In Europe, religious and spiritual education happens in a context which is at the same time increasingly secular and religiously plural. This places the problem of religious experience on the agenda. Today most students of religious and spiritual education lack appropriate experiences and show different opinions about what religion or spirituality could be. This Setting raises several questions: How can religious experience be conceptualized in a context of religious plurality and secularity with the traditional religious traditions as just one option among others? Do the concepts of spirituality and implicit religion give way to a new understanding of religious experience?

Visiting the local church is said to be a powerful case of participatory learning. Moreover, it is said to raise the situational interest of the students. An empirical study on the effects of such field trips, however, is still missing. This volume reports the theoretical background, the empirical design and the results of a project about the effects of field trips to the local church in compulsory Catholic religious education in German primary schools. It draws a comprehensive picture of such effects by identifying the benefits of scholastic field trips to the local church as well as the obstacles of this didactic Set-up. The volume closes with a description of didactic principles and methods which help to improve scholastic field trips to the local church.

Value Learning Trajectories provides a theoretical, methodological and contextual framing of value learning alongside individual life trajectories in a diverse range of international educational Settings. It brings together philosophical approaches on value learning with empirical research findings from Australia, Austria, Ethiopia, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iran, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. A critical interdisciplinary bridge between value learning and life trajectory research, the volume gathers together contributions from leading and emergent researchers to facilitate evidence-informed insights and future collaborations in the field.

What are the key questions highlighted in religious and spiritual education today? In societies today, the distinction in religions or identities between global and local or inside and outside no longer functions well. There is an increasing and constant need to re-examine the conceptions and theories concerning religion, dialogue and education. This volume brings together 14 new international studies. The topics of the articles include studies on religion, dialogue and education in different contexts ranging from policy studies and higher education to home education, and research on education about religions to confessional education. The volume serves the interests of researchers, policymakers, practitioners and students of religious and spiritual education.

This book discusses the possibility of a holistic approach to religious education, taking into account religious and cultural diversity, different aspects of secularisation and different academic disciplines that inform the Subject. Issues discussed are the view of children as spiritual and religious Subjects, identity formation, the concept of child theology, the relationship between faith and morality, the meaning of spirituality, the notion of wonder as an inroad to learning, religion as culture, and the meaning of holism. A point of departure is taken in a typology of attitudes to religion in public education, and the line of reason ends in a search for viable metaphors for holistic religious education.