In the World Library of Educationalists, international experts compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces – extracts from books, key article, salient research findings, major theoretical and practical contributions – so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers will be able to follow the themes and strands and see how their work contributes to the development of the field.
Gerald Grace is renowned internationally for his research and teaching in the areas of Catholic education, spirituality, leadership and effectiveness in faith schooling, and educational policy. In Faith, Mission and Challenge in Catholic Education, Gerald Grace brings together 15 of his key writings in one place. Starting with a specially written Introduction, which gives an overview of his career and contextualises his selection within the development of the field, the chapters cover:
- the interactions of faith, mission and spirituality in the development of Catholic education
- how to replace ideology, polemic and prejudice in discussions about faith-based schooling with evidence-based argument
- understanding the distinctive nature of concepts such as ‘leadership’ and ‘effectiveness’ in faith-based education
- using ‘mission integrity’ as a key concept for the evaluation of contemporary Catholic schooling
- examining the interactions of Catholic values, Catholic curriculum and educational policy developments.
This book not only shows how Gerald Grace’s thinking developed during his career, it also gives an insight into the development of the fields to which he contributed.
Table of Contents Acknowledgements and Introduction The Catholic School: The sacred and the secular. Catholic Schools: the renewal of spiritual capital and the critique of the secular world. Renewing Spiritual Capital: an urgent priority for the future of Catholic education internationally. Catholic Schools and the Common Good: what this means in educational practice. First and Foremost the Church offers its Educational Services to the Poor: class, inequality and Catholic schooling in contemporary contexts. Educational Studies and Faith-based Schooling: moving from prejudice to evidence based argument. Making Connections for the Future Directions: taking religion seriously in the sociology of education. On the International Study of Catholic Education: why we need more systematic scholarship and research. The Dilemmas of Catholic headteachers. Realising the Mission: Catholic approaches to School Effectiveness. Faith School Leadership: a neglected sector of in-service education in the United Kingdom. The State and Catholic Schooling in England and Wales: politics, ideology and mission integrity. Mission Integrity: contemporary challenges for Catholic school teachers Christianity, Modernities and Knowledge. Catholic Social Teaching should Permeate the Catholic Secondary School Curriculum: an agenda for reform. Catholic Values and Education Policy.
Gerald Grace is Visiting Professorial Fellow in the Department of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment at the Institute of Education, University College London, UK.
Reviews for Faith, Mission and Challenge in Catholic Education: The selected works of Gerald Grace
It is rare in the digital age for a volume of previously published essays to merit consideration by academic libraries. In this instance, however, Grace's collection is a blessing. Grace is a long-time leader in the field of Catholic education, known for his intellectually honest and penetrating attempts to reconcile reasoned educational research with religious faith. This book brings together journal articles with harder-to-find book chapters that span his career. As a whole, the collection engages many key debates and tensions in the relationship between public education and religion: leadership, mission, pedagogy, high-stakes testing, market-based school reform, civic engagement, and social justice. Though much of the writing focuses on Catholic education in the UK, as a whole, this book is wide ranging and includes transnational and comparative analysis. Written in accessible prose with limited, but sufficient, footnotes, this book is indispensable for scholars and students in the US who study the relationship between religious education and the secular world. --B. Justice, Rutgers University, CHOICE, October 2016 Vol. 54 No. 2
