Sean Whittle – författare

It is only in the years since Vatican II that the new thinking about Catholic education has crystalised into shape. Vatican II and New Thinking about Catholic Education provides an opportune moment to take stock of the impact of Vatican II on Catholic education.

This volume considers the various ways in which Vatican II and its teaching on education has been received and engages with the challenges and testing times that beset faith-based education in the twenty-first century. With insights from an international range of leading and influential advocates of Catholic education, the volume demonstrates the differing contexts of Catholic education and explores the ways in which Vatican II’s teaching on education has been received over the past four or five decades.

It is only in the years since Vatican II that the new thinking about Catholic education has crystalised into shape. Vatican II and New Thinking about Catholic Education provides an opportune moment to take stock of the impact of Vatican II on Catholic education.

This volume considers the various ways in which Vatican II and its teaching on education has been received and engages with the challenges and testing times that beset faith-based education in the twenty-first century. With insights from an international range of leading and influential advocates of Catholic education, the volume demonstrates the differing contexts of Catholic education and explores the ways in which Vatican II’s teaching on education has been received over the past four or five decades.

Catholic schools continue to be a popular choice for parents, including many who do not profess the Catholic faith. One of the distinguishing features of Catholic schools is the importance they ascribe to Religious Education (RE). This volume draws together researchers from Ireland and the UK to bring into focus the complex range of issues around the teaching of RE. Within the public sphere, there is considerable discussion about the role of education in passing on and engaging with religious matters. The essays gathered here make an important contribution to an ongoing debate about the place of RE in Catholic schools within pluralist societies.

Given that almost all Catholic schools are publicly funded, the questions explored in this volume are not only of interest to advocates of Catholic education and those involved in researching and teaching RE, but are also relevant and topical for Irish and British society more widely.

This book presents a range of perspectives on the current state of Catholic education in the opening decades of the twenty-first century. All of the chapters have their origin in an International Conference on Catholic Education, held at Heythrop College (University of London) in September 2016. The book brings together many leading scholars to present a survey of the latest research on Catholic education in areas such as the aims of Catholic education, Catholic schools and Catholic identity, leadership issues in Catholic schools and fresh thinking about the place of Religious Education (RE) in Catholic Education.

This book demonstrates how the field of Catholic Education Studies has firmly come of age. Rather than being a subfield of educational or theological discourse, it is now an established field of research and study. As such, the book invites readers to engage with much of the new thinking on Catholic education that has grown rapidly in recent years. It offers a broadrange of contemporary perspectives on research in Catholic Education and rich insights into current thinking about Catholic Education.

The volume brings together a rich range of scholars into one place, so that these voices can be listened to as a whole. It includes contributions from leading scholars, blended with a plethora of other voices who are emerging to become the next generation of leading researchers in Catholic education. It also introduces a number of newer voices to the academic context. They present fresh perspectives and thinking about matters relating to Catholic education and each of them confidently stand alongside the other contributors. Moreover, these reflections on Catholic education are important fruits to have emerged from the collaboration made possible through the creation of the Network for Researchers in Catholic Education, which was established in 2016 under the auspices of Heythrop College, University of London.

This book provides readers with the opportunity to go beyond anecdote and supposition in order to get a fuller grasp of research around Catholic education and LGBTQ+ matters. This is an edited collection of chapters which explores LGBTQ+ matters in relation to Catholic education. Although the field of Catholic Education Studies has grown exponentially over the past two decades, little if any attention has been published specifically about the place of LGBTQ+ students (and teachers) in the context of Catholic education. This edited book presents the various strands of research about Catholic education and LGBTQ+ inclusion. More specifically, this edited book of chapters addresses a number of broader themes including:

• What does it mean to ‘queer’ education at all? How does this sit in relation to Catholic perspectives on the purpose of Catholic education?

• When it comes to LGBTQ+ issues in relation to Catholic education, what is the research agenda?

• How might Catholic schools move beyond a ‘pastoral accommodation’ approach to LGBTQ+ students?

• What does the evidence from research in Catholic schools indicate? Are they places of inclusion, hospitality, and welcome for LGBTQ+ young people?

This edited collection is the first part of a two-volume set., which focuses on leadership in Catholic education settings in the United Kingdom. It includes an overview of the importance of different types of leadership, including ‘servant-leadership’, in understanding and framing Catholic school practice, a critical survey of why leadership matters to ensuring the success of Catholic education, and a discussion of what counts as the defining characteristics of leadership in Catholic education and how this relates to the aims or philosophy of Catholic education. The chapters in this book draw from the insights and experiences of serving Catholic school leaders as well as from academics and researchers in Catholic education studies. The final two chapters provide a comparative analysis for the United Kingdom in a global perspective using data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) . Together, the chapters argue that there is an urgent need to find, nurture, and sustain outstanding leaders for Catholic schools and colleges.