CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - More than 40 years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down sponsored prayer and scripture readings in the nation's public schools, the role of religion in education remains a sharply divisive topic in many communities.
A new book, "For the Civic Good: The Liberal Case for Teaching Religion in the Public Schools" (University of Michigan Press), explores the educational value, constitutionality and liberal arguments for providing religious education in public schools.
"Religion course" and "teaching about religion" are general descriptors for four different kinds of courses - Bible history, the Bible and its influence, Bible as literature, and world religions - that authors Walter Feinberg and Richard A. Layton explore in the book. Feinberg is a professor emeritus of education policy, organization and leadership at the University of Illinois; Layton is a professor in the department of religion at Illinois.
Feinberg and Layton emphasize that they do not advocate curricular content that attempts to induct children into a specific religious group or that promotes an affiliation with religion in general.
However, the authors believe that academic instruction that teaches about beliefs, practices and canonical texts of various religious traditions can be an appropriate part of the curriculum. According to the authors, religion is integral to the human experience, and religion curricula can prepare youth for civic engagement in an ethnically and religiously diverse society.
Public schools that choose to teach religion courses should teach them in a manner consistent with the analytic, interpretive and critical skills that are associated with the humanities. Like humanities courses, religion courses can serve as catalysts for critical thinking, reflection and personal growth, helping public schools fulfill their unique mission of constructing a democratic, informed populace.
"The aim of the humanities, from a civic standpoint, is to promote civic skills by changing the process of believing and thus preparing the ground for engaging different points of view in civically constructive ways," the authors wrote.
Fostering appreciation for different religious traditions and examination of one's own traditions opens students to the value found in a plurality of religions - and can provide transformative learning opportunities without inculcating particular beliefs, distorting the facts or violating individuals' rights.
"At a time when different religions are playing such an important role in civic life throughout the world, citizenship and informed public participation require a greater understanding of the role religion plays in people's lives," the authors wrote.
Feinberg and Layton spent two years researching the topic, traveling "from the Bible Belt to the suburban parkway, observing classes and interviewing public school teachers involved in religion courses."
Using case studies of several schools and communities in which religion courses are taught, the authors explore the academic merits and problems associated with each curriculum. The schools and communities - located in the Midwest, the South and along the Atlantic coast - are identified by pseudonyms in the book, as are the teachers, school officials and community organizations affiliated with the programs.
Curricular content, depth of classroom discussions and even the selection of instructors varied widely, and was often influenced or constrained by students', teachers' and the surrounding community's religious values as well as teachers' interpretations of their roles and fears about legal entanglements, the authors found.
"In many communities, there's a tendency to implement religion courses for their perceived value as builders of good moral character or because they satisfy the interests of some particular segment of the community," Feinberg said. "These courses tend to present the path to individual and collective development as closed, rather than developing students' interpretive, analytic and critical skills to prepare them for membership in a constantly evolving, diverse public."
Although some schools and teachers hoped to deflect controversy by teaching the Bible as a neutral history textbook, Feinberg and Layton observed that this approach discouraged critical inquiry, silenced classroom discussion and often focused on Christian viewpoints to the exclusion of other doctrines.
"Bible history courses were the most problematic type of courses in our sample," Layton said. "The chief difficulty of these courses is the presumption that the Bible is a history textbook that provides unmediated transmission of the historical events of Israel and the early Christian community."
Bible as literature courses were the most academically promising, if teachers and the curricula promoted active interpretation, critical reading skills and students' awareness of multiple possibilities within their own religious traditions, the authors wrote.
The department of education policy, organization and leadership is a unit in the College of Education at Illinois; the department of religion is a unit within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.