Taking Religion Seriously across the Curriculum.

Overview & Synopsis

This book presents an overview of the interplay of religion and public education. The book states that schools must take religion seriously, and it outlines the civic, constitutional, and educational frameworks that should shape the treatment of religion in the curriculum and classroom. It examines religion's absence from the classroom and the growing consensus over the incorporation of religion in the schools, using the principles of this consensus and its implications to analyze their effects on the curriculum. Part 2 discusses the role of religion in elementary education, moral education, and secondary school courses in history, civics, and economics, literature and the arts, and the sciences. One chapter is devoted to religion courses: those that deal with the Bible, with world religions, and with the relationship of religion to moral education and sex education. To clarify the context of religion and education, the new national education standards' position on religion is described. It is argued that schools teach students to think about matters that are religiously controversial in exclusively and uncritically secular ways. (Contains 70 references and an index.) (RJM)