the previous issue of this journal (Rossiter, G.M. 2010. International Studies in Catholic Education 2, no. 2, 129–47), this follow-up article considers implications for Catholic school religion curricula in Australia, with the likelihood that this would also be relevant to Catholic schooling in other countries. A reorientation of the religion curriculum is proposed, giving more prominence to the critical interpretation and evaluation of cultural meanings. If many of the pupils in Catholic schools will not become actively involved in parishes, then religious education needs to offer more than familiarising them with Catholic theology and religious practice; it also needs to skill them in addressing the spiritual and moral issues they will encounter in life. Attention is given to what this entails in both content and pedagogy.

Exploring religion in school: A national priority

Abstract: The teaching of religion in schools remains a source of contention. State school systems tend to skirt it. Religious schools tend to skew it. And in both cases students tend to scorn it. In this book, the author seeks to develop an approach that offers all types of school a way forward. He argues that there are valid educational reasons for giving religious education core status in any general curriculum, and he makes many practical suggestions for classroom teaching and assessment

Theorising Jewish social justice education : a hermeneutical inquiry

Abstract: Jewish social justice education is an active and growing field of practice, encompassing a diverse range of agendas and practices: teaching Jewish texts and values around issues of refugees, human rights and environmental justice; organising members of the Jewish community to oppose the occupation of the Palestinian territories and support the Israeli Left; advancing gender equality and LGBT+ inclusion within the community through informal education and training; engaging Jewish students in volunteer service-learning projects to alleviate poverty in the developing world; building inter-faith coalitions to work on local agendas such as housing, crime and healthcare; encouraging a culture of charitable giving and volunteering among Jewish young people; and mobilising Jews in the national and international political arenas around issues such as gun violence, climate change, immigration, hate crime and antisemitism. Yet Jewish social justice education remains an under-researched and under-theorised phenomenon. This theoretical lacuna has practical implications for the thousands of educators and activists across the world who are attempting to achieve social justice ends through the medium of Jewish education but have no well thought-out rationale as to what this might mean and, consequently, cannot know if it has any chance of success. This thesis explores possible theoretical foundations for Jewish social justice education by creating a hermeneutical dialogue between Freirean critical pedagogy, Catholic models of social justice education, Jewish social justice literature and interviews with thinkers and practitioners who consider themselves to be part of the Jewish social justice education enterprise. After drawing out and analysing the philosophical, political and educational themes that emerge from this dialogue, I propose three possible directions a coherent normative theory of Jewish social justice education could take: ‘Jewish politics in a renewed public sphere’, ‘Jewish education for relational community building’ and ‘Jewish critical pedagogy for cultural emancipation’.