This research compares teachers' perceptions of principals' authentic-leadership dimensions, between collectivistic and individualistic cultures in the Israeli-Jewish (non-Arab) elementary schools. Culture will predict authentic-leadership dimensions with an individualistic tendency toward authenticity. 482 Israeli elementary school teachers (30%…

The primary purpose of this research is the question of religiosity among secondary school-age Roma children attending Religious Education (RE) programs in Evangelical churches in Slovakia. This study adopted the questionnaire "Brief Multidimensional Measurement of Religiousness/Spirituality" used by the Fetzer Institute in a General…

In this racially-charged time, religious educators are engaging in research that transgresses traditional (white) norms. Such research can not only dismantle white normativity through the subjects investigated; it can also be practiced in ways that are transgressive. This article uses a particular experience of ethnographic theological research in…

This article attempts to demonstrate similarities between the socioeconomic, cultural, and religious contexts of 18th-century England and 21st-century Canada. Revisiting the Sunday School movement in 18th-century England provides insights for the development of renewed Sunday School models in the current Canadian context of transnational…

This article seeks to understand religious education as a process of communal endeavor that prioritizes and considers the learning experience intrinsically connected to its social and cultural contexts. Two authors will be of help to develop this pursuit: Lev Vygotsky, whose work emphasizes learning as constructed through interactions and in…

"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…

One of the author's most vivid and early memories of "learning about religion" comes from when she was in seventh grade, and her math teacher scolded her and her friend for arguing about religion in the back of the room. Both of them were deeply steeped in family religious practice, and new to each other's traditions. That experience was…

This article proposes a number of fundamental principles that seek to establish a solid platform for a philosophy of Christian Education that is culturally responsive and responsible. In this theological-practical reflection the author affirms that the context where most processes of Christian Education take place in the United States today is one…

Although social class impacts the assumptions, values, and normative practices of Religious Education, the lack of public discourse on class diminishes awareness of and critical reflection on this impact. This article describes social class as a largely unarticulated and embodied performance of identity inflected through hierarchical practices of…

This article analyzes the 1863 pseudo slave narrative entitled "Black and White; Or, the Heart, Not the Face" by white Northerner Jane Dunbar Chaplin. The article sets this tale within the historical and literary context of "domestic abolitionism." The logic behind the story is described as "sympathetic identification," a perspective that,…

This article explores the interaction between the work and lives of five religious qualitative researchers whose research studies investigate both culture and religion. The ways their personal backgrounds, experiences, and values affect their choice of research topics and their relationships with research participants and with data, are revealed…

The transformational perspective of religious education compels its practitioners with the collective hope that in passing on the faith, from one generation to the other and among contemporaries, another possible world may be forged. As religious educators they have chosen to participate of this task of faith sharing and human transformation with…

This article describes a countercultural approach to autobiography in comparison with three dominant uses of autobiography in religious education. It defines countercultural autobiographies as stories from the underside of society meant as tools for education for justice and as invitations for transformative dialogue in institutional and societal…

Examines the linkage of spirituality, justice, and cultural evangelization by (1) reviewing the recent efforts to construct a societal spirituality; (2) presenting a theological reflection on these efforts using models; and (3) discussing the implications for religious education. (GEA)

Reviews mistaken approaches to spirituality and the relationship between modern spirituality and life styles prevalent in industrialized societies. Seeks to establish a connection between spirituality and justice, especially for those struggling toward discipleship in a consumer society. (GEA)