"Keeping Up with the Steins" (2006) is the first Hollywood film to focus on the Bar Mitzvah ceremony in its family, congregational, and Jewish community context. The film demonstrates how popular culture reflects community values, but may also shape them. The hero is alienated both from the synagogue service and his mega-Bar Mitzvah party. In line…

This paper describes the results of a mixed model research that, as the first of its kind, aimed to determine the nature of, and underlying factors influencing, Croatian elementary pupils' attitudes towards confessional Catholic religious education (RE). Analyses of the questionnaire responses of the eighth-grade pupils from the stratified…

In geographical areas bordering those of other states, the function of educational systems, as the means for states to foster their citizens, is challenged by ambiguities and tensions connected to intercultural experiences. In this article, I illustrate some of the findings from a project that studies religious education in four border areas…

The aim of this article is to present a unique corpus of film-recorded classroom observations of sixth-grade classes (age 12-13) in the Swedish cities of Gothenburg, Partille and Trollhättan in the late 1960s. The material documents how RE could be taught in Swedish schools in line with the curriculum of Lgr 62 which internationally was an early…

In this contribution we explore processes of Structural Identity Consultation (SIC) with primary school teachers, and the opportunities this kind of team meetings offers for a nontraditional way to live with religious tradition(s). We take our start in everyday classrooms, characterized by religious diversity. The thoughts of Levinas, and his view…

This article reflects on the vivid images of reading presented in several popular fantasy novels, including "The Spiderwick Chronicles," "The Great Good Thing," and "The Neverending Story." It suggests that these images can be used to help children, youth, and adults reflect on the nature of reading and the potential power of reading sacred texts.…

Zimbabwe's Education Ministry recommended the teaching of African Traditional Religion in recognition of its multi-religious society. This study sought to establish the extent to which African Traditional Religion is taught in primary schools, the challenges faced by teachers, and opportunities for promoting its teaching. A descriptive survey…

This article explores the attitudes and experiences of key stage one and two children concerning the British autumn festival of Hallowe'en, and then compares the results with data on the attitudes and practices of British primary schools and their teachers towards the festival, showing that there is a discordance between the two. After outlining…

Empirical research exploring the spiritual lives of young children in Australia is a field in which scholarship is beginning to emerge. This article reports on one particular finding that emerged from an Australian study seeking to identify some characteristics of children's spirituality in Catholic primary schools. The characteristic has been…

The author discusses reading "The Bridge to Terebithia" to a third-grade class prior to release of the film version. Reading of the final chapter followed by two days the April 16, 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech University, just seventy miles from the classroom. Although none of the college students from the author's town died, everyone knew…

Bible teachers worldwide lack a shared language with which to describe expectations of what pupils will learn at various stages of their schooling. This article attempts such a language. If defines a framework, formulated with the assistance of twenty-five Bible teachers in Jewish schools in the United Kingdom. It is hoped that this article will…

This research aims to look at how a group of primary head teachers' in the North West of England perceive the Catholic nature of their schools and how they give their account of Catholic education for twenty-first century Britain. They go on to describe their feelings about the mission of their school. The head teachers' views of how they…

Religious categorisation occurs at enrolment in Australian state-run (public) primary schools, with children segregated into religious instruction classes during their first week. Lesson content has no government oversight and, in some schools, options are limited to Christianity. The effect of this categorisation on children's attitudes to…

In a preliminary study, 20 "migrant" Buddhist parents and children from England participated in semi-structured interviews to compare their home nurture with classroom presentation of Buddhism. In the home Buddhism received more time allocation and was presented mainly by the mother and monks--the content being that of "perpetuating structures",…

Based on the ethnography conducted by Magrini in three midwestern United Methodist congregations, this article examines the development of "ethnographic intertextual voicing," which describes multiple contexts and the ways in which these contexts influence representation of the participants and in turn, create in a community of learning. The…