Leadership and Religious Schools: International Perspectives and Challenges

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Description

Leadership in religious schools is a complex and often misunderstood subject. Educational leaders must perform the dual task of encouraging religious identities while relating them to wider issues of citizenship. Religious identity needs to be made relevant to the whole school community - parents, staff, students - and leaders need to take care to expand how human identity is conceived and manifested. Given these challenges, learning and leadership take on a special importance in faith-based and religious schools. This unique volume brings together leading international scholars in the field to explore the many dimensions of leadership: religious, faith, spiritual, ministerial, educational, and curriculum leadership. The contributors demonstrate, through case studies and grounded theory, that these schools require leaders who are conversant with a very wide range of styles and issues. Other issues discussed include styles of leadership, relationships with stakeholders, motivation, satisfaction and stress, school culture, and ethos and charisma. This is an insightful collection of essays that will be of great use to all those studying and researching school leadership.

Reviews

The place of religious schools within the education systems of democracies continues to be a hot topic of educational and public debate, whether in societies which confine such establishments to the private sector, or in others that support them through public funding. The style and quality of leadership of these institutions is a crucial issue, and the contributors to Buchanans book tackle this question in a variety of challenging ways. Leadership and Religious Schools is essential reading for anyone concerned with contemporary issues of religion and education. -- Robert Jackson, Professor of Religions and Education, University of Warwick, UK * Endorsement *
Whenever we teach, we lead. There is no pedagogical relationship outside this principle asymmetry, so that leadership doesn't only concern principles or headteachers. Especially in religious schools, every teacher is asked to shed light on how he or she aims to make this religious identity relevant to his or her daily teaching practice. I recommend this book for both school leaders and teachers, so that they might become aware of their leading options and to critically reflect and consciously develop them. Leadership and Religious Schools fosters fruitful reflection about the fact that you always lead when you teach, and vice versa. -- Stefan Altmeyer, Associate Professor for Religious Education at University of Bonn, Germany * Endorsement *
[This book] contains articles that are definitely worth the read and have the potential to challenge educational leaders on various levels. -- Asle Ystebo * Journal of Education and Christian Belief *

Author Bio

Michael T. Buchanan is Senior Lecturer at Australian Catholic University, Australia. He is also the editor of the Religious Education Journal of Australia. He is the author of Managing Curriculum Change in Religious Education and co-author of An Introduction to Catholic Education and Cornerstones of Catholic Secondary Religious Education.