The guiding pedagogical document for Jesuit education worldwide was definitively set out in a 1599 tome entitled Ratio Atque Instituto Studiorum Societatis Jesu, "The Plan and Methodology of Jesuit Education." This plan has been praised by scholars from Francis Bacon in the seventeenth century to Harry Broudy and Paul Shore in our day. Some scholars and educators, upon learning of this tradition for the first time, have called it a "best-kept secret." And so it was timely that, at the dawn of the new millennium, an invitational 400th anniversary celebration of the Ratio Studiorum would be held at Fordham University in October of 1999. The fruit of the scholarly papers presented there make up the substance of this book. In addition, two key documents of the late-twentieth-century renewal of Jesuit education are included in the appendixes of this volume. Both The Characteristics of Jesuit Education (1986) and Ignatian Pedagogy: A Practical Approach (1993) have been out of print in English and are provided here in full.

The Jesuit educational tradition has existed for more than 450 years, and today, there are more than 150 Jesuit primary and secondary schools in North and Latin America. Jesuit Education at the Crossroads tackles the lack of research on these schools by bringing together scattered studies and asking experts on the issues about the current challenges for Jesuit education. The landscape pictured by this collection of essays suggests that Jesuit primary and secondary education is at a historical moment, analogous to a crossroads. After a crisis between the 1960s and '80s, these schools were consolidated, establishing themselves in national and international networks. But the twenty-first century has brought new challenges. For instance, the secularization of culture is demanding an update of the Jesuit educational project; leadership is rapidly shifting from Jesuits to lay men and women, with multiple issues at stake; and researchers and policymakers are asking new questions about the role of these schools and school networks for equity and inclusion in each region. The book touches on these and other points that will be very relevant for all who are interested in the Jesuit educational tradition.

The guiding pedagogical document for Jesuit education worldwide was definitively set out in a 1599 tome entitled Ratio Atque Instituto Studiorum Societatis Jesu, "The Plan and Methodology of Jesuit Education." This plan has been praised by scholars from Francis Bacon in the seventeenth century to Harry Broudy and Paul Shore in our day. Some scholars and educators, upon learning of this tradition for the first time, have called it a "best-kept secret." And so it was timely that, at the dawn of the new millennium, an invitational 400th anniversary celebration of the Ratio Studiorum would be held at Fordham University in October of 1999. The fruit of the scholarly papers presented there make up the substance of this book. In addition, two key documents of the late-twentieth-century renewal of Jesuit education are included in the appendixes of this volume. Both The Characteristics of Jesuit Education (1986) and Ignatian Pedagogy: A Practical Approach (1993) have been out of print in English and are provided here in full.