In recent years a number of popular books have savaged religion arguing it is a dangerous delusion that poisons human societies and relationships. This is but the most recent manifestation of a secularising agenda that has been sweeping contemporary democratic societies since the Enlightenment. This book pushes back against that agenda, examining its key assumptions and arguing that the exclusion of religious people and ideas from education and the public square is both undemocratic and unwise. For the most part the book draws arguments and examples from Christianity, the religious tradition of the authors, but it recognises that many religions share the concerns and possibilities examined. The book examines contemporary expressions of the secularising agenda in Western democracies with particular focus on how that is played out in education. It demonstrates how republican theory understood within a faith perspective provides a shared understanding and substantive basis for education within a Western democracy. It explores the historical connections and disconnections between religion and civic life in the West from ancient to contemporary times and examines religiously based civic action and pedagogical approaches contending both have the potential to contribute greatly to democracy. It will be of value to any who are interested in exploring how democracies can include the voices of all their citizens: the religious and the secular.

Is religion a source of political stability and social continuity, or an agent of radical change? This question, so central to contemporary conversations about religion and extremism, has generated varied responses over the last century. Taking Jewish and Islamic education as its objects of inquiry, Mandatory Separation sheds light on the contours of this debate in Palestine during the formative period of British rule, detailing how colonial, Zionist, and Palestinian-Muslim leaders developed competing views of the form and function of religious education in an age of mass politics. Drawing from archival records, school syllabi, textbooks, newspapers, and personal narratives, Suzanne Schneider argues that the British Mandatory government supported religious education as a supposed antidote to nationalist passions at the precise moment when the administrative, pedagogic, and curricular transformation of religious schooling rendered it a vital tool for Zionist and Palestinian leaders. This study of their policies and practices illuminates the tensions, similarities, and differences among these diverse educational and political philosophies, revealing the lasting significance of these debates for thinking about religion and political identity in the modern Middle East.

Nord's thoughtful book tackles an issue of great importance in contemporary America--the proper place of religion in our public schools and universities. Nord's comprehensive study encompasses American history, constitutional law, educational theory and practice, theology and ethics.

Since the Taliban seized Kabul in 1996, the public has grappled with the relationship between Islamic education and radical Islam. Media reports tend to paint madrasas--religious schools dedicated to Islamic learning--as medieval institutions opposed to all that is Western and as breeding grounds for terrorists. Others have claimed that without reforms, Islam and the West are doomed to a clash of civilizations. Robert Hefner and Muhammad Qasim Zaman bring together eleven internationally renowned scholars to examine the varieties of modern Muslim education and their implications for national and global politics. The contributors provide new insights into Muslim culture and politics in countries as different as Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. They demonstrate that Islamic education is neither timelessly traditional nor medieval, but rather complex, evolving, and diverse in its institutions and practices. They reveal that a struggle for hearts and minds in Muslim lands started long before the Western media discovered madrasas, and that Islamic schools remain on its front line. Schooling Islam is the most comprehensive work available in any language on madrasas and Islamic education.

In this volume, the authors argue that public education is a central part of American civil religion and, thus, gives us an unquestioning faith in the capacity of education to solve all of our social, economic, and political problems. The book traces the development of America's faith in public education from before the Civil War up to the present, exploring recent educational developments such as the No Child Left Behind legislation. The authors discuss how this faith in education often makes it difficult for Americans to think realistically about the capacities and limitations of public schooling. Bringing together history, politics, religion, sociology, and educational theory, this in-depth examination: raises fundamental questions about what education can accomplish for the citizens of the United States; points out that many supposedly opposing viewpoints on public education actually arise from the same root assumptions; exposes the gaps between our pursuit of equity in schools and what we really accomplish with students; looks at ways in which education can be organized to serve a diverse population.

In most countries, whether secular or otherwise, education and religion are closely interlinked and no matter how hard the state tries, it can be very difficult to remove the ties between them. This book investigates the links between education, religion and politics. The dominant feature in creating a common culture between peoples, each of which has its own distinct heritage and practices, is religion. Globalisation is leading to a redefinition of the state, community and local identity, this latter often perceived as resistance against the forces of unity, whether through culture, economic activity or language. Recent world events have focused attention on the interplay between education, religion and politics like never before. Even more pertinent is the fact that the involvement of politics in decisions about religion and education is often central and impossible to disentangle. Education and Religion covers all the major religious traditions – Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh – and cites global examples throughout the world. It aims to understand the underlying complexities in the struggle to reconcile education, religion and politics in an informative and sensitive way. This book was originally published as a special issue of Comparative Education.

In states in which the public role of religion is controversial, religious instruction becomes both a means and an end of politics. This groundbreaking collection of case studies drawn from Arab, Asian and European countries examines different aspects of religious instruction: how it is regulated, who decides its content, the values it imparts and, in particular, whether it triggers, deepens or reduces conflict.