Religious Studies in Public Schools Reconsidered: Religious Literacy in Enough

• In Event: Religion and Education: Curriculum, Complicity, Critique, and Context

Abstract

For the last decade, published debates about the need for religious studies in public schools have surfaced as educators continue to address the needs of an enlightened citizenry within a pluralistic democracy in the 21st century. This educational policy concern is pressing as Wuthnow and Prothero’s texts on the state of our dismal religious illiteracy suggest. The United Kingdom and Germany have made progress toward addressing comparable concerns in their communities. Drawing from them, this paper offers a proposal for 2 Carnegie credits or 4 high school courses that could begin the conversation about what a US religious studies curriculum might look like as it also addresses concerns about separation of church and state and the need for highly prepared religious studies educators.

Author

• Bea N. Bailey, Clemson University