Policy Perceptions of Headteachers and Governors in Catholic Schooling

The initial focus of this research centred on a study of the extent to which government legislation and action since 1965 has threatened or eroded the Catholic Church's influence over its schools within the maintained sector [1]. However, it became clear that this focus was based on the assumption that the Catholic Church in England and Wales had a clear set of educational principles which were not only distinct from those of the state but involved different policy outcomes. Moreover, during the course of the study, evidence emerged which indicated that the Church had not given as much attention to the principles underlying its educational policy as it had to the maintenance and numerical expansion of the schools themselves. It was also realised that the nature of Catholic education cannot be determined solely by examining the Church's official documents. Whilst official Church pronouncements indicate what Catholic education ought to be, they may not correspond to a reality of what a particular Catholic community has made of Catholic education. Therefore, this paper examines some of the beliefs and attitudes of a sample of Catholics involved in Catholic schooling.     

African Americans in Urban Catholic Schools: Faith, Leadership and Persistence in Pursuit of Educational Opportunity

A review of research on US Catholic education reveals that race is not treated as an important area of analysis like class and gender. Black Catholics are rarely studied in education let alone mainstream writings. This article examines the social and educational history of blacks in the US Catholic Church and the dual reality of inclusion and exclusion within a Church and its schools. This paper focuses on the intersection of the Church and Black Catholic schools as enduring institutions of opportunity for Black families and their communities. This paper unearths the shared values, assumptions and beliefs about African American Catholics quest for literacy. The article uses Black Theology as a frame to explain how the intersections of culture, history and religion influence meaning and educational decision-making. African Americans pursued Catholic education for two reasons. First, they sought to be educated which both advanced their individual freedom but vastly improved their community’s economic, social, and political standing. Second, they inserted their own unique cultural and social experiences into Catholic schools which espoused service and academic excellence. Black Catholic schools well-defined values and academic excellence is still viewed by African Americans as places of hope and opportunity for students of color.     

Catholic women teachers and Scottish education in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Catholics remained outside the Scottish educational system until 1918. The Church preferred mixed‐sex infant schools and either single‐sex schools or separate departments. In small towns and rural areas the schools were mixed‐sex. Women were considered naturally best suited to teach infants and girls, but even in boys' schools, female assistants were increasingly employed in the later Victorian period. Female religious orders were crucial for developing Catholic education in larger urban centres, but by 1918 only 4% of Scotland's Catholic schoolteachers were members of religious orders. Lay women quickly became numerically predominant in elementary education and were key to implementing the Church's strategy to enhance the respectability of a largely immigrant community through separate schools. It is the contention here that the part played by lay women in Catholic schooling needs to be considered to reflect more widely on the place of women in Scottish education.     

Church,State and Education: Catholic education in Hong Kong during the political transition

Roman Catholic schools represent an important sector in Hong Kong's education system, both in terms of number and historical significance. As in many colonies in other periods of history, the Roman Catholic Church, in addition to other Christian Churches, had a partnership relationship with the colonial government in the provision of education in Hong Kong. Was there any change in this relationship during the political transition to 1997? Did the prospective return of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China (PRC) affect Catholic educational policies? This article examines these two questions in relation to the experience of other places in the world and in relation to the special nature of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong, namely its link with the Vatican and its relations with China where Church schools no longer exist.     

HYGIENE IN SUNDAY SCHOOLS

In the Netherlands, the relation between Catholic schools and the Catholic Church was apparent during the pillarized educational system and culture of the first decades of the 20th century. In the post-pillarized decennia afterward, their connection transformed and became less recognizable. At first glance, their contemporary relation sometimes seems only superficial. This article argues that Catholic schools are connected with the Catholic religious tradition in an embodied way and in their orientation toward the common good. Furthermore, the embodied religiosity expressed in daily school life is more than both schools and church realize, intertwined with ecclesiastical reflections on Catholic education.     

基督教会在沂蒙兴办近代教育的历史分析

基督教会传教士为了传播基督教，在沂蒙创办了大量的教会学校。这些学校遍布沂州府所属各县，采用西方近代教育体制，招收教徒和非教徒子女授学，宗教是必修重点学科，此外开数，理化，外语，体育，实验等课程。初办时，少收或不收任何费用，后收费越来越多。教会粉学属于文化侵略的范畴，一些沂蒙人因到教会学校就读而信仰了基督教，很多教会学校的毕业生成了洋奴和帝国主义侵华的帮凶。但教会学校也扩大了西学在沂蒙的传播和西学对沂蒙的影响，培养了一批新式人才，客观上促进了沂蒙近代教育的发展。     

Catholic women educators’ discourse and educational measurement in the early twentieth century in the United States

ABSTRACT

In the early twentieth century in the United States, Roman Catholic schools grew in number and became increasingly regulated by state departments of education. This led to the increased influence of public school reform movements in Catholic schools. Some Catholic educators questioned these movements, while others embraced them. Educational measurement strategies, such as IQ and standardised testing, gained support from women religious orders and congregations, who made up the majority of the Catholic teaching force. For pragmatic reasons, they saw some value in the promises of modern educational science for teaching and learning. This practice, however, put them at odds with some of the beliefs and values of their Church. This study demonstrates how Catholic sister teachers attempted to shape the debate on the introduction and use of reform strategies like IQ and standardised testing. It also examines how Catholic sister teachers made use of Catholic beliefs and values to make arguments in favour of IQ and standardised testing in Catholic schools. Using agreed upon Catholic religious tenets and working within their gendered reality, Catholic sister teachers demonstrated how they tried to convince their colleagues, male and female, to come to an understanding around the use of educational measurement.     

Reforming education in post-partition Northern Ireland: state control and churches’ interference

ABSTRACT

After the partition of Ireland, the newly established parliament in Belfast was given control over education. The unionist government, mainly representing the majoritarian Protestant population, embarked on a reform of the pre-existing denominational education system and tried to persuade all the churches to transfer their schools to state control in exchange for public funding. Despite the sincere efforts of the first Minister of Education, the Catholic Church rejected interference in education from a government that its followers perceived as hostile, while the Protestant churches became increasingly intransigent in their demands for more control over state schools. In order to ensure their support, the government met their requests, ignoring the instances of teachers and principals who called for independence from clerical managers. The result was a segregated education system that contributed to maintain the deep divisions of the Northern Irish society.     

Using a Catholic model: the consequences of the changing strategic purpose of Anglican faith schools and the contrasting interpretations within liberalism

Until comparatively recently, the survival and success of Church of England and Roman Catholic schools within the English dual system was not given much attention by liberal commentators. However, the general popularity of faith schools among parents and their particular role within current government policy has encouraged the Church of England to reassess the role of its schools on a strategic level, using a model that resembles the one long established in Catholic education. Possible consequences of such a reassessment for those working within these schools are discussed, using contrasting liberal views to explore the identified issues.     

What makes a school Catholic?

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 identified their school’s Catholicism are critiqued in the light of Catholic Church teaching on the nature of Catholic schools and compared to academic and theological models of Catholic education.     

The freedom of religion and the freedom of education in twenty-first-century Belgium: a critical approach

In spite of recent tendencies of secularisation and religious pluralism, most Belgian schools are Catholic schools, where Roman Catholic religious education is a compulsory subject. As we will argue, this can lead to a de facto undermining of the freedom of religion and education and a shift in the system is therefore required. In the long term, the number of Catholic schools should be in proportion with the number of students/parents choosing these schools. In the short term, however, this strategy is not recommended and for pragmatic reasons, we propose a system in which religious education in substantially subsidised faith-based schools is no longer compulsory. We will argue that such a system does not lead to an infringement of the (internal) freedom of religion of faith-based institutions and that it will guarantee more educational and religious freedom than the current system does.     

Coeducation and factors affecting choice of university courses

One of the arguments in favour of single-sex schools for girls is that they encourage the study of traditionally male-dominated subjects. To test this hypothesis, the association between coeducation and faculty choice is examined for students from private schools entering Monash University in 1990 and 1992. No significant association is found for girls at non-Catholic independent schools or boys or girls at Catholic schools. For boys at non-Catholic independent schools, coeducation is associated with higher chance of studying science-based courses at university. There is a similar, but not statistically significant, association for girls at Catholic schools.     

Bestowing ‘Light’ upon ‘the Moral,Physical and Intellectual Culture of Youth’: Promoting Education in the New Colonial Society of Brisbane between 1846 and 1859

In 1850, in the frontier township of Brisbane, William Duncan argued articulately that National schools bestowed moral benefits to children more effectively than their denominational rivals, but the aloof and sometimes arrogant Brisbane Customs Officer lacked the skill to generate widespread support for his views. In contrast, the proprietor of the influential Moreton Bay Courier, James Swan, and his editors, were more effective. Over the next nine years, they carefully persuaded their readers of the benefits of National education. Consequently, a groundswell of support for the system accompanied the sense of community purpose that preceded Queensland’s formation in 1859. The following year, a large National school commenced in Brisbane and shortly afterwards, under an Education Act passed by the new Queensland government, National schools became virtually the only educational enterprises to receive aid.     

Middle-class writing in late medieval London

This paper seeks to ascertain the attitudes to, and work on, English school boards of clergymen from the three main Churches which had taken an active interest in education in England in the nineteenth century – the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and the Wesleyan Methodist Church. Were the clergy ‘the enemy within’, attempting to subvert the cause of non‐denominational education? Little has previously been written about this work. The research has used a variety of primary sources, among them annual HMI reports on the educational provision in their areas and the pronouncements made by the leaders of the three Churches about their own representations on the boards. A variety of qualitative data has been accessed on the clergy influence in certain areas in the North of England using extant school board managers’ minutes. The picture that emerges from the evidence studied is of a significant and growing influence for Anglican clergy in rural areas. They undoubtedly had self‐interests in their membership, to ensure religious teaching in schools, to protect their own institutions and in part to assert their own status within society. In large towns and cities, boards proved to be independent of clergy control, with much authority given over to the headteachers. Roman Catholic priests often became board members and in doing so were in a position to defend their own schools. Throughout, the one group that did not share the influence on boards was the Wesleyan ministers, who were constrained by their own itinerant ministry. It is hoped that this will encourage further studies of individual communities, where School Board Managers’ Minutes survive, to add further qualitative evidence and further analysis of the direct influence of the clergymen of the three Churches discussed.     

The State and Catholic Schooling in England and Wales: Politics,ideology and mission integrity

Changing relations between the English State and the Roman Catholic Church in the sphere of education policy are examined in two historical periods. Between the 1870s and the 1970s, despite initial anti-Catholic prejudice, the Catholic hierarchy was able to negotiate a favourable educational settlement in which substantial public funding was obtained without serious loss of autonomy and mission integrity for the Catholic schooling system. The existence of a liberal State, a voluntarist tradition in schooling and the relative social and political unity of the Catholic community all contributed towards this settlement. The inauguration of an ideologically 'Strong State' in the 1980s and 1990s, pursuing an interventionist strategy in education driven by New Right market doctrines, threatened the whole basis of this settlement. The Catholic hierarchy had to develop new strategies to respond to this situation, complicated by the fact that the Catholic community was now more socially differentiated and more divided on key education policy questions.     

Ecumenism,economic necessity and the disappearance of Methodist elementary schools in England in the twentieth century

This study aims to define the extent of, and causes for, the decline of the Wesleyan educational effort in England in the twentieth century. In 1902 the Church had 738 schools, but these rapidly declined throughout the century, with only 28 remaining in 1996. The establishment of these schools during the nineteenth century had been largely for the protection of Wesleyan children, with a denominational mistrust of the proselytism in both Anglicanism and Roman Catholic institutions. This study aims to show how far this mistrust continued into the twentieth century and estimates the influence of growing ecumenism on the Church’s decision to allow its own elementary schools to disappear. Nevertheless, this is an important subject, reflecting the declining influence of all churches on wider society in the twentieth century, as well as the increasing need to form church alliances to counter growing secularism in a post‐Christian era.     

牛庄“还堂案”与天主教传入东北

顺治康熙年间,天主教陆续传入东北。雍正乾隆年间清朝政府把天主教归入邪教,严厉禁止。第二次鸦片战争以后,西方列强攫取了中国内地传教权,从此教案不断,其中＂还堂＂纠纷往往成为导火索。本文所述牛庄＂还堂案＂,是同期全国众多＂还堂案＂中比较典型的一个,通过对此案的梳理和分析,我们会对第二次鸦片战争前后天主教传入东北的情况和特点有个大略的认识。     

Accountability in Partnership or Partnership in Accountability: Initial teacher education in Northern Ireland

This paper analyses accountability and partnership in Initial Teacher Education for the primary school sector in Northern Ireland. In considering teacher education, the paper focuses on three higher education institutions: Stranmillis University College, St Mary's University College and the University of Ulster. Of the three institutions, the Roman Catholic Church maintains St Mary's University College while the other institutions have no religious affiliations. The paper focuses on the reform of teacher education within the British Isles and sets Northern Ireland into a context of a system of teacher education which has developed new patterns of accountability. Three sources of evidence are used to analyse accountability; firstly the perception of schools that are partners in Initial Teacher Education; secondly, the views of the Education and Training Inspectorate who are responsible for accrediting teacher education in Northern Ireland; and thirdly, the views of the three university schools of education. The paper will demonstrate how teacher education in Northern Ireland is simultaneously similar to, and different from, teacher education in the rest of the developed world. It will illuminate the dimensions of accountability in the primary school sector and show how in Northern Ireland this is heavily segregated by religious denomination.     

Education and the social order: re‐visioning the legacy of Brian Simon

The movement for the higher education of women in Ireland in the nineteenth century has traditionally been viewed as a Protestant initiative. Scholarship suggests that the Irish campaign developed along the same lines as the English movement, gaining from and growing out of the English advances. Leading Protestant schools for girls have been viewed as the driving force behind the concessions afforded Irish women. This paper challenges this assumption, suggesting that contemporaneous developments in Ireland were driven not by neighbouring reforms but by denominational tensions. The role played by the Catholic teaching orders during the nineteenth century cannot be overlooked. Although initially conservative in their approach to educational provision for girls, the Catholic teaching orders – the Dominican, Loreto and Ursuline orders in particular – were key players and stakeholders in women’s higher education in the latter half of the nineteenth century. This paper explores the objectives of the pioneers of Protestant and Catholic female education, examining the relative influence of the Church of Ireland and the Catholic Church. It explores the possibility that the movement for the higher education of Irish women found its impetus not in gender equality, but in denominational rivalry.     

Religious Segregation and the Emergence of Integrated Schools in Northern Ireland

A distinctive characteristic of the education system in Northern Ireland is that most Protestant and Catholic children attend separate schools. Following the partition of Ireland the Protestant Churches transferred their schools to the new state in return for full funding and representation in the management of state controlled schools and non-denominational religious instruction was given a statutory place within such schools. The Catholic Church retained control over its own system of voluntary maintained schools, initially receiving only 65% of capital funding; however all grant-aided schools in Northern Ireland are now eligible for full funding of running costs and capital development. This paper highlights the emergence of a small number of integrated schools since the 1980s. Catholic and Protestant parents have come together as the impetus for these schools and this presents an implicit challenge to the status quo of church involvement in the management and control of schools. In practical terms the integrated schools have had to develop more inclusive arrangements for religious education, and legislation that permits existing schools to 'transform' into integrated schools also presents new challenges for the society as a whole.