Greater governmental control over the curriculum, an increasing emphasis only on formalized and decontextualized knowledge and on education as instruction towards pre-determined outcomes, have revitalized the interest in the question whether schools should only instruct or also have a pedagogical task. In this contribution we argue that schools do have a pedagogical task. A transformative conception of education is presented in order to show that the pedagogical task, conceived as a concern for the whole person of the student, is the proper and all-encompassing task of education in all schools including religiously affiliated schools, and for all teachers. Finally, we articulate our contention that it is the teacher's task not to restrict the students' potentialities, but to create openings for them to encounter and receive the gift of personal (religious) identity formation.

In a religiously plural world it is important to ask how people of different faiths and with different religious identities can live justly and harmoniously together. In this article we take as point of departure that there is an inescapable link between a person's religious identity and his or her attitudes towards adherents of other religious. Against the background of a narrative understanding of religious identity, we explore three questions regarding the interreligious orientations of a sample of South African youth: What are the interreligious orientations of this sample of South African youth? How do they evaluate these interreligious orientations? What is the religious location of these interreligious orientations?

Using the 1992 NELS data set for twelfth graders, this study assessed whether students attending religious schools generally have better learning habits than students attending non-religious schools. The study examined learning habits that social scientists typically believe are important for excelling in school. These learning habits include the handing in of work on time, less absenteeism, taking harder courses, diligence, work habits, paying attention, doing more than what is expected, participating in class, and being prepared for class. The results indicate that religious school students outperform non-religious school students in five of the nine categories. More importantly, the two categories in which religious school students outperform their non-religious counterparts the most, diligence and taking harder courses; were the two categories most strongly related to performing well on achievement tests. The possible reasons for these differences are discussed. Differences between Catholic and non-Catholic religious school students were also examined.

Using the 1992 NELS data set for twelfth graders, this study assessed why students attending religious schools generally achieve at higher levels academically than students attending non-religious schools. The study examined reasons that social scientists typically give for students from religious schools outperforming their counterparts in non-religious schools. These reasons include the school atmosphere, racial harmony, the level of school discipline, the lower rates of school violence, and the amount of homework given by the teachers. The results confirm that religious schools do outperform non-religious schools in each of these categories. In addition, the effects for students attending a religious school are reduced but not eliminated when these factors are controlled for. The results of this study support the belief that religious schools do differ favorably from non-religious schools on a number of measures that would seem to support an environment of high academic achievement. The results indicate that the factors that researchers point to as possibly explaining the advantages of attending a religious school explain part of, but not all of, the academic advantage of attending a religious school.

Despite financial disincentives and disenchantment during a time of crisis, many teachers continue to choose U.S. Catholic schools as a workplace. This paper examines the dynamics of recruitment and retention by presenting findings from national studies of teacher satisfaction. It then provides insights into the particular challenges faced by a subset of Catholic schools on the primary level in ineer-city areas that serve children in poverty. Lastly, it offers ways in which any religiously affiliated school can reconsider the status and role of the teacher.

While welcoming a broad conception of mission that includes elements of implicit mission alongside the explicit mission of evangelization, the author regrets the general rush of educationalists and liberal Christians away from the idea of evangelism. He believes that educators in general, and church educators in particular, should be more open to both the concept and the practice.

The modern university is no longer a unified entity. Not only are there different faculties, but these faculties are clustered into a number of cultures, centered around variables that are unrelated to the content of the academic fields of study. This has an impact on the identity of a university, especially when this identity is based on religious affiliation. Our research shows that the Catholic University of Nijmegen does not have one identity for the university as a whole. We found a multitude of sub-identities or sub-cultures. Six faculty cultures were identified. One of those is the culture of the theology faculty, whose students were found to differ so significantly from those in other faculties that the faculty was considered a separate culture. If we can still speak of a Catholic identity, it is to be found there.