Religious Education

This article is a preliminary observation of the recently established Buddhist College of Singapore (BCS). It seeks to propose, building on Kuah Khun Eng's notion of "Reformist Buddhism", that the college can be seen as a product of the Reformist Buddhist movement in Singapore. By positioning the BCS within this larger context of Reformist Buddhist movement, this article argues that Reformist Buddhism has legitimized the process of rationalization and bureaucratization of the Buddhist institutions in the country. This has, to a large extent, contributed to the organizational and educational structure of the BCS.

Qu’est-ce que la laïcité ? Comment, dans un contexte scolaire, faire
observer la laïcité, comme cadre neutre respectueux de tous ?
Comment, dans le cadre de cours, aborder la laïcité comme
principe structurant de notre société, mais aussi comme sujet
qui provoque débats, parce qu’il est le résultat d’évolutions historiques ?
Ce volume, fruit d’un travail collectif de personnes engagées sur différents
terrains du champ éducatif, cherche à présenter des pistes de réflexion sous
une forme dynamique, autour d’une architecture synthétique.
• Une dynamique structurée selon trois types de repères pour penser et
agir avec des élèves.
• Une dynamique liant des textes courts, des développements plus
conséquents à lire en ligne, des compléments en vidéo, des adresses utiles
vers les textes institutionnels. Des pictogrammes signalent ces ressources
et ces liens.
• Une dynamique à créer en proposant aux étudiants, aux stagiaires et
aux formateurs de se saisir de ces textes.
• Une dynamique à amplifier en alimentant la page Laïcité (www.univnantes/
espe/laicite) avec de nouvelles ressources.
Ce numéro de la collection « Repères » pour la laïcité est le produit du
partenariat entre l’ESPE de l’académie de Nantes (Université de Nantes) et
l’Institut du Pluralisme religieux et de l’Athéisme, réseau pluridisciplinaire
(créé par la région Pays de la Loire).
Anne Vézier, Maître de conférences en histoire et didactique de l’histoire,
Référente Laïcité ESPE Académie de Nantes, Université de Nantes
John Tolan, Professeur d’histoire médiévale, Université de Nantes
Dominique Avon, Professeur d’histoire contemporaine, Université du Maine

The presentation (in Slovak language) at the International Conference on Pastoral Care of the Roma population offers a synthesis of Don Bosco's Preventive System as a reference framework for the work of the Congress. First question addressed is the integrality and heterogeneity of so many educational experiences of Don Bosco that makes difficult the creation of an unique conceptual schematization. Subsequently the most typical elements of Salesian education are presented as interconnected concepts in terms of educational environment, context, educational dimensions, objectives and levels of realization:
1. Loving kindness and the principle of family educational environment;
2. Assistance - physical, active, animating (educational environment);
3. Prevention of discomfort situations (context) and ideal education (mission-vision);
4. Reason - honest citizen (dimension - objectives);
5. Religion - good Christian (dimension - objectives);
6. Pedagogy of duties, joy and commitment (levels of realization).

La relazione (in slovacco) al Convegno Internazionale di Pastorale dell apopolazione Rom offre un’estrema sintesi del Sistema Preventivo di don Bosco in quanto un quadro di riferimento per il lavoro dei gruppi del Convegno. Prima si affronta la questione dell’integralità di tante (ed eterogenee) esperienze educative di don Bosco che rendono difficile una schematizzazione concettuale unica. Successivamente si offrono gli elementi più tipici dell’educazione salesiana viste nelle loro interazioni in termini di ambiente, contesto, dimensioni educative, fini, e livelli di realizzazione:
1. Amorevolezza e familiarità dell’ambiente educativo;
2. Assistenza – fisica, attiva, animante (ambiente educativo);
3. Prevenzione delle situazioni di disagio (contesto) e l’educazione all’ideale (fini);
4. Ragione – onesto cittadino (dimensione – fine);
5. Religione – buon cristiano (dimensione – fine);
6. Pedagogia dei doveri, della gioia e dell’impegno (livelli di realizzazione).

This essay was published in The Bible and Early Trinitarian Theology, edited by Christopher A. Beeley and Mark E. Weedman, for the CUAP Studies in Early Christianity (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2018); this is the uncorrected proofs. Exploring the humanity and divinity of Jesus, the Son's relation to the Father, and the agency of the Holy Spirit, it is one of five essays suggesting Johannine contributions to trinitarian discussions in the early church.

Rabbi Yitshak Hutner (1906-1980) was a remarkable scholar, an enigmatic religious intellectual and a charismatic teacher. Drawing upon his public discourses and his written letters, I argue that Hutner's vocabulary-which remained rooted almost entirely in the vocabulary of traditional Talmudism-afforded him a ready garment in which to clothe a syncretic educational theory, which combines Hasidic approaches to spiritual instruction and remakes the traditions of Lithuanian piety and study for his new American audience. The present study interrogates a series of key themes that appear in Hutner's teachings, all of which pertain to issues of pedagogy and the construction of religious education. The essay advances a historical argument by examining the works of an important and influential modern Jewish thinker, but it is also driven by a constructive question: What does Hutner's vision of Jewish religious teaching and learning have to contribute to today's Jewish education, and to the broader world of higher education in North America in particular?

Part of a series from Visual Aid Publishing, designed for Kindle, iPad etc. Aimed at a general readership but also useful for teaching purposes, as an accessible, thought provoking and inexpensive introduction.  Topics include Abortion, Euthanasia, Acts and Omissions, Kant, Mill, Hume, Law and Morality, Emotivism, Moral Luck, Altruism, Torture, Suicide, Ethics and Religion, Relativism, Justice and many more (another eighty-five, to be precise).

In most Western countries, a compulsory education system plays a key role in societal integration. This article discusses how the Norwegian model of education, its values base and religious education, contribute to integration in the broad sense. Approximately 98 per cent of all children between the ages of six and sixteen participate in a common, compulsory and public course of education regulated by a curriculum
approved by the parliament. Both the schools’ values base and the obligatory subject of religious education are best understood as contributions to integration in contemporary Norwegian society that is characterised by secularisation and disintegration of the Christian hegemony on the one hand, and by the emergence of cultural and religious diversity on the other. In this case, secularism is identified not with distance from religion but with equity towards religions, in education and in society, based on the assumption that everyone can unite around human rights, regardless of religious or cultural affiliation.

The following essay has as point of departure the changes which, by the introduction of all-day schooling, are imposed on schools themselves and on parishes. Against the background of the discussion on religious education in all-day environments and the debate on conceptions for the pedagogy of religion, one suspects to find reciprocal transformation processes in both the school system and religion when clerical actors are taken into account on the conceptual level of all-day schooling. Up to the present, there are hardly any investigations on the involvement of clerical actors, the services they render, and the way in which they are integrated into the conception of school programmes. The current essay fulfils this need by presenting the results of an empirical investigation into religious and church-related services rendered in various types of schools with all-day programmes in Germany/North Rhine-Westphalia, taking into account curricular and extra-curricular activities in the s...

Judaism is, through its scholarly traditions, both inclusive and isolationist. In the Bavli Talmud, the rabbis discuss whether or not the Torah, or any other sacred writing, can be translated into the language of the 'goyim' (Hebrew for the nations) and have that translation continue to retain sacred qualities. In this paper, I argue that the rabbis were considering the Jewish diaspora seeing the problem of Jews assimilating into the world in which they lived or remaining a separate people. For them, the question was similar to that raised by W. E. B. DuBois who wrote of a middle alternative, acculturation. To acculturate means to know the world of the other while hanging fast to the world of the self and community, to exist in two worlds with the potential to live well in both.

Competent leadership is essential for the health and well-being of a
Bible school. According to Oswald Sanders, “leadership is influence, the
ability of one person to influence others to follow his or her lead.”1
Leadership influence is a powerful commodity with many roles or
functions which we should regard with much sobriety. One major
leadership role, according to Robert Clinton, “is that of selection of rising
leadership. Leaders must continually be aware of God’s processing of
younger leaders and work with that processing,”2
which is an apt
description of the key task of all Bible school educators—equipping the
next generation of leaders. This paper will explore the leadership roles
of administrators, faculty, and students and discuss guiding principles for
leadership growth in Bible school educators which will, in turn, increase
the efficacy of the Bible school’s training programs for developing
leaders.

This study assesses the effectiveness of different types of Jewish schools in producing adult religious involvement, using a sample of 1,009 individuals from the Chicago area and an analysis of covariance design. Based on his analysis, the author concludes that the type of supplementary Jewish education received hiy over 80 percent of those Jews who have received any form of Jewish education has not had any lasting impact on their adult_religious involvement. Statistical analysis showed that the relationship between Jewish schooling and adult religious involvement is not wholly linear. Schooling exhibits threshold, plateau, and ceiling effects; it begins to have an impact at 2,000 hours, reaches a plateau between 3,000 and 4,000 hours, and obtains a maximum effect at 10,000 hours when reinforced by other agents of religious socialization. (Author/3G)

Most of us were raised in a religious tradition of some sort, and whether we lapsed, embraced a religious identity, or consciously rejected this upbringing, it is rarely claimed that parents are wrong for trying to pass on their beliefs. In Children, Religion, and the Ethics of Influence, philosopher of education John Tillson asks us to rethink almost everything about this state of affairs. He takes the reader through a series of challenging philosophical questions en route to addressing his guiding question: "How may we ethically influence children with respect to religions?" (CR, 1). His answers are at times buried or tentative, but they culminate in the provocative conclusion that essentially children should not be raised in a religion.

How are religious traditions and exchanges between them constructed in textbooks used in Quebec? Through a critical discourse analysis of History and Citizenship Education, and Ethics and Religious Culture textbooks, we find that the Abrahamic monotheistic tradition is valorized, while non-Abrahamic monotheistic traditions and polytheism are either
omitted or presented as largely different and exotic, with no potential connections established between the various traditions. As such, we propose a critical multicultural approach and an illustrative model that
acknowledges the exchanges and mutual influences among religious traditions. Such an approach should help students from various religious and cultural backgrounds develop an understanding and a respect for diverse human civilizations and religious traditions, thus contributing to fostering inclusive multicultural classrooms.

ABSTRACT Negotiating their double identity as Mauritians and Muslims in multilingual and in multiethnic Mauritius, Mauritian Muslims have been socialised into reading and writing in Kreol in madrassahs, while they have never been exposed to Kreol literacy in mainstream education. At the point where Kreol is being introduced as an optional school subject, and given that the Mauritian Muslim community has made particular use of written Kreol in the madrassah, this community becomes an interesting test case to explore its language and literacy ideologies with respect to Kreol. A case study approach was used to investigate madrassah informants' language and literacy ideologies, their attitudes to and perceptions of Kreol at the madrassah and at school. The findings reveal that they tolerate written Kreol at the madrassah, but that they use a French-Kreol literacy variety and aspire to shift to French in the near future. Furthermore, they have ambivalent attitudes towards the introduction of Kreol as an optional school subject and potential medium of instruction. These findings are discussed in relation to the micro-practices occurring in the madrassah and the macro-context, both of which reinforce dominant historically situated popular ideologies about Kreol literacy.

This article explores the place of religion within Australian primary and secondary education. It is divided into three parts. The first examines religion within the Australian legal and constitutional structure. The second considers the accommodation of religion in government (public or state) and nongovernment (private) schools, using the State of South Australia as a representative example. The overarching question addressed in the third part is twofold: (1) Does religion find a place in Australia's schools, both government and nongovernment? (2) To the extent that it does, are there current legal threats to that place—in other words, to the freedom of religious faith in schools? The final section offers some brief concluding observations about the place of religion in Australian life generally, suggesting that there may still be some judicial support for the place of religion in the public sphere, which may auger well for its future in Australian education.

Die Diplomarbeit reiht sich ein in die Tradition der genderorientierten Schul-buchanalyse, die besonders im katholischen Bereich in Österreich (mit weni-gen  Ausnahmen1)  ein  großes  Desiderat  darstellt.  Anders  als  in  bisherigen  Untersuchungen lag bei dieser Analyse der Fokus jedoch auf linguistischer Ebene, um die darin enthaltenen sprachlichen Tiefenstrukturen in Bezug auf geschlecht-liche Konstruktionen rekonstruierbar zu machen.

European communities grow more colourful and different as time
passes. The influence of globalization and the diversification is
visible in all kinds of fields. "Religious pluralism/diversification"
which has an important position among these fields, is an
undiscussable reality of modern life in Europe. Initially, "The
concept of religion" was considered as a part of diversification and
alienation with the arrival of cultural and ethnic differences.
However, especially in the aftermath of the trauma experienced in
2001, it turned into a fundamental structure that should be
considered for the establishment of a hub of peace, toleration, and
communication.
The revival of religion that had been ignored for a long time was
perceived as the "return of the religion". According to this
perception, religion, which had been thought to be a part of
alienation for a certain period of time, became a crucial point in
maintaining social cansensus and tolerance. This study is an
endeavour to examine both how religion and religious education
contributes to maintaining a peaceful, tolerant and communicative
environment and also what kind of a role is attributed to religion
and religious education for this end within the perspectives of
occidental scholars.

Steeds vaker wordt het vak godsdienst/levensbeschouwing gegeven als onderdeel van een breder leergebied. De vraag voor iedere vakdocent is dan meestal: hoe zorg ik dat mijn vak herkenbaar blijft in het meestal thematisch georganiseerde programma van een leergebied? Een terechte vraag. Behalve samenwerkings partners ben je immers ook een beetje elkaars concurrent in zo'n samenwerking. Een vraag die minder gesteld wordt, maar minstens zo belangrijk is, is hoe de keuze van samenwerkingspartners invloed heeft op de smaak en kleur van jouw vak.

What is religion? This is not just an intellectually fascinating question, but one that bears heavily on religious education. For how should we define what we study? And how does that definition impact on how we should learn about it? Ninian Smart, perhaps the most influential scholar of religions of the last century for religious educators, identified seven dimensions of religions: ritual, mythical, experiential, institutional, ethical, doctrinal and material. This framework represented a departure from the methods of theology for the study of religion, and was intended to help comparison between religions and to demarcate religions from non­religions. It has been used to design curricula in schools and universities worldwide. There is undoubtedly logic to Smart's dimensions, but they have been substantially critiqued, particularly when applied to religious education. For example, Smart's dimensions obscure the nuances of religious identities, replacing them with a rigid and fixed notion of religion that does not capture the complexities of contemporary religious practices that quite often ignore the institutional, ethical or doctrinal. Another problem with Smart's dimensions is that they have led some to presume similarities across all religions. For example, according to these dimensions ritual washing in Hinduism or Islam could be treated as expressions of the same anthropological universals and therefore as near­equivalents. While there are interesting parallels between religions, this approach actually glosses over the radical differences between faiths. It also represents a particular theological perspective that can be traced to the liberal theology that developed out of the European enlightenment. In this blog, I focus on an aspect of religion that cuts across Smart's ritual, experiential, material and institutional dimensions: the role of the senses. Writer S. Brent Plate argues in his excellent book, A History of Religon in 5½ Objects that we should think of religions as opportunities for apprehending ourselves and the universe with our senses, not as abstract belief­systems. His argument is compelling. Religious practices in different religions often comprise similar sensory experiences: the touch of stone, the smell of incense, the sound of music, the sight of symbols, the taste of food. Recent research about the formation of children's religious identities supports this view. For example, Sissel Ostberg demonstrates how primary socialization of Muslim children in Norway includes the unique sensory experiences of attending Mosques. The senses are often thought to be those of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. But we can add awareness of temperature, movement and pain to these. Religions practices use, and are founded upon, all of these sensations. These practices give meaning to sensory experiences and in turn, vitality is given to religious practices through them. The spiritual power of this two­way relationship, Plate argues, is connected with the existential condition of being an embodied person.

In recent decades, the impact of postmodern approaches to history teaching has triggered an extensive worldwide debate that accommodates diverse and contrasting voices. This article examines how the education system of Religious Zionism, one of the most important ideological movements in Israel, copes with this issue. This inquiry, which is based on Peter Seixas’s conceptualization, analyzes the system’s history curriculum, its latest textbooks, and an array of lesson plans. The analysis reveals a complex method of coping with postmodernism, including the adoption of clearly postmodern attitudes at the declarative level and the neutralization of their influence in practice.

The sense of religious education under discussion in this chapter will be the formative influence of children, with respect to religions. Such influence could be anti-religious, pro-religious, or neutral about the value of religion. What I will call ‘the Basic Question’ asks ‘how ought children to be influenced with respect to religions?’ In this chapter we will assess a range of forms that question can take in different kinds of societies. We will distinguish and explore questions regarding the moral permissibility and desirability, and the legal permissibility, of various answers to the Basic Question. First however, we will consider some rival answers and approaches to the question of what counts as a religion.

Research is a form of 'translation process' that aims to translate systems of meaning through mutual engagement between the researcher and the researched in the field. In observing, engaging, experiencing, living and subsequently writing the stories of the informants, the researcher also inadvertently rediscovers and renegotiates their own identity. This chapter is a critical reflection on my professional practice in doing ethnographic fieldwork with the Christian communities in Indonesia over the past decade. While my subject position as a middle-class, Western-educated, Asian, Christian, male researcher has given me rare access into various Christian sites, including clandestine seminaries, my ability to gather data is contingent upon the amount of 'investment' that I committed to the sites and to my informants. As there are no hard and fast rules about how much a researcher should invest in the field, my experience demonstrates how a researcher might reflexively negotiate between engaging the field and distancing from it in order to maintain intellectual objectivity, moral boundaries and emotional hygiene. This chapter takes a reflexive approach in interrogating the epistemological dichotomies of researcher/researched, self/other, insider/ outsider and native/foreign. It challenges the fixity of these categories and sheds light on how they are constructed and shaped by specific temporal and spatial contexts, and are always shifting.

Every kingdom has its own culture and values. The problem in Christianity is that it does not have the culture and values of the Kingdom of God. Christians remain sunken into being part of the kingdoms of men, whose leadership and culture now only deal in good sounding baloney. Christians do not realize that God calls us to both be available to the world, while being differentiated from the kingdoms of men. We've reverted to talk, empty concepts and thinking we're being truth. It is time to reassert what sets apart from the kingdoms of men and their leadership and the mere talk they deal in. This section is an attempt to reconnect circuitry and reverse polarity in these details to the point where we once again can become that Kingdom of God set apart.

Virtually all churches aim to invest meaningfully in the faith development of the younger generations who have been entrusted into their care. Some churches have a longstanding track record of faithfulness in living out this commitment. Some lose sight of this priority over time and allow their intentionality to fade. This book makes a distinctive contribution to our understanding of children’s, youth, and young adult ministries by appropriating Erik Erikson’s concept of generativity (“the interest in establishing and guiding the next generation”) as a way of exploring congregational life. Eleven accomplished authors representing five different countries provide diverse theological and cultural perspectives on key aspects of what it means for churches to invest intentionally in the faith development of the members of emerging generations. Their chapters challenge us to think about the intergenerational dynamics of our churches, the crucial partnership between church and parents, and what it means to involve young people meaningfully in the life of the church. The intriguing topics explored by this group of authors—and the diverse contexts from which they write—promise to broaden and enrich our thinking about caring for children, youth, and young adults as a vital responsibility shared by the entire congregation.

https://wipfandstock.com/the-generative-church.html

Is meditation a thing for children? Can they meditate? Should they meditate? In this talk I intend to address these questions, first appealing to the Christian tradition, then considering what writers such as Sofia Cavalletti, Madeleine Simon and Laurence Freeman have to say about children’s spirituality, and finally drawing from the experience of schools and children today.

The author takes a retrospective look at his book Religious Education: An Interpretive Approach, first published in 1997, and now available to readers, open access, via the European Wergeland Centre website (http://www.theewc.org/Content/Library/Research-Development/Literature/Introducing-Religious-Education-an-Interpretive-Approach). He tells a personal story of teaching, broadcasting and research, moving from the design of a methodology for studying the religions of minority groups in Britain to identifying the main concepts used for teaching about religions to children and young people in an engaging way, which relates to their own personal and social experience. The article, explains the key concept of representation in looking, for example, at how religions are often represented in ways that play down their internal diversity. Next the concept of interpretation is considered, emphasising the activity through which learners can compare and contrast the use of language by religious believers with their own nearest equivalent language uses, in trying, with sensitivity, to get as close as possible to their meanings. Finally, the process of reflexivity is explained; this gives learners an opportunity for three activities: to reassess their understanding of their own world view (called edifi-cation in the interpretive approach), to make a distanced critique of beliefs and ideas they have studied, and to evaluate the methods that they have been using to learn about the religious meanings of others. Finally the author illustrates how the key concepts from the interpretive approach have been adapted for use in field research studies on teaching and learning about religions.

"RESUMEN
El presente trabajo hace una revisión de los principales textos bíblicos en los que aparece la catequesis en familia. Y las propuestas educativas presentadas desde 1958 en torno a la Catequesis Familiar, tanto en Europa como en América. El capítulo termina presentando los retos que el siglo XXI sitúa a la catequesis en familia y cómo se puede establecer un itinerario de educación en la fe desde las aportaciones de la psicología evolutiva y de la educación.

ABSTRACT
The present chapter does a review of the principal Biblical texts in which the catechizing appears in family. And the educational offers presented from 1958 concerning the Familiar Catechizing, both in Europe and in America. The chapter ends up by presenting the challenges that the 21st century places to the catechizing in family and how it is possible to establish an itinerary of education in the faith from the contributions of the evolutionary psychology and of the education."