Introduction to Special Issue: Ethnographies of Religious Education

Abstract

The study of religion has long been central to scholarly efforts to understand diverse cultures, human practice, and meaning making. This issue highlights recent anthropological research on religious education in a multitude of spaces and within a range of faith experiences. Through rich ethnographic explorations, authors illuminate the engagement of a diverse subset of actors in religious education paying particular attention to pedagogical methods and practices, with important contributions to theories about teaching, learning, and subjectivity. [religion, pedagogy, Islam, Christianity, Judaism] Many of the contemporary political struggles surrounding secularism, the role of religion in public life, and "shared" values are, at their core, pedagogical-concerned with the authorization, preservation, and transmission of knowledge, both religious and seemingly secular. In the face of the cultural transformations wrought by consumerism, and accelerated by communications technology and global mass media, religious leaders and educational institutions are today often concerned with how to provide members of their communities with the moral tools needed to navigate such changes while preserving the essence of their religious teachings. 1 Younger community members are seen as particularly vulnerable to the sway and influence of such transformations; as such, they are frequently the object of these pedagogical efforts. Many pedagogical projects seek to protect youth from the moral corruption that some read into new social and cultural phenomena (Seale-Collazo and Vicini, in this issue; Adely 2012). At the same time, some religious organizations and leaders (official or self-appointed) have also worked to harness new technologies in their efforts to transmit religious knowledge and solidify religious commitments (e.g., Starrett 1995).Efforts to stem the tide of societal changes, or at least to rein in their influence are, of course, not singularly the concern of religious entities; efforts to control, navigate, and orchestrate cultural transformations drive most, if not all, pedagogical projects. Concern with young people's values and commitments (or lack thereof) has long been part and parcel of generational struggles. The fear of losing control-and concomitant efforts to (re)assert authority, either by rejecting change or by working to shape its meaning-are inextricably bound up with teaching and learning processes.This special issue of the Anthropology & Education Quarterly highlights emergent issues in recent anthropological research, in several spaces and places in which religious education is underway. The papers in this issue reflect some of the diversity of religious experience, pedagogies, and practices found around the globe and in a range of faith experiences within Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. In these papers, we are introduced to a diverse subset of actors engaged in religious education: from individuals seeking spiritual enlightenment online, to a monarchy and its attendant state bureaucracy, which ...

Negotiating Tradition and Contemporary Education: An Enrichment Center for Jewish Ultra‐Orthodox Children in Israel

“…Although such settings are ubiquitous throughout the contemporary modern world and are accustomed to its culture, they share with local traditional communities an ambivalent attitude toward modernity. Studies of various religious educational institutions—Christian, Islamic, or Jewish—have described the complex attitudes whereby these groups negotiate the challenges of modernity (Adely and Seale‐Collazo ). Thus, Wagner's () study of a variety of Christian schools reveals that despite a rhetoric of polarization and separation from material worldliness, in reality the tensions between the two worldviews may often be productive and result in some sort of coexistence, referred to as “gray amalgam” (Wagner , 6).…”