This volume combines insights from secular sexuality education, trauma studies, and embodiment to explore effective strategies for teaching sexuality and religion in colleges, universities, and seminaries. Contributors to this volume address a variety of sexuality-related issues including reproductive rights, military prostitution, gender, fidelity, queerness, sexual trauma, and veiling from the perspective of multiple religious faiths. Christian, Jewish, and Muslim scholars present pedagogy and classroom strategies appropriate for secular and religious institutional contexts. By foregrounding a combination of "perspective transformation" and "embodied learning" as a means of increasing students’ appreciation for the varied social, psychological, theological and cultural contexts in which attitudes to sexuality develop, the volume posits sexuality as a critical element of teaching about religion in higher education. This book will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, researchers, academics, and libraries in the fields of Religious Studies, Religious Education, Gender & Sexuality, Religion & Education, and Sociology of Religion.

Drawing on research conducted at 17 Catholic universities in the United States, making it the largest study of its kind, this volume explores effective practice in improving institutional policy relating to issues of sexuality. The text calls attention to campus cultures of fear, shame, or denial around sexuality and highlights possible points of institutional resistance to changes in policy. Discussing topics such as sexual identity, sexuality education in the curriculum, Title IX, employee termination, and morality clauses, the book shows how staff and faculty are crucial in effecting change across Catholic campuses, providing valuable insight into the “unspoken rules” around sexuality within the shadow culture at Catholic institutions. Moreover, the text illustrates how institutions can maintain fidelity to Church teachings and even embrace notions of human dignity, solidarity, and the common good to achieve sexual inclusivity. A unique study demonstrating how Catholic teaching can help support inclusive change around issues of sexuality and gender in higher education, it ultimately puts forward a practical framework for effecting change and improving student and staff support structures in Catholic institutions. It will thus appeal to researchers and academics working in the fields of Higher Education Management, Gender and Sexuality in Education, Religion, Gender and Sexuality, and the Sociology of Religion.

This volume provides a detailed evaluation of a unique education program implemented in secondary schools in Georgia to enhance teachers’ religious literacy and their ability to promote this in schools and classrooms. The text demonstrates that religious literacy can be proactively taught to students, whilst also highlighting key considerations and tensions around religious liberty in the American South. Spanning rural, urban, and suburban Georgia, the text presents an original approach to the growing field of religious literacy by foregrounding community voices and perspectives. Using rich empirical data and qualitative interviews with religious and political leaders, scholars, teachers, parents, and students, the book evaluates the challenges, efficacy, and benefits of the program in view of rising political polarization. In doing so, the text tackles historical and contemporary issues around race and religion, and considers tensions between religious and nonreligious groups in the US. Ultimately, the book presents a significant contribution to the dialogue around fostering religious literacy in schools. This text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in religious education, teacher education, and religious literacy more broadly. Those interested in the sociology of education, as well as diversity and religion in America, will also benefit from this volume.

Against the backdrop of labour migration and the ongoing refugee crisis, the ways in which Islam is taught and engaged with in educational settings has become a major topic of contention in Europe. Recognising the need for academic engagement around the challenges and benefits of effective Islamic Religious Education (IRE), this volume offers a comparative study of curricula, teaching materials, and teacher education in fourteen European countries, and in doing so, explores local, national, and international complexities of contemporary IRE. Considering the ways in which Islam is taught and represented in state schools, public Islamic schools, and non-confessional classes, Part One of this volume includes chapters which survey the varying degrees to which fourteen European States have adopted IRE into curricula, and considers the impacts of varied teaching models on Muslim populations. Moving beyond individual countries’ approaches to IRE, chapters in Part Two offer multi-disciplinary perspectives – from the hermeneutical-critical to the postcolonial – to address challenges posed by religious teachings on issues such as feminism, human rights, and citizenship, and the ways these are approached in European settings. Given its multi-faceted approach, this book will be an indispensable resource for postgraduate students, scholars, stakeholders and policymakers working at the intersections of religion, education and policy on religious education.

Violent extremism is not new, but we have witnessed its rise to the point that it has become a defining issue of our time. We cannot brush it aside any longer: it characterizes who we are as a people and as a global society. Why is violent extremism rising? What are its drivers and triggers? These questions must be asked and answered first, and Teaching in a World of Violent Extremism takes up the questions and the answers. In an effort to end violent extremism, the next questions that must be pursued are these: How shall we prevent and undo extremism, especially the militant and violent kind? In this world of violent extremism, what curriculum designs, educational programs, and pedagogies shall we employ to develop competent citizens, civic leaders, and pastors, as well as resilient communities?

Religion and Higher Education in Europe and North America illuminates the experiences of staff and students in higher education as they negotiate the university environment. Religious extremism has been rising across Europe, whilst recent attacks have thrown public debate around the place of religion on campus, the role of universities in recognising and managing religious fundamentalism and freedom of speech on campus into sharper focus. Despite these debates, research exploring religion on campus has been largely absent from discourse on higher education outside of America, with policy and practices designed to deal with religion on campus largely founded on supposition rather than evidence. This book speaks into that void, including results from recent studies in the field which form an empirically grounded base from a broad variety of perspectives on religion at universities. Aiming to offer a deeper perspective, more dialogue, and engagement on the experiences of students, Religion and Higher Education in Europe and North America presents us not only with an opportunity to counter growing trends of intolerance, but for people to connect with the humanity of others. Focusing on what research reveals about staff and students’ experiences, it incorporates research from different academic disciplines including sociology, education, social policy, theology and religious studies, and across different faith and belief groups. This thought-provoking and challenging volume features chapters written by researchers involved in informing policy and practice relating to religion and belief in higher education in the UK, US, Canada, France and the Netherlands . Spanning the academic-practitioner divide, students and academics interested in the sociology of religion and of higher education, as well as those responsible for the practical management of campus life, will find this text of particular importance.

This text presents a comparative, cross-cultural analysis of the legal status of religion in public education in eighteen different nations while offering recommendations for the future improvement of religious education in public schools. Offering rich, analytical insights from a range of renowned scholars with expertise in law, education, and religion, this volume provides detailed consideration of legal complexities impacting the place of religion and religious education in public education. The volume pays attention to issues of national and international relevance including the separation of the church and state; public funding of religious education; the accommodation of students’ devotional needs; and compulsory religious education. The volume thus highlights the increasingly complex interplay of religion, law, and education in diverse educational settings and cultures across developing and developed nations. Providing a valuable contribution to the field of religious secondary education research, this volume will be of interest to researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in religion and law, international and comparative education, and those involved with educational policy at all levels. Those more broadly interested in moral and values education will also benefit from the discussions the book contains.

Teaching about Sex and Sexualities in Higher Education argues that much more can be done in teaching about sex and sexuality in higher education. This edited collection provides key information on professional training and support, and acts as a crucial resource on sex, sexuality, and related issues. With a focus on diversity, this book features expert contributors who discuss key concepts, debates, and current issues across disciplines to help educators improve curriculum content. This collection aims to provide adequate and appropriate sex education training and opportunities to educators so that they may explore complex personal and emotional issues, build skills, and develop the confidence necessary to help others in their respective fields.

Taking the notion of embodiment as a starting point, this volume maps the interconnecting relationships between religion, gender and sexuality. The chapters highlight how the body – its location, the narratives that surround it, its movement and negotiations – is central to understanding these multifaceted relationships. The contributors recognise the ways in which gender and sexuality are crucial to how we embody religion and encourage a more complex and nuanced understanding of embodied religion. The material is organised according to three central themes: (1) the relationship between the religious and the secular; (2) power, regulation and resistance; and (3) the symbolism of gendered bodies. Cutting across a range of disciplinary perspectives, Embodying Religion, Gender and Sexuality will be relevant to students of sociology, anthropology, gender and sexuality studies, theology and religious studies.