This article describes the Catholic School Principal Support Program (CSPSP), a mentoring program for first and second-year Catholic school principals in a large urban diocese, and identifies key challenges, impacts and influences on decision-making. Ten school leaders describe their work and provide the lens by which they reflect on their role as…

The setting up of the Courtyard of the Gentiles by Pope Benedict XVI has provided the Catholic Church with an official forum for dialogue with atheists. The intellectual energy surrounding this initiative can be harnessed to focus on how the contemporary Catholic school addressed its responsibilities to the Catholic community while offering a good…

It is a commonplace for Catholic schools to claim that they educate the "whole" person in the faith, yet exactly what this means and how to accomplish it is harder to say. Though these matters of holistic formation and Catholic identity are always important, they are especially so at present given ongoing efforts to implement the U.S.…

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…

There is a clear understanding that leaders of faith-based educational institutions shape the school community's culture in ways that assist in faith formation. This implicit and explicit focus on faith formation and an alignment with the broader mission of the Catholic Church is foundational to contemplative leadership (Schuttloffel, 1999,…

In this article, I take the opportunity of the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council to reassess one of its major products, the declaration Nostra Aetate ("In Our Time"). Following a brief introduction to Nostra Aetate, I describe my experience teaching an undergraduate course on Jewish-Christian Relations built around the…

Early childhood is a critically formative stage of human development and the educational experiences of children at this young age impact their cognitive, social, emotional, and physical competencies. In the U.S., early childhood education has grown dramatically since the 1960s, both in federal and state dollars invested and in terms of overall…

This paper analyzes how an emerging form of schooling--"religious" charter schools--may influence the future of urban Catholic elementary education in America. Specifically, it synthesizes the literature related to religious charter schools and Catholic education. The paper investigates if a common understanding of religious charter schools is…

This study investigates the relationship between Catholic teachers' faith and their school commitment in Catholic high schools. A national sample of 751 teachers from 39 Catholic high schools in 15 archdioceses in the United States participated in a self-administered website survey. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the Pearson…

Dialogue about Catholic identity has been taking place at American Catholic colleges and universities since the publication of Ex Corde Ecclesiae in 1990. That student affairs professionals do their work within the context of the mission of the university is a concept that has been accepted from the earliest stages of the establishment of student…

While the U.S. Bishops' Doctrinal Elements of a Curriculum Framework provides robust content guidelines for a national high school Religion curriculum, its successful implementation will depend largely on concurrent development of, and training in, pedagogy suited to Christian education. This paper directs educators to existing catechetical…

Like many urban Catholic schools, St. Mary of Carmel Catholic School in Dallas, Texas, is faced with many challenges: filling empty seats; supporting increased costs; and, possible closure. The small parish is primarily Latino, but few parish families are enrolled in the school. This action research project used in-depth interviews to examine…

The educational achievement gap is a critical social justice issue. Catholic and Marianist conceptions of social justice in particular call people to work with others in their spheres of life to transform institutions in order to further human rights while promoting the common good. Drawing on key elements of Catholic teaching on social justice,…

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…

This is a conceptual paper considering some of the foundational issues that a teacher needs to have at least considered (if not resolved) when he or she sets out to encourage students to understand and appreciate the variety of religions in their communities. The first issue is that of what to call the enterprise; the second relates to assumed…