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Discussion of religion and education continues to evoke conceptions of confessional teaching; however, research and educational practices in recent decades illustrate an expanded understanding that relates to the teaching of, about, and from religion across formal and non-formal educational spaces in secular and religious spheres. An expanded understanding also illustrates various intersections between religion and education that extend beyond religious or non-sectarian instruction, to include everything from the recognition and accommodation of religious student identities in K-12 public school settings, to the internationalization of religious higher education. Drawing on the Comparative and International Education Society’s Religion & Education Special Interest Group’s programing and activities, this paper aims to present a brief summary of trends observed both in research and practice concerning religion and education among educators worldwide, and highlights the place of religion in our growing recognition of intersectionality, one that occurs between academics and the community.

Models the trade-offs between education in secular subjects, formal and informal, and the formation of religion-specific human capital. Explores some implications of negative externalities between religious and secular education. Develops hypotheses about religious tensions in the American public school system and means of coping with them. Discusses some implications for social cohesion in a religiously pluralistic school system.

Legal and philosophical scholarship on religious education typically focuses on religious schools that challenge core liberal values. Religious schools that offer their students quality secular education, and whose religious character is mild, do not raise these concerns and have therefore evaded scrutiny thus far. This chapter argues that the latter kind of religious schools, which I call “creaming religious schools,” may have a negative effect on educational equality and should therefore be subject to restrictive legal regulation. The negative effect on equality is caused by the fact that when successful, these schools appeal not only to members of the religious community but also to non-member high-achieving students who leave the public schools (a process called creaming) thus weakening them. The chapter argues that the harm caused to public schools cannot be redeemed by alluding to the right to religious education because the religious justification for creaming religious schools is relatively weak. The chapter then examines several potential legal measures for contending with creaming religious schools: the antidiscrimination doctrine, which the chapter rejects, showing that it actually aggravates creaming, locating schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods, restricting tuition, reflective enrollment policy, and finally, the total prohibition of establishing creaming religious schools.

In the light of intensifying academic discourses on contemporary religious education in Hong Kong, this paper aims to examine how the interreligious model (i.e. that features teaching religious variety rather than a particular faith) is consistent with Hong Kong’s social context. It begins with a theoretical conceptualization that interreligious education originates from certain preconditions and is only understood contextually. Next, the analysis identifies the preconditions within Hong Kong milieus: sociodemographic, sociocultural and legal.

Theoretically driven case study. The paper analyses Hong Kong's development toward interreligious education.

Albeit most conceptualizing of interreligious education has been conducted in Europe, the study finds the model functional to Hong Kong. Moreover, these preconditions-religious heterogeneity, freedom of religion and secularity – are met, although with their specifics. These preconditions, however, do not imply imperativeness yet rather feasibility if the interreligious model adheres to Hong Kong’s educational aims.

This study develops theoretical lenses for interreligious education in Hong Kong. First, it analyzes religious heterogeneity, freedom of religion and secularity within the Hong Kong milieus and reveals Hong Kong’s capacity to implement the interreligious model. It also advances scholarship on interreligious education in relatively underexplored settings (referring not simply to Hong Kong but to Chinese societies and contemporary Asia).

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the causal link between religion and the formation of human capital. It takes into consideration that, though religion may transmit a system of values that positively affect children’s education, it can also be characterized by a traditionalist dimension. The latter may hamper children’s self-determination and their educational achievements. Nevertheless, religious values may adapt to the cultural changes due to economic development and modernization and become less conservative.

The above aspects are investigated through an overlapping generations model with human capital where parents’ human capital and the religion in which individuals have been raised, characterize family background.

The model’s predictions point to the crucial role that development may play in promoting education. For instance, if a moderate responsiveness of religious institutions to economic and cultural changes is associated with low development, conservative attitudes prevail in society. This undermines individual confidence in improving one’s socio-economic status through education and negatively affects children’s education. Whereas, a development level sufficiently high counterbalances the effects of a low ability of religious institutions to adjust to changes and fosters education.

Though the empirical literature widely acknowledges that religion affects economic growth, the hypothesis that the link between religion and economic performance may also pass through education has been overlooked. In this respect, the paper investigates on this relationship by taking religion as a force reactive to economic processes.

This paper explores religious education (RE) in South Australia from 1968–1980. It focuses especially on the collapse of the RE settlement from 1968–1972 and the controversial legislation and subsequent curricula emerging from changes to the Education Act in 1972.

This paper draws upon archival materials, published sources from the South Australian Institute of Teachers, the South Australian Education Department and the Religious Education Project Team, as well as an interview with Malcolm McArthur, one of the most influential figures in the controversy.

Following the collapse of religious instruction from 1968–1972, the Minister of Education quickly passed legislation regarding a new course of religious education. A major controversy subsequently broke out over the appropriateness and design of a new programme of religious education. Educators attempted to design an educationally sound programme of RE that would avoid the problem of indoctrination. Ultimately, a new programme was created that satisfied neither proponents nor opponents of religion in state schools, and General Religious Teaching gradually faded from South Australian classrooms by 1980.

The article engages with broader debates on the nature of secularity in Australian history. In particular, it complicates the political-institutional approach developed by Damon Mayrl by stressing the agency and significance of elite educational and religious actors in the creation of new secular settlements. It also provides a useful addition to an older South Australian historiography by utilising newly available sources on the topic.

When post-secondary education (PSE) in Africa is viewed in terms of growth rather than total enrolment the region tops the list of impressive trends. Between the years 1985 and 2005 the countries of sub-Saharan Africa experienced the largest growth of PSE involvement of any region with total enrolment increasing fourfold. The insatiable student demand is being met by a proliferation of large-scale and small-scale religious denominations establishing post-secondary education. The current chapter provides a categorical, multi-levelled analysis of the growth of religious providers in sub-Saharan Africa. Particular attention is given to the activities and rationales of stakeholders who play a part in the establishment and continued operations of religious PSE. Using Marginson and Rhoades’s (2002) glonacal agency heuristic, the networks between stakeholders and their varying degrees of influence on regional PSE are described and discussed. The findings suggest that PSE in the region is being widely provided by small-scale denominations establishing religious training institutions. But the influence of this PSE is mainly limited to local communities.

The relationship between religious belief and spousal choice in Nepal is examined, looking at how the importance that individuals place on their own religious faith influences their decision either to allow their parents and other relatives to arrange a marriage for them or to initiate their own love marriage. How the importance attached to religious faith within the individual’s family and neighborhood affects this decision, and how education modifies the relationship between religion and spousal choice are also looked at.

Ordinary least squares regression models are used to examine the relationship between spousal choice and key independent variables. Interaction terms are used to examine how education may moderate the relationship between personal, family, and neighborhood religious salience and spousal choice.

It is found that the effect of one’s neighbors’ faith operates differently based on one’s own level of education. The “moral communities” thesis is used to theorize that in neighborhoods where religion is regarded as very important, individuals need to expend more effort to maintain respectability, adhering to tradition by having arranged marriages. In neighborhoods where religion is less important, the weaker demands made by the “moral community” render individuals more free to choose their own spouses. For highly educated individuals, the effect of their neighbors’ religious belief is considerably reduced.

As Nepalis become more educated, they not only move out of the sphere of family influence, as discussed in previous research, but also away from being influenced by their neighbors.

This article seeks to augment understanding of the rise of psychological interpretations of the child in New Zealand, and suggest refinements to McDonald’s typology, with reference to changing religious values and priorities in the years before World War II. In particular, it considers patterns of religious education, with special reference to changing representations of Jesus for children during this time. Consideration of this material indicates that psychological approaches to childhood played an important role in shaping religious education throughout these years. Though noteworthy in itself, this influence highlights the extent to which interest in scientific and psychological understandings of the child had been growing more generally since the beginning of the twentieth century. Indeed, it provides a broader context for understanding the post‐war expansion of psychological approaches to children. Insofar as psychological interpretations of childhood were paradigmatic after 1945, this occurred because such approaches had been disseminated and acquired sufficient legitimacy in preceding years.

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of formal religion in the early years of Outward Bound, a significant outdoor education organisation in Britain, from the 1940s to the 1960s.

This article is based on archival and other documentary research in various archives and libraries, mostly in the United Kingdom.

The article shows that religious “instruction” was a central feature of the outdoor education that Outward Bound provided. The nature and extent of this aspect of the training was a matter of considerable debate within the Outward Bound Trust and was influenced by older traditions of muscular Christianity as well as the specific context of the early post–Second World War period. However, the religious influences at the schools were marginalised by the 1960s; although formal Christian observances did not disappear, the emphasis shifted to the promotion of a vaguer spirituality associated with the idea that “the mountains speak for themselves”.

The article establishes the importance of organised Christianity and formal religious observances in the early years of Outward Bound, a feature which has generally been overlooked in the historical literature. It contributes to wider analyses of outdoor education, religious education and secularisation in the mid-twentieth century.