Does Religious Education Matter?

Mary Shanahan is Lecturer in Education (Religious Education) at St. Angela’s College, Sligo. She has also taught philosophy, religious education, and religious studies at: University College Dublin, National University of Ireland Maynooth, Mater Dei Institute (Dublin City University), St. Patrick’s College (Drumcondra), Church of Ireland College of Education, and St. Patrick’s College (Thurles). She received a B. Ed. from Mater Dei Institute of Education (2004) and an M.A. in Philosophy from University College Dublin (2005), where she also completed her Ph.D. (2011). Her recent publications include: An Ethics of/for the Future? (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2014); ’A Pregnant Space: Levinas, Ethics, and Maternity’ in An Ethics of/for the Future? (2014); co-edited with Ian Leask et al, The Taylor Effect: Responding to a Secular Age (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010); ’Establishing an Ethical Community: Taylor and the Christian Self’ in The Taylor Effect: Responding to a Secular Age (2010); ’Responsible Reciprocity: Ethical Friendship in Plato and Levinas’, Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society No. 10 (February, 2010). She is also a Member of the Royal Irish Academy Ethical, Political, Legal and Philosophical Studies Committee, Committee Member of the Irish Philosophical Society, a member of the Irish Centre for Religious Education, and a member of the Council for Justice and Peace (Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference).

• IntroductionMary ShanahanPart 1: The Distinctness of Religious Education1 A Space like no OtherJohn Sullivan2 What sort of Religious Education is needed? And why is it so Important Today?Graham Rossiter3 Interpreting ‘between privacies’: Religious Education as a Conversational ActivitySandra CullenPart 2: Religious Education in the School Context4 Does Religious Education Matter? What do Teachers Say?Ros Stuart-Buttle5 Living the Questions: The Spirituality of the RE Teacher According to Henri J.M. NouwenDavid Torevell6 Going below the Surface of Grow in Love: Some of the Theological Presuppositions in the New Catholic Religious Education Primary Programme for IrelandDaniel O’Connell7 Eclipses and Reclamations: The Question of Religion in Educational ExperiencePádraig Hogan8 Does Religious Education Matter to Teachers in Catholic Primary Schools? Concerns and ChallengesFiona Dineen and David Lundie9 Religious Education in Catholic Second-level Schools in Ireland Today: An Invitation to Love, Understanding, Commitment, Hospitality, and DialogueGareth Byrne 10 The Role of Religious Education Teachers: Perspectives from the FieldHafiz Printer and Arzina Zaver11 Reclaiming our ‘Own Selves’: Fragmentation, Christian Religious Education and the New Junior CycleAmalee Meehan12 Does Religious Education Matter in Non-Denominational Schools in Scotland?Stephen J. McKinney and Raymond McCluskeyPart 3: Exploring the Potential of Religious Education13 Democracy, Political Salvation, and the Future of Religious EducationL. Philip Barnes14 Sartre’s Kierkegaard: Existential Philosophy and the Irish Primary School Jones Irwin15 Religious Education and Emerging Technologies: A Post-Worldview FlâneurJames E. Willis and Viktoria A. Strunk16 Religious Education through an Experiential Lens: Inclusivity and Subjectivity in the Writing and Literature Classroom Gavin F. Hurley17 Educational Exclusion: A Fundamental Layer of Social ExclusionAli Selim18 Religious Education in Ecclesiological Perspective Anne Codd19 Religion in the Latina/o Community: History, Identity, and Conscientization through Religious EducationJoão Chaves20 Lessons for Religious Educators from the ‘Good Teacher’ (Luke 18:18) of the Synoptic GospelsDiane Corkery