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Full-Text Articles in Education

Interviews In Global Catholic Studies: William T. Cavanaugh, Mathew N. Schmalz Jun 2022

Interviews In Global Catholic Studies: William T. Cavanaugh, Mathew N. Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

Mathew N. Schmalz, Professor of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Global Catholicism, interviews William T. Cavanaugh, Professor of Catholic Studies and Director of the Center for World Catholicism & Intercultural Theology at DePaul University.


Responding To Pope Francis’ Call For A Global Compact On Education: Insights From Interviews By The Global Catholic Education Project, Quentin Wodon Jun 2022

Responding To Pope Francis’ Call For A Global Compact On Education: Insights From Interviews By The Global Catholic Education Project, Quentin Wodon

Journal of Global Catholicism

In September 2019, Pope Francis suggested the need for a Global Compact on Education to renew our passion for a more open and inclusive education. He called for a broad alliance “to form mature individuals capable of overcoming division and antagonism, and to restore the fabric of relationships for the sake of a more fraternal humanity.” The Pope called for seven commitments: (1) to make human persons the center; (2) to listen to the voices of children and young people; (3) to advance the women; (4) to empower the family; (5) to welcome; (6) to find new ways of understanding …


Decline In Student Enrollment, Parental Willingness To Consider Catholic Schools, And Sources Of Comparative Advantage In The United States, Quentin Wodon Jun 2022

Decline In Student Enrollment, Parental Willingness To Consider Catholic Schools, And Sources Of Comparative Advantage In The United States, Quentin Wodon

Journal of Global Catholicism

Enrollment in Catholic schools has been declining in the United States for half a century due among others to a lack of affordability resulting from legal barriers to access public funding, a potential weakening of the perception of excellence associated with the schools, and a trend towards secularization magnified by the sexual abuse crisis in the Church. What could Catholic schools do to stem the decline in enrollment? There are no easy answers, and there is also no single perspective on how to improve Catholic schools and make them more attractive to a larger number of parents. To suggest some …


Selection And Faith/Spiritual Formation Of Catholic Public School Lay Principals In Ghana, Joseph Domfeh-Boateng Jun 2022

Selection And Faith/Spiritual Formation Of Catholic Public School Lay Principals In Ghana, Joseph Domfeh-Boateng

Journal of Global Catholicism

While Catholic schools strive to maintain a particular identity, this is not easy when they operate as public schools. In most African countries where the Church operates large networks of Catholic schools, most Catholic schools are public schools, which provides funding but also leads to some constraints. This paper focuses on the issue of the selection and faith/spiritual formation of lay principals in Ghana’s Catholic public Schools. Issues are discussed and a few recommendations are made.


Student Experiences With Violence In Schools: Insights From A Survey In Two Catholic Schools For Girls In Nigeria, Antoinette Nneka Opara, Quentin Wodon Jun 2022

Student Experiences With Violence In Schools: Insights From A Survey In Two Catholic Schools For Girls In Nigeria, Antoinette Nneka Opara, Quentin Wodon

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article suggests that teachers and administrators aiming to understand patterns of violence in their school and how to reduce them can learn from simple surveys implemented among students with both open-ended and closed questions. The analysis is based on surveys implemented in two all-girl secondary Catholic schools in Nigeria. The data indicate that violence is pervasive, although most forms of violence are relatively mild according to the students. Proposals for curbing violence are outlined based on suggestions from students as well as the experience of school administrators and findings from the broader literature.


Catholic Education And The Challenge Of Religious Pluralism: The Private Catholic High School Saint Luc In Burkina Faso, Alexandre Bingo Jun 2022

Catholic Education And The Challenge Of Religious Pluralism: The Private Catholic High School Saint Luc In Burkina Faso, Alexandre Bingo

Journal of Global Catholicism

How can a Catholic school carry out this mission in a context of religious pluralism? In Burkina Faso where the literacy rate is quite low, Catholic education is popular, including among non-Catholics. Catholic schools welcome students from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds, including many Muslim students. The Catholic high school Saint Luke of Banfora clearly affirms its Christian identity, but it also promotes inter-religious dialogue. This articles explains how in practice the school promotes respect for each other's faith.


Overview And Acknowledgments, Marc Roscoe Loustau Jun 2022

Overview And Acknowledgments, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.


Catholics & Cultures As An Act Of Improvisation: A Response, Thomas M. Landy Mar 2021

Catholics & Cultures As An Act Of Improvisation: A Response, Thomas M. Landy

Journal of Global Catholicism

This essay responds to seven articles published in the same issue of the Journal of Global Catholicism on the use of Catholics & Cultures, a multimedia website, as a pedagogical resource for college classrooms. The site is deliberately presented in a fashion that undermines notions of center and periphery and presents Catholicism from a lay, lived-religion perspective as the multicultural faith that it is, minimizing reference to religious typologies. Particular attention is given to how to navigate tensions around theorizing, categorizing and sorting information for cross-cultural comparison. Given scholars’ current state of knowledge, writing about and teaching about global Catholicism …


Catholics & Cultures: A Panoramic View In Search Of Greater Understanding, Stephanie M. Wong Mar 2021

Catholics & Cultures: A Panoramic View In Search Of Greater Understanding, Stephanie M. Wong

Journal of Global Catholicism

While internet-based technologies can open up greater awareness of the world or create self-perpetuating echo-chambers, the Catholics & Cultures project aspires to do the former. Aiming to ‘widen the lens’ on the variety of Catholic communities and practices, the site delivers on this goal by introducing viewers to a vast array of articles, pictures and videos from around the world. The organization of the site by country and by certain key features of lived Catholicism offers some interpretive guidance. However, the project could be strengthened as a pedagogical resource if it were more extensively thematized and hosted reflections on potential …


The Value Of Online Resources: Reflections On Teaching An Introduction To Global Christianity, Hillary Kaell Mar 2021

The Value Of Online Resources: Reflections On Teaching An Introduction To Global Christianity, Hillary Kaell

Journal of Global Catholicism

Reflecting on my experience teaching Introduction to Global Christianity, this essay ponders questions at the heart of undergraduate teaching: How can we encourage students to utilize online sources? How can we empower them to seek out answers to their questions? It offers practical examples of how I have used the Catholics & Cultures website in my classroom at a large public university. In particular, I reflect on my experience working with students who are mostly of Catholic heritage, but from many cultural and social contexts.


Teaching Sexuality On The Catholics & Cultures Website: A Refreshing Turn Toward The Longue Durée, Marc Roscoe Loustau Mar 2021

Teaching Sexuality On The Catholics & Cultures Website: A Refreshing Turn Toward The Longue Durée, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

I present a close reading of the Catholics & Cultures (C&C) website’s treatment of sexuality-related issues and discuss this material in relation to debates about how to teach sexuality in religious studies and theology classrooms. The C&C website occasionally and intermittently uses a typical “contemporary issues” approach that considers sexuality in relation to legal and legislative decisions and government policies. In contrast, country profiles consistently situate sexuality in relation processes like nation building, urbanization, and lay Catholics’ growing authority. My interpretation highlights the site’s decision to emphasize the longue durée, long-term and deep structural processes driving cultural and religious changes. …


Ritual Among The Scilohtac: Global Catholicism, The Nacirema, And Interfaith Studies, Anita Houck Mar 2021

Ritual Among The Scilohtac: Global Catholicism, The Nacirema, And Interfaith Studies, Anita Houck

Journal of Global Catholicism

More than six decades after its publication, Horace Miner’s 1956 article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” remains a reliable pedagogical tool, remarkably successful in helping students see their own ethnocentric biases. Catholics & Cultures has potential to do similar work. The site lacks some of what makes Miner’s text so effective, in particular its capacity to bring about a sudden shift in perception. The site also shares some of the article’s limitations, particularly in focusing on ritual to the relative exclusion of other aspects of religion. That said, the site can help students gain the religious literacy and develop the …


Focus On The Busy Intersections Of Culture And Cultural Change, Laura Elder Mar 2021

Focus On The Busy Intersections Of Culture And Cultural Change, Laura Elder

Journal of Global Catholicism

The dynamics of religious resurgence reveal the important ways that religious ritual and performance are meaning making spaces which are not self-contained or cut off from the rest of culture, but rather are a key locus of cultural change. A renewed emphasis on the busy intersections of meaning making – as rituals are connected, disconnected, and reconnected to other domains of social life – would improve the utility of the Catholics & Cultures website for understanding global cultural change. And a renewed emphasis on cultural change would also provide a better means for exploring reflexively by seeking to understand both …


A Widened Angle Of View: Teaching Theology And Racial Embodiment, Mara Brecht Mar 2021

A Widened Angle Of View: Teaching Theology And Racial Embodiment, Mara Brecht

Journal of Global Catholicism

Today’s undergraduate students are digital natives, shaped by constant access to information and countless experiences of encountering the world through the convenience of a screen. The ostensible comfort students have with difference gives way to a paradox, and one that’s made especially apparent in the theology classroom: Students are comfortable with seeing difference and particularity at a distance, but not adept at locating difference and particularity “at home.” I contend that Catholics & Cultures can help students from the dominant culture—namely, white students who comprise the vast majority of Catholic college students—destabilize their notion of the Catholic tradition as tightly …


Introducing Catholics & Cultures: Ethnography, Encyclopedia, Cyborg, Mathew N. Schmalz Mar 2021

Introducing Catholics & Cultures: Ethnography, Encyclopedia, Cyborg, Mathew N. Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

In introducing the Catholics & Cultures site and the articles in this special issue, this essay initially locates the overall Catholic & Cultures project within the traditions of ethnography and encyclopedia. Drawing extensively on the work of J. Z. Smith, this essay reflects upon the theoretical implications of emphasizing the diversity of Catholicism in and through a web-based platform that facilitates comparative study and pedagogy. This essay then more specifically considers the web-based aspects of Catholics & Cultures by identifying a nascent cyborgian aesthetic in the site and considering how the site might eventually engage post-modern themes and concerns.