Profound changes in society, government policy and the political landscape, as well as cataclysmic events such as 9/11, have greatly altered perceptions of faith schools and their existence now causes more controversy than ever. Taking a reflective practice approach, this study by people working within faith schools and colleges explores the new hot issues surrounding the subject in a sophisticated way. Looking at the supposed secularisation of the West, the nature of the multi-cultural and multi-faith society, the role of women, the spiritual development of children and most of all, the form that the tolerance of religious diversity should take in liberal societies, this book encourages readers to re-examine their assumptions and to consider faith schools as a part of the future of the English schooling system, within a multi-cultural society. This book was previously published as a special issue of The International Journal of Children's Spirituality.

There's a crisis raging in America's schools, but it doesn't have anything to do with our teachers-or our students. Free public education was a grand experiment proposed in the mid 1800s by progressive politicians who believed it would increase the growth and development of an educated citizenry and strengthen the nation's democracy. They were right. Public education in the United States became the warp and weft of the nation's culture and economic success. Today, confidence in public education has been damaged by politicians and the financial interests that support them. Now, schools are dramatically underfunded while being blamed for a myriad of social and economic failures. Drawing on her experiences as a student and a teacher, Helen Johnson repudiates the attacks on public schools and sheds light on the remarkable successes borne from the United States' education system.

Black River is the autobiography of a nonexistent personage. Drawing on literary techniques developed by Beckett, Burroughs and Borges, Black River plunges into a violent and surreal world from which the last traces of the gods have vanished. The reader will encounter such creatures as mouthers, pokers, the sucking lady, white curls, the loved one, the magistrate, and the ambassador, presented in spare, relentless prose. The text by Justin Clemens is supplemented with Helen Johnson's extraordinary collages. Black River is a work of hallucinatory materialism.

Profound changes in society, government policy and the political landscape, as well as cataclysmic events such as 9/11, have greatly altered perceptions of faith schools and their existence now causes more controversy than ever.

Taking a reflective practice approach, this study by people working within faith schools and colleges explores the new hot issues surrounding the subject in a sophisticated way. Looking at the supposed secularisation of the West, the nature of the multi-cultural and multi-faith society, the role of women, the spiritual development of children and most of all, the form that the tolerance of religious diversity should take in liberal societies, this book encourages readers to re-examine their assumptions and to consider faith schools as a part of the future of the English schooling system, within a multi-cultural society.

This book was previously published as a special issue of The International Journal of Children's Spirituality.