The Canadian province of Alberta runs a unique school system that offers ten options for school plurality and choice, nine of which provide some form of faith-based schooling. This article argues that Alberta has created a pragmatic version of a "pluriform school system." This system breaks with the assumption, shared by many Christian…

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…

The U.S. colleges and universities offering non-sectarian educational programs in Jewish Studies rely on the support of their academic libraries for research materials and library services. For college libraries which use Library of Congress Classification scheme, it is a common practice to integrate "studies" resources into their…

Almost countercultural today, focusing on the humanities--examining what it means to be human, understanding our cultures, and learning to embrace what Jonathan Sacks calls the "Dignity of Difference"--provides students with the tools to reclaim our public spaces, our public dialogue, and our businesses and corporations from the venal,…

Two centuries have passed since the birth of Don Bosco and this occasion can be a significant opportunity for the re-launching of the Congregation in Italy. From this point of view, it is certainly important to try to identify the more relevant challenges. This article divides them into external and internal. The first come from the problems…

This study identifies the dominant modes of biblical interpretation being taught in introductory Bible courses through a qualitative analysis of course syllabi from three institutional contexts: evangelical Christian colleges, private colleges, and public universities. Despite a proliferation of methods and scholarly approaches to the Bible, this…

Despite the increased trend towards secularization in state schooling, issues of religion and spirituality have remained important. Increased pluralism within societies through expanding migration patterns is changing the religious and cultural contours of many countries in Europe and North America, and is creating a need for a deeper…

Interreligious education has been a concern over the past few decades and continues to be a challenge. This article will review ways in which religious education has attempted to face the issue of education for increasingly multifaith societies. It identifies objectivity in religion as a major concern and will provide a perspective based on the…

In Islam, knowledge, its acquisition and application is a fundamental requirement for all Muslims to enable them to believe, think, and act according to the principles of the religion. However, differences in style of interpretation of the Qur'an have led to text being interpreted against its own fundamental worldview; an example is the…

The four canonical gospels provide readers with few details of the life of Jesus as a boy. Many authors of children's bibles in America, however, have been happy to fill in some of the details. This article suggests that these retellings regularly create or adapt stories of Jesus' childhood to teach children virtues that serve to affirm…

Despite claims that the present age is a post-religious one, evidence is not hard to find of the force of religion in the lives of individual people, in societies and in national and world affairs. From the inception of schools millennia ago, religion and education have been closely entangled. The past fifty years witnessed momentous changes…

This article interacts with a recent article by Denise Cush and Catherine Robinson in which they call for a new dialogue between religious studies in universities and religious education, and identify a number of developments in religious studies that have implications for the practice of religious education in schools. Cush and Robinson are…

Background/Context: Research confirms that religion is a significant part of the lives of American youths, that religious texts are an essential part of their experiences in the world, and that as part of their everyday cultural practices, religious youths demonstrate strong commitments to reading religious texts. Currently, however, the field of…

This dissertation explores the application of narrative analysis to five Qur'anic stories in Surat al-Kahf, the eighteenth chapter of the Qur'an. Traditional Qur'anic exegesis treats the narratives atomistically, giving great attention to the historical details, whilst contemporary Western scholarship approaches Qur'anic…

Religious studies classrooms are microcosms of the public square in bringing together individuals of diverse identities and ideological commitments. As such, these classrooms create the necessity and opportunity to foster effective modes of conversation. In this essay, I argue that communication attuned to shared human needs--among them needs for…