Religious Education and Freedom of Religion and Belief

What opportunities and challenges are presented to religious education across the globe by the basic human right of freedom of religion and belief? To what extent does religious education facilitate or inhibit ‘freedom of religion’ in schools? What contribution can religious education make to freedom in the modern world? This volume provides answers to these and related questions by drawing together a selection of the papers delivered at the seventeenth session of the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values held in Ottawa in 2010. These reflections from international scholars, drawing upon historical, theoretical and empirical perspectives, provide insights into the development of religious education in a range of national contexts, from Europe to Canada and South Africa, as well as illuminating possible future directions for the subject.

Health, Sickness and Literature for Children

The subjects of health, including sickness, and medicine are developing as new areas of research interest applied to the field of children’s literature really over the past five years. This chapter discusses the ways in which these areas have been, are being, and could be developed and identify reasons why this is so and the importance of such research. The chapter highlights the interdisciplinarity of this work and the ways in which these approaches enable new thinking.