Religion and Public Schools: International Perspectives Unit

The "Religion & Public Schools: International Perspectives" program unit welcomes diverse approaches and methods, and always seeks to situate our papers and panels within global and comparative contexts. Our primary focus is on the many ways in which religion education is undertaken and understood in public/state schools. This year we are calling for papers/proposals on any of the following topics:

• Teaching controversial issues in public schools around the world.
  Such issues might include the nature and extent of discrimination on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity; the relationship between religion, violence, and peace; gender and sexuality; or other topics that create or seek to resolve conflicts in a community. 

• Religion education and the Sustainable Development Goals.
  The UN Sustainable Development Goal #4 is to "Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all." We seek papers that consider RE and human rights -- including religious freedom -- as elements in the work toward realizing the SDGs by 2030.

• Empirical and theoretical analysis on the teaching of religion in a comparative way in public schools around the world on topics related to the main objective of this unit. 

• Other papers on religion education and public schools will be considered, though priority will be given to proposals that fit the specific themes above.