This volume shows how and why our public schools should prepare to understand and deal with religious diversity in the United States and the world. Defending Religious Diversity in Public Schools: A Practical Guide for Building Our Democracy and Deepening Our Education makes a powerful case for exposing students to the multiplicity of faiths practiced in the United States and around the world—then offers a range of practical solutions for promoting religious understanding and tolerance in the school environment. Nathan Kollar's timely volume centers on the common issues associated with respecting religion in people's lives, including religious identities, the religious rights of students, bullying and other acts of intolerance, and legal perspectives on what should and should not happen in the classroom. It then focuses on the skills teachers, counselors, and administrators need to master to address those issues, including forming an advocacy coalition, listening, cultural analysis, conflict resolution, institutional development, choosing a leader, and keeping up to date with all the latest research developments from both the legal and educational communities.

This volume shows how and why our public schools should prepare to understand and deal with religious diversity in the United States and the world. Defending Religious Diversity in Public Schools: A Practical Guide for Building Our Democracy and Deepening Our Education makes a powerful case for exposing students to the multiplicity of faiths practiced in the United States and around the world--then offers a range of practical solutions for promoting religious understanding and tolerance in the school environment. Nathan Kollar's timely volume centers on the common issues associated with respecting religion in people's lives, including religious identities, the religious rights of students, bullying and other acts of intolerance, and legal perspectives on what should and should not happen in the classroom. It then focuses on the skills teachers, counselors, and administrators need to master to address those issues, including forming an advocacy coalition, listening, cultural analysis, conflict resolution, institutional development, choosing a leader, and keeping up to date with all the latest research developments from both the legal and educational communities.

This open access book provides an analysis of contemporary societies and schools shaped by cultural diversity, globalization and migration. This diversity is necessarily reflected in education systems and requires the promotion of intercultural approaches able to improve learning processes and the quality of education. From an international and comparative perspective, this book first presents theoretical and conceptual foundations for seriously considering cultural diversity. The book also compares intercultural approaches and debates generated in countries as diverse as the United States, Canada, Brazil, Switzerland and France. For each national context, the book addresses both the historical roots of intercultural approaches and the concrete initiatives driven by educational policies for their implementation in schools and classrooms. Finally, the book presents discussions surrounding the treatment of linguistic or religious diversity in schools, the emergence of global citizenship education and the key role of teachers in intercultural approaches. This is an open access book.

Although it is often charged with hostility toward religion, First Amendment doctrine in fact treats religion as a distinctive human good. It insists, however, that this good be understood abstractly, without the state taking sides on any theological question. Here, a leading scholar of constitutional law explains the logic of this uniquely American form of neutrality—more religion-centered than liberal theorists propose, and less overtly theistic than conservatives advocate. The First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion is under threat. Growing numbers of critics, including a near-majority of the Supreme Court, seem ready to cast aside the ideal of American religious neutrality. Andrew Koppelman defends that ideal and explains why protecting religion from political manipulation is imperative in an America of growing religious diversity. Understanding American religious neutrality, Koppelman shows, can explain some familiar puzzles. How can Bible reading in public schools be impermissible while legislative sessions begin with prayers, Christmas is an official holiday, and the words “under God” appear in the Pledge of Allegiance? Are faith-based social services, public financing of religious schools, or the teaching of intelligent design constitutional? Combining legal, historical, and philosophical analysis, Koppelman shows how law coherently navigates these conundrums. He explains why laws must have a secular legislative purpose, why old, but not new, ceremonial acknowledgments of religion are permitted, and why it is fair to give religion special treatment.

Religion is a prominent legal force despite the premise constructed and promoted by Western constitutionalism that it must be separated from the State in democracies. Education constitutes an area of human life that leaves ample scope for the expression of religious identity and shapes the citizens of the future. It is also the place of origin of a considerable number of normative conflicts involving religious identity that arise today in multicultural settings. The book deals with the interplay of law and religion in education through the versatility of religious law and legal pluralism, as well as religion’s possible adaptation and reconciliation with modernity, in order to consider and reflect on normative conflicts. It adopts the angle of the constitutional dimension of religion narrated in a comparative perspective and critically reflects on regulatory attempts by the State and the international community to promote new ways of living together.

Many observers propose the exclusion of all religious related aspects from organizational life, others promote a more tolerant approach of certain practices, symbols and ceremonies, and few commentators highlight the values, diverse religious beliefs and experiences that employees could bring to the organization. Arguments, conclusions and recommendations are often contradictory and inconclusive due to the complexity and dividing nature of religion diversity. In Managing Religious Diversity in the Workplace the editors present a selection of essays, conceptual papers, empirical studies and case studies about how religious diversity and spirituality are managed. The book explores how firms address organizational and managerial challenges deriving from the religion diverse backgrounds of their employees. The different contributions discuss policies and practices, how implicit and unmarked religious norms influence the ’managing’ of religious issues in organizations, and what the benefits of a religion diverse workforce are. It also includes contributions which address aspects of spirituality in the workplace, and the role of legal frameworks and their influence on organizations and their policies and practices regarding religion diversity. The perspectives and contributions include a wide range of disciplines by authors from leading academic institutions around the world.