RETRACTED ARTICLE: The identity of Catholic schools as seen by teachers in Catholic schools in Queensland

The Characteristics of Catholic Schools: Comparative Perspectives from the USA and Queensland, Australia

“…The odds ratios were particularly large in the case of: teachers of religion are Catholic (32.11); celebration of school liturgies (15.67); RE programs present the teaching of the Church (12.76); integration of Catholic teachings across the formal curriculum (10.38); prayer in the daily life of the school (9.20); community of faith (8.14). It should be noted that teachers of Religion were more likely than other teachers to rate these characteristics as essential in both jurisdictions (Convey, 2012;Gleeson, O'Gorman, O'Neill, 2018).…”

“…Queensland administrators rated all given characteristics more highly than their teachers, particularly "community of faith" and "prayer in the daily life of the school." It is worth noting that length of service in Catholic education was positively associated with "essential" ratings in both jurisdictions (Convey, 2012;Gleeson, O'Gorman, O'Neill, 2018).…”

“…This article reports on a secondary analysis of two data sets, one collected as part of a study of Catholic teachers in the United States (Convey, 2012) and congruent data collected in Queensland, Australia (Gleeson, O'Gorman, O'Neill, 2018). School leaders and teachers in Catholic schools in both jurisdictions were asked to rate the importance of given characteristics of the Catholic school on a 4 point Likert scale of essential, very important, important, unimportant.…”

“…More than half of them gave the "environment of Catholic schools" as their main reason for working in Catholic schools, followed by "commitment to the Catholic faith." Providing a "safe and nurturing environment" was also the most popular choice for the purpose of Catholic schools, ahead of more explicitly faithbased options, while "caring community" (not included in the US survey) was by far the most popular characteristic of Catholic schools (Gleeson, O'Gorman, O'Neill, 2018).…”

“…The main purpose of this article is to compare the opinions of teachers in Catholic schools in the United States (Convey, 2012) and Queensland (Gleeson, O'Gorman, & O'Neill, 2018) with respect to the importance of given characteristics of Catholic schools. The empirical findings are prefaced by consideration of the identity and characteristics of Catholic schools and a general comparison of Catholic Education in the two jurisdictions.…”