This book offers an examination of the related topics of school prayer and character education in the United States, advocating for their return to public schools. In 1962 and 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court made rulings that removed prayer and Bible reading from public schools. But in the aftermath of the rulings, the nation endured one of the worst…

The presidency of George W. Bush has polarized the church-state debate as never before. The Far Right has been emboldened to use religion to govern, while the Far Left has redoubled its efforts to evict religion from public life entirely. Fewer people on the Right seem to respect the church-state separation, and fewer people on the Left seem to…

Controversial Supreme Court decisions have barred organized school prayer, but neither the Court nor public policy exclude religion from schools altogether. In this book, one of America's leading constitutional scholars asks what role religion ought to play in public schools. Kent Greenawalt explores many of the most divisive issues in educational…

Sport and religion have been linked in many societies and are still a part of many traditions today. In recent years, the topic of prayer in interscholastic sport has received public attention due to many high-profile court cases. "Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe" (2000) was the landmark case that prohibited school officials,…

Before one can have the freedom to express ideas in open debate, however, one must have freedom of conscience: the right to arrive at one's private beliefs, without being coerced into an artificial unity by those who wield power over him/her. After all, the freedom to speak is a dead letter if one lacks the freedom to think, to believe, or to…

Contradictions abound in remedial higher education. While 40% of American undergraduate students take remedial coursework (Attewell et al., 2006), remediation represents just one percent of the national higher education budget (Handel & Williams, 2011). Furthermore, the status quo in remedial teaching and learning in American higher education does…

Much of the discussion regarding religion and schooling in the US has been limited to ideological clashes surrounding the role of the courts and, ostensibly, the much litigated issue of prayer in schools. This comes at the expense of an examination of deeper curricular issues rooted in language and school mechanisms borne of historical…

Theological education typically includes classroom worship, a practice of great pedagogical power and curricular import. As pedagogy, classroom worship does four things. It focuses teaching and learning on God, and fosters theological dispositions necessary for sustaining that attention. Second, it rightly positions the entire class in dialogical…

This paper addresses the sensitive issue of the teaching of religions and beliefs in schools by analysing two recent decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. In these cases, the Court asserts that students should be exempted from compulsory courses on religion or from courses that are not conveyed in an objective, critical and pluralist…

Religion plays an important role in social studies content and is difficult to ignore, especially because of current world events. In our global society, it is more important than ever to know about and understand the religious beliefs of others. The social studies curriculum is infused with religion, but teachers circumvent the issue, mistakenly…

Employing the Advocacy Coalition Framework to ground the analysis, this article begins with an historical overview of the US Protestant Right and its involvement with the politics of public schooling. It then moves to a discussion of a few current legal and policy issues (intelligent design, evolution, the Kansas state board of education, school…

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution sets forth the separation of church and state required in public schools. That clause has been interpreted in a lengthy history of U. S. Supreme Court decisions. Nevertheless, accommodating one person's right of religious expression while not infringing on another person's…

Public school leaders often find themselves caught between groups with passionately held--but widely varying--views regarding the appropriate role for religion in public schools. Tensions are heightened by the growth of well-funded special interest groups inclined to litigate anywhere a test case arises. By reviewing the most recent judicial…

In this article, the author reports that under the No Child Left Behind Act, schools must submit a written statement to the state department of education by October 1 each year saying that they won't prevent students from saying constitutionally allowed prayers. The author also reports on rampant student absences faced by some district schools…

The prayer-in-school issue can be very emotional and create an extremely volatile situation if not handled properly. This article argues that coaches and athletic directors must know exactly how they will react to situations that may surface to ensure not only compliance with the law, but to foster an atmosphere of tolerance and respect for…