Focusing on Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, Religious Education and the Anglo-World historiographically examines the relationship between empire and religious education. The analysis centres on three formative eras in the development of religious education in each case: firstly, the foundational moments of publicly funded education in the mid- to late nineteenth centuries when policy makers created largely Protestant systems of religious education, and frequently denied Roman Catholics funding for private education. Secondly, the period from 1880-1960 during which campaigns to strengthen religious education emerged in each context. Finally, the era of decolonisation from the 1960s through the 1980s when publicly funded religious education was challenged by the loss of Britishness as a central ideal, and Roman Catholics found unprecedented success in achieving state aid in many cases. By bringing these disparate national literatures into conversation with one another, Stephen Jackson calls for a greater transnational approach to the study of religious education in the Anglo-World.
Stephen Jackson, Ph.D. (2013), University of Sioux Falls, is Associate Professor of History at that university. He has published works on settler colonialism, decolonisation, religion, and education, including Constructing National Identity in Canadian and Australian Schools (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
Religious Education and the Anglo-World
The Impact of Empire, Britishness, and Decolonisation in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand Stephen Jackson
Abstract Keywords 1 Introduction
2 The Founding Moments of Publicly Funded Religious Education in the Anglo-World
3 The Intensification of Religious Education in the Era of Recolonisation
4 The Crisis and Transformation of Religious Education in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand
5 Concluding Remarks
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
All scholars, academic libraries, specialists, and graduate students interested in religious education in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and the UK. Also of interest to scholars of the British Empire, the British World, and settler colonialism more broadly.