Catholic schools in the United States and abroad face numerous financial, cultural, and structural challenges due to contemporary education policies and economic trends. Within this climate, research about Catholic education is often conducted and leveraged in efforts to serve schools' most immediate needs. To be certain, research aimed at…

The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme provides an academically challenging curriculum that when combined with moral and religious formation prepares graduates of Catholic secondary schools to succeed in college and to live as Christian citizens in an interconnected global society. Although the financial cost of the program is high,…

While social justice education has a rich and ancient history within the Catholic Church, academic disciplines have only recently begun to make the idea of social justice relevant within courses for undergraduates. In the communication discipline, debate about social justice has been lively and varied over the last two decades, and has provided…

Improving education for students in K-12 urban settings remains a slow-paced and difficult task, with many successes in student learning being episodic at best. The disconnect between government mandates to improve schools and persistent societal issues of poverty and inequity act to increase stress on teachers and educational leaders working in…

Maintaining Catholic identity is a struggle that takes on many forms. For schools with historical ties to founding religious communities, this question often takes the form of how to preserve and grow the charisms of the religious community in the absence of any members of that community on the school faculty or staff. This article, first of a…

This article, written by a student of curriculum history, has attempted to provide a framework for understanding the context of Catholic Studies within the framework of the education curriculum of higher education. In the articles that follow, Father James Heft outlines the development and debate surrounding Catholic Studies programs, the value of…

In Part I of this two-part series (published in the March 2009 issue), the author traced the evolution of the Brothers of the Christian Schools' (Christian Brothers in the United States) understanding of how they related to the lay people with whom they increasingly shared their apostolate of Catholic education. From a stance of wary distance in…

During the first half of the 20th century, Catholic educators in the United States used theological arguments both to resist and embrace the progressive educational reform effort of educational measurement. The significant expansion of Catholic schooling and the increased number of students attending them, along with increased state oversight, led…

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) was an ecumenical council of Catholic bishops from around the world. The bishops made changes both in the internal life of the Church (e.g., the sacraments and daily practices of Catholics) and in the approach that the Church took toward other religions and toward the secular world. These changes transformed…

A "grammar of Catholic schooling" inhibits many elementary and secondary Catholic schools from reflecting on how they practice Catholic Social Teaching (CST). The values of human dignity, the common good, and a preferential option for the marginalized are central to CST. Schools can live these values by serving children who live in poverty, are…

This article examines the current and potential contributions of the University Consortium for Catholic Education (UCCE) to both K-12 and higher Catholic education. In order to situate the development of alternative teacher preparation programs, a history of Catholic teacher formation is addressed followed by a brief summary of the existing…

Catholic universities face many challenges today. Increasing secularization, faculty salaries, external funding, Catholic identity, academic freedom, and institutional autonomy are among the most prominent. This essay examines the contributions of John Henry Newman to Catholic higher education and argues for their relevance today.

The quest for state and federal aid for Catholic schools is not new. Concerns regarding excessive entanglement, mission dilution, and external control have been voiced for decades. A particularly instructive historical period on this issue is the era of the Great Depression. Because of widespread economic hardship across sectors, Catholic leaders…

The Brothers of the Christian Schools, popularly known in the United States as Christian Brothers, have made numerous significant contributions to the development of Catholic education. Building and staffing schools, colleges, and orphanages, producing textbooks and catechetical materials, advocating for the poor, and creating new models of…

The Society of Mary's ministry in education needs to be placed in the context of the Marianist family. The Marianist family is comprised of men and women who are religious brothers, sisters, and priests and vowed and non-vowed members of Marianist lay communities. The implementation of the Marianist mission is the result of the collaboration among…