In the United States, Christianity is the religion of the majority, about 70% of people. Almost 23% are unaffiliated, and slightly less than 7% practice other religions (Sandstrom, 2016). While 7% may not sound like a lot, it means that a growing number of Americans have neighbors, schoolmates, and colleagues who practice diverse, often…

Turkey is the only country that has twice lost cases concerning the violation of parents' freedom to ensure their children an education in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). This article firstly seeks to present these court cases. It then moves to the official responses…

Statutory requirements for compulsory Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) in the UK is generating concern among many religious communities and reigniting debates about the purpose of School Based Sexuality Education (SBSE). Among the communities voicing their dissent are members of the British Islamic community. Quranic scripture deems…

This article traces the circumstances of the return and beginnings of the Jesuits to Lahore, Pakistan after centuries of absence, to the establishment of the Jesuit Schools. Given the Socio-economic condition of Christians in Pakistan, and the proliferation and status of 'Private Schools' on the one hand and the low standard of the Public Schools…

This paper contributes to current debates on positionality by critically discussing and comparing three researchers' experiences doing research involving Muslims. We introduce "positionality meetings" to enhance reflexivity in qualitative research projects. Based on empirical evidence from our independent projects and the positionality…

This paper attempts to look at the Colombian case of secularisation, touching on the current state of religion and Religious Education from three perspectives: the law, the Catholic Church, and the wider society, to determine the challenges acquired by the gap developed between religion, religiosity and secular legislation. With this in mind, the…

This paper explores the notion that religious texts and the tradition of religious story telling are the content, form or "the movable feast" by which we form and preserve our culture and group identity, and by which we pass them down to the next generations. All these texts are composed of language that is open for analysis and multiple…

One of the conspicuous features of the twentieth-century West was silence. This idea could be supported by examining reflections of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Fritz Mauthner, John Cage, Samuel Beckett, Ihab Hassan, Franz Kafka, Wassily Kandinsky, Jean-Paul Sartre, Virginia Woolf, Wolfgang Iser, Jacques Derrida, and Pierre Macherey. To me, silence is not…

Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred are wrong, and should not be tolerated at universities, or anywhere in society. Islamophobia refers to hostility, mistrust or hatred towards Islam and Muslim people, because of their Muslim identity (or perceived Muslim identity). Evidence suggests that Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hatred are widespread, and…

Despite more than 25 years of existence of Kazakhstan in a new political reality after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the government and society are still afraid of religious institutions and alternatives in many areas of social life, including education. This article reviews the reasons for such an attitude and the issues that arise with…

The UK Government's PREVENT strategy to counter radicalisation and extremism has been the subject of criticism. Concerns arise over clarity of purpose, clarity of terminology used and potential human rights impacts. Where the policy engages with schools, one human right potentially engaged is the right of parents to transfer their religious…

If Islam continues to evoke skepticism, as it has done most intensely since 9/11, then it stands to reason that its tenets and education are viewed with equal mistrust, and as will be highlighted in this special issue, equal misunderstanding. The intention of this special edition is neither to counter the accusations Islam stands accused of, nor…

Based on classroom readings and discussions of William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice," this Voices from the Field article examines the ways that teachers might use traditional canonized texts to encourage students to both critique and react against bullying behaviors. The author's experiences detail the narratives that students…

There are many pitfalls associated with teaching about religions. One such pitfall entails the risk of presenting religions as stereotypical monolithic systems; that is, all who belong to a particular religious tradition think and act in the same way. I like to call this sort of stereotyping the "robotic tendency" because it has a habit…

According to a teaching of the Prophet Muhammad, "the quest for knowledge is the duty of each Muslim, male or female", where knowledge is meant as the discovery of the real value of things and of oneself in relationship with the world in which God has placed us. This universal dimension of knowledge is in fact a wealth of wisdom of the…