Cultural Anthropology; Journal Article Review: Religion

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References

Robinson, J. M. (2015). Teaching Religion Around the World: A Modest First Glimpse. Teaching Theology & Religion, 18(3), 235–247. https://doi.org/10.1111/teth.12290

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Teaching Religion Around the World: A Modest First Glimpse.

This essay introduces a collection of short essays solicited from authors around the globe who teach religion courses at the college level (not for professional religious training). The central question uniting this collection is whether religious studies is a unified and global pedagogical field, and this introduction teases out salient continuities and discontinuities driven by broad cultural and political contexts. These essays are published together with this introduction in Teaching Theology and Religion 18:3 (July 2015). The authors were asked to provide a brief overview of the curriculum, student learning goals, and pedagogical techniques employed in their courses.

signature pedagogies; international education; K‐12 education; Japan; Malaysia; Turkey; Denmark; Korea; Botswana; Brazil; New Zealand; Ireland

Context matters in teaching religion. Any classroom is a context within a broader set of contexts, so it should not be surprising that religion is studied in different ways around the world. But what can a teacher gain by looking beyond geographical and cultural borders? What can one learn stepping into classrooms led by others who must also wrestle with the “what” and the “how” of teaching religion? Readers of this journal are used to venturing beyond their own local contexts but less often get the chance to go on a more expansive pedagogical journey. The nine essays collected here provide a modest first glimpse into answering one central question: is religious studies a pedagogically united field? More specifically, are there ways of teaching and learning that are common to the study of religion in undergraduate education regardless of cultural or linguistic context? Are there notable differences? These essays show us that two interrelated factors influence religious studies curricula and pedagogy: broad cultural and political structures which influence the early experiences of children in school, and then the anticipated career paths of graduates. Broad pedagogical choices seem to flow from those two baseline realities, but there is little that is global or unique the study of religion.

In cultural contexts where there is no set career goal connected to the study of religion, religion is more likely to be conceived as a global study incorporating theory and method. In contexts where students are being trained specifically to be instructors of religious education, religion is more likely to be conceived as a study of one primary tradition with other perspectives considered in passing. In those cases, “theories of religion” are often overlooked in favor of courses focusing on ethics or “character education.” The explicitly secular curriculum serves students pursuing a liberal education whose career goals are more amorphous, while the more denominational curriculum serves those who will be teachers or practitioners themselves. These general correlations are not surprising. The question is whether the explicitly cross‐cultural, secular curriculum and the denominational, more theological curriculum prompt similar pedagogical choices. It is difficult to know anything for certain from nine essays, but this inquiry can help us begin to see what is (or is not) distinctive in the ways religion is taught and learned in classrooms around the world. A glimpse to Ireland, Japan, Botswana, Brazil, Denmark, New Zealand, Turkey, Korea, and Malaysia can help us think about our own pedagogical assumptions and choices.

Uniformity or Melting Pot?

Inspiration for this collection of essays stems from several sources. The first is Gregory Alles’ Religious Studies: A Global

View (2008), which examines religious studies globally, primarily through the lens of scholarship in the discipline. As Alles’ collection clearly shows, “crafting knowledge about religion” is a diverse global enterprise lacking a truly “global vision” (2008, 2). Alles rightly laments the western bias of much scholarship, although he does note that even more traditional scholars are becoming increasingly aware of different questions and approaches. This compilation of essays serves, in part, to show western scholars how parochial and limited their views of religious studies have come to be. The Alles volume, published in 2008, seemed to beg for a companion work about the study of religion in classrooms, a lacuna filled in large part by the recent Routledge International Handbook of Religious Education, published in 2013 (Davis and Miroshnikova). This hefty collection, which divides the world into three global regions comprising fifty countries, focuses largely on the cultural and political issues that swirl around religious education in public and private schools. Both volumes generally echo what is found in the essays collected here, whether they are focusing on scholarship or pedagogy. Put plainly, context matters.

The most generative source of inspiration for these essays is the concept of “signature pedagogies,” a term coined by [31] to describe “the types of teaching that organize the fundamental ways in which future practitioners are educated for their new profession” (2005b, 52). Shulman's coinage came out of a then decade‐long (and still ongoing) Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching study of teaching and learning in professional fields, including law, medicine, clergy, engineering, and education. Shulman's concept of signature pedagogies rests on a foundational notion that there is – and, perhaps more importantly, that there should be – a proper and customary way to teach and learn in professional fields.[ 1] All signature pedagogies, he argues, are pervasive and routine. They all entail some degree of public performance by which the learner is judged on his or her knowledge and skills. Certain practical competencies are at stake here: the nurse needs to know how to insert a catheter and the teacher needs to know how to use the chalkboard (or Smartboard). Functioning skills and habits of mind are essential in certain jobs, and signature pedagogies are designed around accountability in the arenas in which practitioners work. To use Shulman's groupings, these ways of teaching and learning are focused on instilling habits of the mind (content and cognitive aspects), habits of the body (physical skills), and habits of the heart (ethics).[ 2]

Signature pedagogies are clearly definable and they develop and survive because they fulfill a particular function: they produce practitioners and thinkers of a certain type who learn their skills through a deliberate and often quite traditional process of teaching and learning. The historical precedent for this idea might be found in agriculture schools and land grant universities, which employed routine pedagogies to produce workers of a particular type, ready to solve particular problems in particular ways. These schools promoted engineering, science, and agriculture in service to a changing, industrializing society. Professional schools have since largely adopted that mission in a more technological world by focusing on STEM disciplines, and it should not surprise us that the idea has moved down to undergraduate studies and into humanities fields. Indeed, the idea of signature pedagogies has captured the imaginations of some in “softer” disciplines, despite – or perhaps because of – a growing focus on colleges as vocational training. Latching onto a pedagogical “signature” might allow less vocationally oriented academic programs stay alive in an age of head counting.[ 3] Although he did not intend to use this idea with humanities fields, [30] himself recognizes the usefulness of his paradigm when he draws parallels between professional and liberal education:

Are there connections between these ideas and the goals of liberal education? I would say that learning ideas, practices, and values, and developing the capacity to act with integrity on the basis of responsible judgments under uncertainty, and to learn from experience, is a reasonable description of what liberal learning should be about, as well. (2005a)

This desire for a connection between what works professionally and what ought to work in liberal education leading to a career is hardly surprising in an age focused on quantitative assessment of outcomes. Signature pedagogies focus in part on products, and products are more amenable to assessment than processes. It seems reasonable to assume that teaching certain skills and habits of mind can prepare humanities graduates for work in a rapidly changing society, often for jobs that do not yet exist.

Shulman's work inspired a study on training clergy, and his model works very well for pedagogy in many professional fields, but a skeptic reading this likely dismisses the usefulness or applicability of such a paradigm to the academic study of religion (Foster et al. [12] ). It is worth noting, however, that faculty often grasp for a “signature” identity when they advise students and market majors on school websites. Department websites and marketing materials often claim that religious studies majors are creative, critical, and constructive global thinkers, that they have strong writing and speaking skills, and that they score high on standardized tests, such as the GRE and LSAT. They go on to argue that religious studies majors are suited to careers in law, business, education, and public service, to name a few. These largely anecdotal claims serve as ways of showing how religious studies programs produce particular types of thinkers who will excel at certain types of jobs. (Ironically, perhaps, those jobs often will require further focused professional training shaped by the very signature pedagogies described by Shulman.) It is hard in the current climate to ignore the desire for a “tried and true” method that produces a defined and employable “product” in order to justify humanities classes and majors. Identifying a signature pedagogy can lend a field a distinctiveness and thus a status that it might otherwise lack. Indeed, predicting and taking credit for particular outcomes is more than a way to placate students who equate learning with earning: it is a way for us to codify what we think we are doing in our classrooms. Teachers want students to be global citizens with transferable skill sets. They want students to be critical thinkers. Teachers want students to deal with complexity and uncertainty, and they choose presumably particular pedagogical approaches to accomplish those goals.

One difficulty in identifying a signature pedagogy in religious studies lies in the purpose of the degree itself. The academic study of religion in undergraduate education in the United States is distinct (sometimes combatively so) from the denominational or theological study of religion.[ 4] Nevertheless, earning an accredited degree in religion or religious studies from an American university generally equips graduates with transferable skill sets, such as reading, writing, and

communicating effectively, that can apply to a number of professional and other fields. Majors go on to many different careers, but the curriculum itself is not formed around the idea of training for a particular career path. It is difficult point to a pedagogical toolbox or tool used in religious studies that differs in any significant and defining way from that used by other teachers in the humanities. An examination of syllabi posted online shows that religious studies departments on the whole embrace the time‐honored pedagogies of the humanities: text, lecture, and discussion.[ 5] We also do our share of self‐ and peer‐evaluation of writing, short writing assignments, guest lecturers, fieldwork or field trips, group projects, case studies, structured debate, open‐ended discussion, simulations or role‐playing, brainstorming, videos, small group discussions, and interviews. Sources include textbooks, monographs, and primary textual sources on websites and in anthologies; other sources include films, TED talks, and podcasts. We use clickers, Twitter, and other technology in religious studies classes, too. Assessment and grading are based on essay exams, objective short answer essays, multiple choice exams, research papers, class presentations, quizzes, journal entries, and participation in class discussion. And our rites of passage, such as the introductory theory course and capstone course or senior seminar, are hardly unique to our field. In short, we look like many other humanities classrooms in the pedagogical approaches we adopt, and these essays show that choices in other countries vary little from what one might find in the United States. Any pedagogical unity emerges from fairly generic choices, such as whether class is run as a lecture or seminar.

What is most “signature” about religious studies pedagogy is perhaps its subject. Admittedly one of many humanities disciplines that emphasize critical thinking, global knowledge, and the ability to read and write and argue, religious studies has something else: a content focus that by its very nature sets itself apart, not only in the classroom but also in “real life.” What students have that is distinct to their concentration is a deep and wide knowledge of religion, historically, theoretically, globally, and culturally. Humanities majors as a whole might possess the same transferable skill sets as religious studies majors, but their content knowledge is clearly different and is approached differently for that reason: several recent studies show that what distinguishes religious studies from other humanities disciplines is the inherently “difficult” nature of the topics at hand.[ 6] Public debates about the appropriate role of education about religion or religions show that this content is commonly set apart in many cultural and political contexts, and the essays below often reflect the conversations about religion held outside the academy that influence the way religion is studied within the academy. Religion shapes government decisions and people's lives in myriad ways and in ways perhaps more pressing and personal than history or English might. There are no public discussions about whether children should be “exposed” to history in K‐12 education; there is no public discussion about the value of literature for learning. Is this the key defining element that binds us together as a field and thus provides us with some pedagogical unity?[ 7] Perhaps, but it, too, is problematic.

If it is content or focus that distinguishes us, we are in a quandary, in part because we differ from classroom to classroom on the ideal balance between content and critical thinking and in part because we disagree on what “content” might even be. Several recent studies show that American teachers of religious studies are faced with a divide between what they want and need to teach and what their students want and need to know. As recent research has shown, students are more often looking for personal meaning and spiritual growth than are their teachers, who have likely been trained to approach religion with the elusive objectivity so hailed by those who wished to uproot religious studies from its theological roots.[ 8] For some, the intellectual integrity of the field requires absolute separation, while others advocate for an “academic theology.”[ 9] Some of us teach more for “religious literacy” than for “critical thinking.” Some of us are more open to students’ personal religious beliefs and concerns, while others aim to establish a climate of objective, academic inquiry. Some teach with the “whole student” in mind, while others feel more comfortable with more straightforward, quantifiable scholastic pursuits. Meanwhile, students are, arguably, more focused on spirituality and personal identity formation than past generations, and this is likely more pronounced in religious studies courses than in other disciplines because of content (on this, see, for instance, Kennedy [[19] ], Mayrl and Oeur [[24] ], Smith and Snell [[32] ], Sheppard [[29] ], Astin [[ 2] ], and Trautvetter [[34] ]). In short, teachers and students represent a hodgepodge of approaches and commitments that continually inform and change what happens “on the ground” in our classrooms.[ 10] So even if teachers in religion classes cover a particular defined range of “content,” the learners in those very same classrooms might take something very different away from the experience. Those outcomes are difficult to capture. This set of essays aims, instead, to examine the study of religion from the point of view of what the teacher intends to convey within a set of cultural circumstances that call for particular pedagogical approaches.

Nine Views, Multiple Goals

These questions about what might be distinctive (or not) about teaching about religion prompted solicitation of essays from teachers in different cultural contexts. The Alles ([ 1] ) and Routledge (Davis and Miroshnikova [ 8] ) volumes filled in many of the contextual and historical blanks about the global study of religion, while these essays modestly aimed to go to the level of classroom practice within particular contexts. The resulting essays focus more on curriculum, but that focus helps illuminate the broad question about commonalities and differences. At the outset, these contributors were asked to think about their classroom practices and pedagogical goals, and they were asked to consider what subject matter is included in most curricula and what sorts of knowledge and skills students in religious studies classes are expected to gain. They were also asked to sketch briefly the broader context of religious studies among other disciplines, both within their institutions and more broadly. In short, the essay writers were to consider what teachers try to teach students, why they choose to teach those things, and how they teach (ideally, by describing a specific learning design or typical assignment). Authors were encouraged to follow those prompts but to focus their work as they saw best fit their circumstances. These essays range, then, from more general overviews to very specific reflections on particular challenges. On the whole, these nine essays argue against a common pedagogical goal of teaching about religion. Some teach to disrupt, some to transform, some to indoctrinate, some to enlighten. As these essays show, approaches to any given goal are intimately tied to context.

Although the essays speak for themselves and can be read individually, a two‐part interpretive framework can help connect and contrast the individual perspectives. First, each of these essays address in some way the outcome they expect for

those holding an undergraduate degree in religion (which is often tied to preparation in religious education prior to college). The situations of incoming students shape the choices that shape outcomes. Second, these essays together help showcase the variety of pedagogical approaches taken to accomplish whatever goal is sought. There is no signature pedagogy in religion; there is, however, a signature focus on religion in all of its messiness. These essays together show how important it is to teach about religion, however challenging that endeavor might be.

As some of these authors note, a brief essay can hardly do justice to the complexities surrounding the teaching of religion in any institution of higher education. Anecdotal evidence, which the prompts clearly call for, seems insufficient to account for the many cultural, political, economic, and other factors contribute to whether and how religion is a subject of study in classrooms around the world.[ 11] Yet these generalized examples can tell us much. Just as it is rare to encounter the study of religion in a classroom in K‐12 public schools in the United States, it is also fairly rare to find a non‐American secular college or university with a department devoted to the study of religion. Scholars interested in religion are often found in other home departments. An ideal of “separation of church and state” is sometimes embraced, sometimes eschewed, but the connection between the two is often fraught with questions about boundaries and national identity. To give a general example, the institutional goal of the American BA in religion or religious studies is, most often, to produce broadly employable critical thinkers. That is not always the goal of similar degrees abroad, where religion is a topic of study for those intending to teach students in public schools or to be agents of the state. Denominational and catechetical concerns can shape public school curricula to include what most Americans would consider indoctrination; in other cases, a policy of strict secularism can lead to the avoidance of any mention of religion in elementary and later grades. Several of these essays make clear how pedagogical approaches in higher education are shaped by the ways religion has been handled with children prior to college. Early classroom realities shape what teachers can and should do in higher education (as small departments of religious studies wishing for majors to “discover” us know too well).

Sensitivity to context drives the types of teaching described in these essays. Each closely considers student preparation for college‐level study and expected student career paths (or lack thereof). The overall goal of teaching seems tied to these elements: transformative and disruptive teaching is more common where religion is more of a liberal field of study; didactic and pro forma teaching is more common where a particular career track is defined. This awareness of the end goal is coupled with an awareness of who is walking in the classroom door. Teachers who have a sense for students’ type and degree of exposure to religious instruction or education prior to college are arguably more effective in the classroom. In the United States, for instance, religious studies majors are not heading for any particular career, and religious studies stands out in the undergraduate liberal arts curriculum because most students from public schools enter classes with knowledge about religion that has not been shaped through formal schooling. An English teacher can assume, for instance, that students have read and studied novels, and a history teacher can assume they have been exposed to ways of understanding history. College students have learned mathematics and have been exposed to formal teaching of many branches of science. Yet it is fair to say that American college students have learned about religion and philosophy more from living than from academic study. From that perspective, religious education in early years can be seen as a detriment to the open‐minded inquiry required in college classrooms. Religion, in part because it is not a subject studied in early schooling, can appear somehow more “natural” or inevitable to our students. Religion might even appear to be a subject that is inappropriate to discuss in a classroom setting. Perhaps more importantly, however, religion is often something about which students have learned to make judgments of right and wrong, and some students might have considerable difficulty distancing themselves from prior knowledge and previous influence.

Teaching religion requires a consideration of particular content and approach based on a host of factors. North American teachers of religion have been trained to consider the benefits of broad coverage in their courses, with the majority focusing on textbook‐driven accumulation of facts and ideas that have resonance for a particular audience. A survey of syllabi from introductory courses in religious studies show that most advocate coverage of content, resting, it seems, on the assumption that some degree of religious literacy is necessary as the foundation for further study. This approach is often welcomed by students; after all, it is in keeping with the rote memorization expected in the standardized testing model of education prior to college. For teachers, a feeling of needing to cover a certain amount of content is a direct response to the assumption that students know little about religious traditions, even their own (see below). A minority of introductory courses adopt a looser model, moving away from coverage of vast amounts of information in favor of close textual work on representative texts. This move away from trying to cover a subject in a semester is one answer to the problem of what students should know. Students delve into what will be useful knowledge to them, and in doing so make the subject come alive. In this approach, content coverage is dismissed in favor of depth of inquiry, but this is only the norm in more advanced courses, those that only a few students (mostly majors) have the luxury to take.

Outside of the United States, religious studies looks very different. Here we delve briefly into the worlds of teachers in Brazil, Japan, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, Denmark, Botswana, Korea, and Turkey to explore religious studies in those countries. In Ireland and Brazil, religious education is part of schooling prior to university; in the case of Ireland, this preparation is fairly uniform across early education, but in Brazil it is a patchwork of preparation. In those cases, the goal of studying religion is to produce instructors of religious education. In Malaysia and Turkey, students also come to higher education with significant prior exposure to religious education; many students emerge from these programs trained to work in government jobs. The goal in those locations is more straightforward: to reinforce the established norms. In Botswana, religious studies was conceived to serve ethical ends but has emerged as a more explicitly secular pursuit. The goal here seems to be to establish stability while transforming individual lives. In Korea, departments of religious studies in higher education are quite rare but clearly important in university‐level general education. In Japan, students rarely think about religion as part of their everyday lives, much less as a cultural norm. In Denmark and New Zealand, students arrive in college with some exposure to religion and go on to many types of jobs. In these cases, the goal of religious studies seems to be primarily disruptive or transformative.

Disruption is not a driving force in Ireland or Brazil. Aine Hyland and Brian Bocking ([17] ) describe the evolving situation in Ireland, where the vast majority of privately owned and controlled but publicly funded primary and secondary schools are facing pressures to expand the diversity of their religious instruction. Here is a case where an emphasis on religious education in early years drives a teacher education emphasis in secondary schools. Yet the pedagogical approach taken seems fundamentally catechetical or parochial; fieldwork is cited as a pedagogical tool, but breadth of knowledge about other traditions seems a low priority. This essay brings to light ongoing concerns about balance and content in a curriculum that effectively spans primary through secondary schooling. Eduardo Cruz and Afonso Soares ([ 7] ) describe a history of tensions in Brazil on matters related to the religious education of children in secular state‐run schools. Like the examination of Irish study of religion, this essay is also divided between primary and college‐level education and it describes a patchwork situation defined in part by laws but also by states’ rights to determine local curricula. As in the United States, there are no governmental guidelines for the study of religion after high school level, and there seems to be little alignment between the pre‐college and college curricula, likely because of the varied choices made by states about curricula. These authors privilege primary source material and discussion in their teaching, with assessment focusing on more than content knowledge.

Those two essays point out the challenge of promoting religious literacy both within a particular tradition and across traditions, given the pre‐university religious education curriculum, which mixes catechetical and “world religion” approaches. In both cases there is some concern about distinguishing religious instruction from education about religion, but the lines overall seem blurrier than they might be in the United States. The lines seem far clearer in Malaysia and Turkey. The essay by Jeff Kenney ([20] ) about Malaysia echoes the cultural dynamics of Ireland in an Islamic culture. Malaysian religious studies is fully subsumed under what Americans would consider Islamic Studies, and students who enroll in higher education have had extensive exposure to Islamic theology and other ideas in earlier schooling. The goal of this program is for students to learn about the state‐mandated religion while training to be good citizens and workers. There is an explicit goal here among teachers of promoting pluralism and understanding across religious traditions while maintaining the integrity of the Malaysian Muslim national identity. This is not religious studies in an academic sense but it does help us see how religion is conceived of and studied in other contexts.

Similar themes are seen in Wendy Wiseman and Burak Kesgin's ([37] ) essay on the study of religion in Turkey. As the authors make clear, religious studies as a secular discipline does not exist in Turkey; as in Malaysia, the study of religion is the study of Islamic theology, even in this secular state. Indeed, the study of Islam, conceived of as a unifying force in a secular society, feeds directly into the pipeline for government jobs. Secular study of religion is segregated in history, sociology, and cultural studies classes, and religion as a category is never interrogated critically. Far from preparing students for careers, learning about religion in Turkey (which does extend to courses in Asian and Abrahamic religions) is part of the national agenda. Wiseman describes designing a course that went against this grain by enabling students to challenge the understandings they had inherited (2015, 267). This is clearly not the usual state of affairs for college students learning about religion, however: Wiseman's experiment is definitely an outlier in a very conservative approach to the study of religion, which is more a tool of nationalism than of liberal education.

National identity is also a key element in the Japanese approach to teaching about religion. In contrast to Malaysia, the expectation of exposure to at least one religious tradition is absent in Japan, where, [13] tells us, the student body emerges from a culture that generally considers itself uniform and a‐religious (2015). The opening gambit for introductory courses in religion can include problematizing the term “religion,” a move that is a common first step in American contexts as well. That approach is echoed in her assignments, such as having students research the advent of Ouija boards in Japan in the 1970s. Fujiwara also describes a more traditional Japanese pedagogical method of sustained close reading of one text over several semesters. In this more classical mode of textual study, a focal text allows broader discovery in related texts during the course. [13] explains how this traditional approach to reading the classics has been largely replaced by the adoption of newer technologies and approaches that reflect what is going on in American schools (2015, 276–7).

[33] 's piece from Botswana describes a situation of change in pedagogical approach due to circumstance (2015). His department at the University of Botswana was formed initially to train teachers who would be responsible for moral and religious education in the lower grades. Interestingly, this impetus was not based on historical allegiance to any one tradition but to a perceived need for moral development in youth. That original departmental mission has expanded as the market for teachers has contracted. Currently, those who study religion and theology are taught with a view to many possible careers, largely focused on public service. This is reflected in their team‐ and fieldwork‐centered approach to teaching and learning. Togaresei also notes a focus on interdisciplinary study in his program, an issue that is not addressed in detail in any of these pieces despite being a key “selling point” for religious studies as a scholarly field (2015, 274). Religious studies in Botswana is clearly in transition and clearly looking forward to the future.

An embrace of transformation is captured by Tim Cooper ([ 6] ) in New Zealand and Yohan Yoo ([38] ) in Korea. Cooper describes his efforts to teach global church history at a state university to students who may or may not be familiar with the hegemonic western narrative of the triumphant church. His pedagogical techniques include discussion, role playing, and other assignments that encourage creativity and engagement with the subject. These essays show that degree and type of student preparation in the early grades is a factor in education about religion at college level. Perhaps more important, however, is that these teachers are in a position to challenge accepted narratives. This model seems quite like most American models, where religion is interrogated and considered as a key factor in cultural life. [38] describes a religious studies‐based intensive liberal arts lecture course that enrolls more than a hundred students (2015, 293). His main goals are to help students become aware of other cultures primarily through an eclectic mix of novels and one‐day field trip. Students interact with cultural products to gain a greater understanding for cultural and religious symbolism. The emphasis on teacher enthusiasm in this essay points up the value of changing minds to consider other ways of thinking and living. The model

described here seems very familiar to the American model of religious studies as an interdisciplinary field that can contribute significantly to a university's general education program.

Finally, Tim Jensen's ([18] ) essay on religious studies in Danish universities will perhaps sound most familiar to readers from the United States. Although Danish children have religious education in public schools, this does not seem to shape pedagogical or curricular choices. [18] notes that most students who study religion do so with the intention of going on to graduate study (and then to a career in teaching religious education or in academia), although more and more undergraduates are using their religion degrees to find non‐academic jobs without further study (2015, 248). Comparative, theoretical, and historical models are paramount. Pedagogical choices are varied, although Jensen, like Fujiwara, bemoans the loss of time spent reading closely and broadly. In many of these essays, it is clear that context shapes pedagogy in subtle and not‐so‐subtle ways.

There are several lessons to be learned from these essays. First, they bring to light that taking an international and more intentional approach to conversations around teaching benefits us all. From the most practical angle, we all need materials with which to teach, and, as [ 6] points out (2015, 288), global connections of scholars and religious people can enrich classrooms immensely well beyond books and readings. His is a call to expanding those pedagogical networks in a way that research scholars have already done. Thanks to the Wabash Center, teachers have access to many English‐language resources for the classroom, but teaching materials for religion are sparse on sites such as MERLOT. Perhaps these sources are not as robust as they could be because there is little sense that teachers of religion could collaborate across the globe. This set of essays is a small step toward awareness of a shared project, and sharing sources globally could be a tremendous boon to a goal of transforming students’ ways of thinking.

Second, the difficulty teachers have in expressing what they do is universal. Teachers are often good at discussing why they choose what they choose to teach and why it matters, but they are rarely good at looking at the nuts and bolts of the classroom experiences they create. There are many explanations for this, not least that background is so essential to understanding such choices, but also because pedagogical choices often become invisible to teachers either because they are effective and not questioned or because they have become routine. Perhaps the authors here use so many teaching techniques that they could not narrow down their choices. What is certain is that these essays do not help us see very clearly whether lecture and memorization or discussion or projects or any one pedagogical method is common to religious studies classrooms (it is a fair bet that the lecture‐and‐note‐taking method is most common, although the study that shows that has yet to be done). What they do help us see is that the actual acts of teaching are universally undervalued. Perhaps we need to attend more closely to what we take for granted in our lives as teachers.

How is knowledge about religion transmitted and assimilated around the world? These essays point to not one shared pedagogical goal but to several: transformation, disruption, indoctrination, and critical thinking. Some teachers of religion tend to want to (and can) redraw mental maps, to foster different ways of thinking, however that might be achieved; others are in circumstances that do not permit or encourage that sort of approach. All seem to be committed to showing students that religion imbues our everyday lives and is not just bracketed off as something some people do for limited times in particular places each week. It involves investigating sources both very in depth and in great breadth; it involves, in many cases, fieldwork rather than a focus on written sources. It involves trying to come to terms with religion as it was and is lived, either as part of faith formation or as part of a college education. These essays in all of their cultural specificity help us examine the question about whether there is anything common or distinctive about the ways religious studies or religion is taught in classrooms around the world. There is no signature pedagogy of religious studies globally, but there is a sense of shared endeavor. The result is simple but not simplistic: we are in a shared global enterprise that can be strengthened by international conversation and cooperation.

Footnotes

1 Some fields, such as education, law, and medicine, define themselves in large part on their signature pedagogies. See, for instance, Connie M. Moss, “Can a Signature Pedagogy Promote Educational Leadership for a Just and Humane World?” (2008).

2 Shulman is careful to note that signature pedagogies, while habitual and routine, are not static: they respond to some extent to changing students and circumstances. He labels them “pedagogies of uncertainty,” remarking that even the most established pedagogical practice is “routine, yet never the same; it's habitual, but pervaded by uncertainty” (2005a).

3 The best examples of this sort of exploration are Gurung, Chick, and Haynie (15) and Chick, Haynie, and Gurung (5). Each piece in these collections (ideally) “explains the habits of mind that distinguish the discipline, presents the tradition or generic ways of teaching in the discipline, considers what they teach students about the discipline, and concludes by thoughtfully articulating a signature pedagogy that teaches students the distinctive practices and values of that discipline” (2009, 8). The second volume incorporates religion and theology, only through a consideration of Ignatian pedagogy, an approach likely not appropriate to most undergraduate classrooms (2012, 129–143).

4 Some have questioned the coherence of religious studies as a discipline, and most recognize the messiness of the boundary between theology and religious studies. Many studies see religious studies as a negative, meaningless, or outmoded category, including Hart (16), Gordon (14), and Fitzgerald (11). It is difficult to find a book that makes a convincing argument for the coherence of religious studies as a discipline. Even books that are positive (such as Alles [1] and Klostermaier and Hurtado [22]) are undercut by the sheer number of approaches and possible questions considered in the field and, most importantly for this journal, most of these sources focus on scholarship, not teaching. For an historical perspective, see Shepard (28).

5 See the comprehensive collection of syllabi in religious studies and theology collected on the website of the Wabash Center: http://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/resources/guide%5fsyllabi.aspx.

6 See Diamond (9), Penaskovic (27), and Edwards, Jr. (10). The most useful books in this category are those published by the AAR in its Teaching Religious Studies series.

7 Many of the essays in The Routledge International Handbook of Religious Education show that “religion” is a hot‐button topic globally, particularly in relation to “religious education” of youth (Davis and Miroshnikova 8).

8 Robert Orsi rightly questions the apparent lack of interest in religious studies in examining the historical roots of the field. Exceptions include Webb (36), Cady and Brown (3), and Kitagawa (21).

9 A recent upbeat Newsweek article on religious studies ends with the following grand claim: “For students earnestly interested in the Meaning of Life, religious studies is the way to go” (Miller 25).

10 The most valuable books for this study explore religion and religious studies in particular contexts. These include Alles (1), Cherry, DeBerg, and Porterfield (4), Walvoord (35), and Kripal (23). Of more limited use are studies of students’ situations and expectations, for example, Smith and Snell (32) and Astin (2). These deal more with what students want and expect than with what actually happens in classrooms.

11 To get a more comprehensive view of particular situations, see The Routledge International Handbook of Religious Education (Davis and Miroshnikova 8).

Bibliography

1 Alles, Gregory D., ed. 2008. Religious Studies: A Global View. New York, N.Y. : Routledge.

2 Astin, A.W. 2004. “ The Spiritual Life of College Students: A National Study of College Students’ Search for Meaning and Purpose.” In Spirituality in Higher Education. Los Angeles, Calif. : Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. 3 Cady, Linell E., and Delwin Brown, ed. 2002. Religious Studies, Theology, and the University: Conflicting Maps, Changing Terrain. Albany, N.Y. : State University of New York Press. 4 Cherry, Conrad, Betty A. DeBerg, and Amanda Porterfield. 2001. Religion on Campus. Chapel Hill, N.C. : University of North Carolina Press. 5 Chick, Nancy, Aeron Haynie, and Regan A.R. Gurung, eds. 2012. Exploring More Signature Pedagogies: Approaches to Teaching Disciplinary Habits of Mind. Sterling, Va. : Stylus. 6 Cooper, Tim. 2015. “ Teaching Church History in Global Perspective in New Zealand.” Teaching Theology and Religion 18, no. 3 : 286 – 290. 7 Cruz, Eduardo R., and Afonso L. Soares. 2015. “ Teaching Religion in Brazil, in Public Schools and Confessional Colleges.” Teaching Theology and Religion 18, no. 3 : 296 – 300. 8 Davis, Derek H., and Elena Miroshnikova, eds. 2013. The Routledge International Handbook of Religious Education, Routledge International Handbooks. New York, N.Y. : Routledge. 9 Diamond, Miriam Rosalyn. 2008. Encountering Faith in the Classroom: Turning Difficult Discussions into Constructive Engagement. Sterling, Va. : Stylus. 10 Edwards, Mark U., Jr. 2006. Religion on Our Campuses: A Professor's Guide to Communities, Conflicts, and Promising Conversations. New York, N.Y. : Palgrave‐MacMillan. 11 Fitzgerald, Timothy. 2000. The Ideology of Religious Studies. New York, N.Y. : Oxford University Press. 12 Foster, Charles R., et al. 2005. Educating Clergy: Teaching Practices and Pastoral Imagination. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. San Francisco, Calif. : Jossey‐Bass. 13 Fujiwara, Satoko. 2015. “ How Religious Studies is Taught in Japan.” Teaching Theology and Religion 18, no. 3 : 276 – 279. 14 Gordon, Lewis R. 2006. Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times. Boulder, Col. : Paradigm. 15 Gurung, Regan, Nancy Chick, and Aeron Haynie, eds. 2009. Exploring Signature Pedagogies: Approaches to Teaching Disciplinary Habits of Mind. Sterling, Va. : Stylus. 16 Hart, D. G. 1999. The University Gets Religion: Religious Studies in American Higher Education. Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins University Press. 17 Hyland, Áine, and Brian Bocking. 2015. “ Religion, Education, and Religious Education in Irish Schools.” Teaching Theology and Religion 18, no. 3 : 252 – 261. 18 Jensen, Tim. 2015. “ The Basic Courses for the Study of Religions at the University of Southern Denmark.” Teaching Theology and Religion 18, no. 3 : 248 – 251. 19 Kennedy, Rick. 1995. Faith at State: A Handbook for Christians at Secular Universities. Downers Grove, Ill. : InterVarsity Press. 20 Kenney, Jeffrey. 2015. “ Teaching Religious Studies at the International Islamic University Malaysia.” Teaching Theology and Religion 18, no. 3 : 280 – 285. 21 Kitagawa, Joseph Mitsuo. 1992. Religious Studies, Theological Studies, and the University‐Divinity School, Scholars Press Studies in Theological Education. Atlanta, Ga. : Scholars Press. 22 Klostermaier, Klaus K., and Larry W. Hurtado, eds. 1991. Religious Studies: Issues, Prospects, and Proposals. Vol. 2. Atlanta, Ga. : Scholars Press. 23 Kripal, Jeffrey J. 2006. “ Liminal Pedagogy: The Liberal Arts and the Transforming Ritual of Religious Studies.” In How Should We Talk About Religion? Perspectives, Contexts, Particularities, edited by James Boyd White, 278 – 299.

Notre Dame, Ind. : University of Notre Dame. 24 Mayrl, Damon, and Freeden Oeur. 2009. “ Religion and Higher Education: Current Knowledge and Directions for Future Research.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 48, no. 2 : 260 – 275. 25 Miller, Lisa. 2010. “ Religious Studies Revival.” Newsweek September 10. 26 Moss, Connie. 2008. “ Can a Signature Pedagogy Promote Educational Leadership for a Just and Humane World? ” Center for Advancing the Study of Teaching and Learning Technical Report no. 2‐07. Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne University. www.duq.edu/castl/_pdf/CASTL_Technical_Report_2_07.pdf (accessed 1/10/10). 27 Penaskovic, Richard. 1997. Critical Thinking and the Academic Study of Religion, Studies in the Humanities. Atlanta, Ga. : Scholars Press. 28 Shepard, Robert Stephen. 1991. God's People in the Ivory Tower: Religion in the Early American University. Chicago Studies in the History of American Religion 20. Brooklyn, N.Y. : Carlson Pub. 29 Sheppard, Trent. 2010. God on Campus. Downers Grove, Il. : InterVarsity. 30 Shulman, Lee. 2005a. “ Pedagogies of Uncertainty.” Liberal Education. http://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le‐ sp05/le‐sp05feature2.cfm (accessed December 21, 2010). 31 Shulman, Lee. 2005b. “ Signature Pedagogies in the Professions.” Daedalus 134 : 52 – 59. 32 Smith, Christian, and Patricia Snell. 2009. Souls in Transition: The Religious Lives of Young Adults in America. New York, N.Y. : Oxford University Press. 33 Togarasei, Lovemore. 2015. “ Teaching and Learning Theology and Religion at the University of Botswana.” Teaching Theology and Religion 18, no. 3 : 271 – 275. 34 Trautvetter, Lois Calian. 2008. “ Undergraduate Perspectives About Religion in Higher Education.” In Encountering Faith in the Classroom: Turning Difficult Discussions into Constructive Engagement, edited by Miriam Rosalyn Diamond, 33 – 47. Sterling, Va. : Stylus. 35 Walvoord, Barbara E. 2008. Teaching and Learning in College Introductory Religion Courses. Malden, Mass. : Blackwell. 36 Webb, Stephen H. 2000. Taking Religion to School: Christian Theology and Secular Education. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Brazos. 37 Wiseman, Wendy, and Burak Kesgin. 2015. “ Prospects for Religious Studies in Turkey.” Teaching Theology and Religion 18, no. 3 : 262 – 270. 38 Yoo, Yohan. 2015. “ Teaching Religious Studies to Undergraduate Non‐Majors at Seoul National University, South Korea.” Teaching Theology and Religion 18, no. 3 : 291 – 295.

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By Joanne Maguire Robinson

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