International Journal of Christianity & Education

Recent educational reform in England occasioned new interactions between the state, universities, faith communities and schools. In 2016, a suite of new public examinations testing the academic ability of English students matriculating at 16 and 18 years of age was introduced. In Religious Education, these state-driven changes deliberately involved religious stakeholders, universities and the ‘faith school’ sector. The curricula generated by this fourfold interaction have received a mixed reception. Themselves part of the agency for change, the authors outline the context of the reform and their investigation into its impact upon the strategies of school leaders and heads of department.

Church-affiliated universities operate with increasingly complex roles and functions when engaging with multiple stakeholders in the provision of higher education. This article asks how to understand and analyse the interactions when these universities are among the multiple stakeholders in Christian teacher education. What frameworks of analysis or tools of evaluation can be employed? Stakeholder theory is shown to support the identification of various community interests and involvements and enable clarification of whose perspective or priorities are to be taken into account. From a recent UK research case study, the need for greater understanding and management of stakeholder interests and activity within Christian teacher education is highlighted.

Reading texts of historical educators and being informed about their works and lives can be inspiring and exemplary for future teachers. In this article, I explore the learning processes that occur when student teachers study the classics, using frameworks from different disciplines, including social learning theory, drama theory, Aristotelian ethics, cognitive dissonance theory, and a theory of historical imagination. The results show that the study of educators from the past can have a beneficial impact on professional virtues when the encounter is in depth and when the student can actively choose an educator who captures his or her imagination.

Alphacrucis College, Australia, has developed a Clinical Teaching Model (CTM) as an option within the initial teacher-training awards. The Alphacrucis College model intentionally combines the pre-service teachers’ spiritual formation with their professional development. This article reports on an evaluation of the CTM students’ experience compared with that of students under the traditional approach. The key findings confirm an increased sense of self-discipline and confidence, and an overwhelming appreciation for the practical application without assessment. The students appreciated that in the CTM process, faith was being coupled with their calling to teach.

The Controlled Schools’ sector in Northern Ireland is usually described as de facto Protestant. By examining its history and current context, this article considers the veracity of that statement. In many schools RE is often ‘squeezed out’ of an already overcrowded timetable. This results in the quantity and quality of RE teaching varying widely, unlike other areas of the curriculum. The article explores whether the sector's ethos is Protestant, secular, Christian or multi-faith. It concludes that, although perhaps unclear about their Protestant identity and uncomfortable about being deemed secular, schools are clear about their de facto Christian status.