MasterClass in Religious Education: Transforming Teaching and Learning

This is a serious work, well worth reading to challenge thinking about the purposes and teaching of RE.
REtoday

The title of this work says it all-it is indeed a "master class†? in the pressing religious education issues of our time. Drawing on a broad international perspective, the author presents a vibrant history of religious education, and makes a convincing case that it has much to contribute to the contemporary subject. This work is an invaluable resource for those who are studying the theory and practice of religious education and its import for contemporary times. Liam Gearon draws from a rich array of international sources to show the many facets of religious education. This is a volume that I have been waiting for, and I applaud the author's thorough and balanced presentation. It is a model of academic scholarship, and it is most interesting, too. Not an easy accomplishment!
Gloria Durka, Professor of Religious Education, Fordham University, USA

Liam Gearon's MasterClass in Religious Education is a comprehensive and polymath tome - polymath in the sense that it draws on so many disciplines, perspectives and political realities in providing for an entirely original, indeed unique coverage of the scope, purpose and usefulness of religious education. There are many outstanding features of the book that contribute to the distinctive understanding wrought by it. Principal among these, in my view, is that it elevates the often marginalized, taken for granted and much maligned religious education to having a status that is arguably of greater centrality, pedagogically and indeed politically, than any other area of modern education. Certainly, anyone who reads this book and retains the tired view that religious education has a place only in the religious square, but not the public one, has not understood what Gearon is saying. Granted the world the way it is, the potential of religious education to forge distinctive and helpful communication across the religious divide, as well as that between religion and non-religion is unmatched by comparison with any other educational field. Gearon's work will stand the test of time in underlining the central importance of religious education to the modern public curriculum.
Terence Lovat, Emeritus Professor of Education, University of Newcastle, Australia