A study of 1,795 Belgian elementary students in 15 public and 25 Catholic schools indicated that Catholic schools influenced high academic achievement in children of low socioeconomic status to a greater degree than public schools did. (SK)

Compares a case where a Jewish museum educator engaged Catholic-school students in ordinary conversations about Jewish people and religion with the classroom teacher's traditional pedagogical approach, arguing that culturally specific museums are valid places for authentic learning. Observation and interview data indicated that the experimental…

As for every aspect of Canadian life, duality of origins has defined and shaped education. French Catholic religious personnel created an elementary education system for fur traders, farmers, and native peoples; elites had a privately funded system. English Protestants oriented their systems toward extraction industries and trade. (Contains 41…

Relates the development of the Kairos retreat at Georgetown Preparatory School and the positive responses and experiences of male youths who attended. States that the retreat experience invites youth to grapple with adolescent fears of loneliness, embrace an adult faith, and facilitate a new openness between teens and their families. (VWC)

Reviews the history of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU), from its inception in 1899 to the present. Highlights World War I as a turning point for ACCU because of an increased impetus to improve the schools and their enrollments. States that near the middle of the century, Catholic higher education joined the mainstream,…

Recounts the historical development of catechesis formation and training of catechists in Lansing, Michigan. Narrates the development in 1991 by the Diocesan Office of Catechesis of a committee of principals, directors of religious education, coordinators of youth ministry, and staff people to address catechesis formation concerns and to revise…

Introduces Information for Growth (IFG), a self-assessment survey for catechists, accommodating not only religion teachers and catechists but also any adult desiring spiritual growth. Puts forth the experiences with IFG of several leaders in the field of religious education, providing a unique perspective on the benefits of the IFG survey. (VWC)

In the first seventy five years of the seventeenth century twenty two enclosed convents for English women were founded in exile where more than 1950 women were professed. In order to lead the strict religious life following the requirements of the Council of Trent for enclosure for women religious, these foundations required specialised buildings…

This paper introduces the possibility of comparing Hungarian parish records to Swedish Parish Examination Records from an educational point of view. The focus is on a presentation of one particular document of a Hungarian Catholic priest in a small village from the early 19th century. The record keeps track of the reading and writing skills of…

The Jesuit encounter with the Amerindians of the St. Lawrence Valley in Th-century New France provides us with incalculable insights into the inner workings of the "colonial imagination" that believes the objects of instruction have everything to learn and nothing of value to teach. This article explicates how the Jesuits got to know their…

The present study has built on three earlier studies reported by Francis and Burton (1994), Francis and Evans (1996), and Francis (2005) to test the hypothesis that there is a positive correlation between frequency of prayer and perceived purpose in life among 13-to 15-year-old young people who are within a community with high levels of church…

Biblical literalism was assessed among 404 adult Anglicans from a variety of church traditions using a summated rating scale based on 10 items referring to events in the Bible. The literalism scale showed high internal reliability ([alpha] = 0.92) and scores were highest (i.e. most literal) in Evangelical churches, intermediate in Broad churches…

Although violence in Northern Ireland has been "neither halted or prevented" (Tomasevski, 2003a, p. 7), few would deny that the scale of the conflict has been reduced. This paper argues that a vital purpose of education in Northern Ireland should be peacebuilding and the promotion of social cohesion. In particular, the paper looks at the…

This paper considers the tension that can exist in the aims of religious education between the desire to encourage open-minded, critical thinking through exposure to diverse traditions, ideas and cultures and the encouragement, overt or otherwise, into uniformity whereby learners take on the values of a particular tradition, culture or ideology…

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act has compelled states to design school accountability systems based on annual student assessments. The effect of this Federal legislation on the distribution of student achievement is a highly controversial but centrally important question. This study presents evidence on whether NCLB has influenced student…