Critical Religious Education in Practice serves as an accessible handbook to help teachers put Critical Religious Education (CRE) into practice. The book offers straightforward guidance, unpicking some of the key difficulties that teachers encounter when implementing this high-profile pedagogical approach. In-depth explanations of CRE pedagogy, accompanied by detailed lesson plans and activities, will give teachers the confidence they need to inspire debate in the classroom, tackling issues as controversial as the authority of the Qur’an and the relationship between science and religion. The lesson plans and schemes of work exemplify CRE in practice and are aimed at empowering teachers to implement CRE pedagogy across their curriculum. Additional chapters cover essential issues such as differentiation, assessment, the importance of subject knowledge and tips for tackling tricky topics. The accompanying resources, including PowerPoint presentations and worksheets, are available via the book’s companion website. Key to developing a positive classroom culture and promoting constructive attitudes towards Religious Education, this text is essential reading for all practising and future teachers of Religious Education in secondary schools.
Challenges for Religious Education addresses and critically examines where religious education and faith schools fit within a secular society and whether there is still a place for them at all.
What are the key debates in Religious Education teaching today? Debates in Religious Education explores the major issues all RE teachers encounter in their daily professional lives. It encourages critical reflection and aims to stimulate both novice and experienced teachers to think more deeply about their practice, and link research and evidence to what they have observed in schools. This accessible book tackles established and contemporary issues enabling you to reach informed judgements and argue your point of view with deeper theoretical knowledge and understanding. Taking account of recent controversy, and challenging assumptions about the place of religion in education, expert contributors cover key topics such as: Effective pedagogy in RE teaching Exploring thinking skills and truth claims The relationship of science and religion in the classroom The place of school worship in contemporary society The role of RE in spiritual and moral development Diversity in the RE classroom. With its combination of expert opinion and fresh insight, Debates in Religious Education is the ideal companion for any student or practising teacher engaged in initial training, continuing professional development and Masters level study.
Religious education in liberal pluralist societies such as the UK, the USA, and Australian underwent radical change in the 1980s and 1990s, with a major shift towards multi-faith, educationally oriented programmes. This has meant significant modifications to both the content and the methodology of religious-education courses and to the way they are conceived of and taught in schools and universities. One important implication of this change for the teaching and study of religion today is the need for a philosophical dimension that deals with issues such as the truth status of religious statements and the moral acceptability of religious claims. This dimension is often insufficiently developed; this lack is made more critical by the multiple competing truth claims of various religions, giving rise to such contentious problems as the growth of fundamentalism, increasing religious intolerance and conflict, and differences of opinion on central moral problems such as birth control, abortion and euthanasia. This text attempts to provide the philosophical underpinning that the study and teaching of religion in modern societies requires.
Following in the very successful tradition of Critical Terms for Literary Studies and Critical Terms for Art History, this book attempts to provide a revitalized, self-aware vocabulary with which this bewildering religious diversity can be accurately described and responsibly discussed. Leading scholars working in a variety of traditions demonstrate through their incisive discussions that even our most basic terms for understanding religion are not neutral but carry specific historical and conceptual freight.
Religious education in schools continues to be a subject of debate and is especially topical in our multicultural society. This text is designed to give students and teachers a contextual and theoretical background to this subject.
"Introduces students to key concepts in religious studies through a compelling problem-solving framework. This new textbook features the following: dynamic case studies opening each chapter that teach critical thinking skills and engage students in contemporary religious issues such as the intersection of science and religion; a wide range of examples from world religions throughout the text; clear introductions to classic and contemporary theories of religion, both Eastern and Western; [and] chapter summaries that include essential concepts, a list of key terms, and questions for individual reflection or class discussion. Religion today guides students in understanding the complex role that religion plays in the world, while also building a solid foundation in both religious studies and problem-solving skills"--
This text offers a critical view of approaches to the treatment of different religions in contemporary education, in order to devise approaches to teaching and learning and to formulate policies and procedures that are fair and just to all.
"Reinventing Religious Studies" offers readers an opportunity to trace the important trends and developments in Religious Studies over the last forty years. Over this time the study of religion has been transformed into a critical discipline informed by a wide range of perspectives from sociology to anthropology, politics to material culture, and economics to cultural theory. "Reinventing Religious Studies" brings together key writings which have helped shape scholarship, teaching and learning in the field. All the essays are drawn from the CSSR Bulletin, a provocative, occasionally irreverent, and always critical journal which has long been at the centre of debates in Religious Studies. This collection will prove invaluable for students and scholars of theory and method in Religious Studies. It offers readers a unique opportunity to understand the history of key issues in the study of religion and what remains central to the study of religion today.