Brill Research Perspectives in Religion and Education – serie

This publication makes the case for ‘religion and education’ as a distinct, but cross-disciplinary, field of inquiry. To begin with, consideration is given to the changing dynamic between ‘religion and education’ historically, and the differing understandings of religious education within it. Next, ‘religion and education’ is examined from methodologically specific perspectives, namely the philosophical, historical, sociological and psychological. The authors outline the particular insights to be gleaned about ‘religion and education’ on the basis of their commitment to these methodological standpoints. Overall, this publication is concerned with demonstrating the scope of the field, and the importance of having a range of disciplinary, and interdisciplinary, perspectives informing it.

In this monograph Leslie J. Francis reviews and assesses the contributions made by the individual differences tradition of psychology over the past 50 years to research in religious education. In this context religious education is conceived broadly to embrace what takes place in schools, within religious communities, and within households across the age span. Topics include:• the centrality of the attitudinal dimension of religion;• the place of personality in the individual differences tradition;• sex as a core individual difference in religion;• the consequences of individual differences in religious affect;• the role of church schools and the role of the family in religious nurture;• the factors that account for individual differences in attitude toward religious diversity;• the relevance of the individual differences tradition for adult religious education;• the implications of the individual differences tradition for biblical hermeneutics and discipleship learning.

Focusing on Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, Religious Education and the Anglo-World historiographically examines the relationship between empire and religious education. The analysis centres on three formative eras in the development of religious education in each case: firstly, the foundational moments of publicly funded education in the mid- to late nineteenth centuries when policy makers created largely Protestant systems of religious education, and frequently denied Roman Catholics funding for private education. Secondly, the period from 1880-1960 during which campaigns to strengthen religious education emerged in each context. Finally, the era of decolonisation from the 1960s through the 1980s when publicly funded religious education was challenged by the loss of Britishness as a central ideal, and Roman Catholics found unprecedented success in achieving state aid in many cases. By bringing these disparate national literatures into conversation with one another, Stephen Jackson calls for a greater transnational approach to the study of religious education in the Anglo-World.

At Christmas 1936, Presbyterian children in New Zealand raised over £400 for an x-ray machine in a south Chinese missionary hospital. From the early 1800s, thousands of children in the British world had engaged in similar activities, raising significant amounts of money to support missionary projects world-wide. But was money the most important thing? Hugh Morrison argues that children’s education was a more important motive and outcome. This is the first book-length attempt to bring together evidence from across a range of British contexts. In particular it focuses on children’s literature, the impact of imperialism and nationalism, and the role of emotions.

The phrase “free, compulsory, and secular” is central to Australia’s understanding of its own education system. Yet the extent to which education in Australia, or anywhere else for that matter, can be described as “secular” is never clear or settled. This work examines the history of education in Australia, from 1910 through to the present, through an interdisciplinary survey of key scholarship and a series of six original case studies. It seeks to uncover the extent to which the education system has undergone a process of secularisation and argues that the very meaning of the term “secular” is always contingent and changeable.

Historically, religious education has often been seen as a tool for reinforcing cultural and religious identity. However, as the world becomes more interconnected and religious diversity grows within national borders, RE has increasingly been called upon to play a different role—one that fosters understanding and peaceful coexistence among people of different faiths and worldviews. The volume Teaching Religious Education: Challenges, Developments, and Current Debates in Comparative Perspective delves into these complexities, offering a comprehensive exploration of how religious education is taught, debated, and implemented across a diverse range of countries, challenging the Eurocentric focus of much existing research on religious education.