Discipline, Devotion, and Dissent: Jewish, Catholic, and Islamic Schooling in Canada

The education provided by Canada’s faith-based schools is a subject of public, political, and scholarly controversy. As the population becomes more religiously diverse, the continued establishment and support of faith-based schools has reignited debates about whether they should be funded publicly and to what extent they threaten social cohesion.

These discussions tend to occur without considering a fundamental question: How do faith-based schools envision and enact their educational missions? Discipline, Devotion, and Dissent offers responses to that question by examining a selection of Canada’s Jewish, Catholic, and Islamic schools. The daily reality of these schools is illuminated through essays that address the aims and practices that characterize these schools, how they prepare their students to become citizens of a multicultural Canada, and how they respond to dissent in the classroom.

The essays in this book reveal that Canada’s faith-based schools sometimes succeed and sometimes struggle in bridging the demands of the faith and the need to create participating citizens of a multicultural society. Discussion surrounding faith-based schools in Canada would be enriched by a better understanding of the aims and practices of these schools, and this book provides a gateway to the subject.

1

The Jewish Day Schools of Canada

Seymour Epstein

Seymour Epstein offers a comprehensive overview of Canada’s seventy-four Jewish schools. He discusses how different Jewish schools approach the role of prayer, Hebrew language, Bible, Talmud, laws and customs, the calendar cycle, history, literature and values in the curriculum.
2

The Distinctiveness of Catholic Education

Mario O. D’Souza, csb

Mario D’ Souza discusses the aims of Catholic Education, with particular focus on enabling of human freedom and enhancement of the common good. He also discusses how all religions encounter strains when living within plurality and argues that religion must not not be hidden from public view.

3

Between Immigrating and Integrating: The Challenge of Defining an Islamic Pedagogy in Canadian Islamic Schools

Nadeem A. Memon

Nadeem Memon traces the historical growth of Islamic schooling in Canada, while exploring the purpose of Islamic schooling, the challenges in establishing schools, and how both its articulated purpose and response to its initial growing pains combined to shape the curriculum.

4

Jewish Education, Democracy, and Pluralistic Engagement

Greg Beiles

Greg Beiles explores how the subject of citizenship is broached in The Toronto Heschel School, an interdenominational Jewish community school.  Beiles shows how one particular interdenominational school manages to offer a robust education for multicultural citizenship within a Jewish framework. 

5

Canadian Catholic Schools: Sacred and Secular Tensions in a Free and Democratic Society

J. Kent Donlevy

J. Kent Donlevy explores tensions between Catholic and secular conceptions of several core values through discussions of several prominent cases recently argued before Canadian courts and human rights tribunals. Donlevy points to the difficulty of the Catholic school’s ability to defend some of its policies in the public square.

6

London Islamic School: Millstone or Milestone?

Asma Ahmed

Asma Ahmed reveals how young Muslim students negotiate their religious, national, and cultural identities. In her study of the London (Ontario) Islamic school, she explores how Islamic schools may hinder social growth and integration or effectively nurture the multiple identities of students. 
7

The Changed Context for Jewish Day School Education

Alex Pomson and Randal Schnoor

Alex Pomson and Randal Schnoor discuss tensions about values, commitments and expectations at the Downtown Jewish Day School, a pluralistic, community day school in Toronto. The tensions made it difficult to build a stable community at the school, but a commitment to religious pluralism ameliorated some of the challenges.

8

Teaching Subject Matter that is Controversial among Catholics: Implications for Intellectual Growth in the Church

Graham P. McDonough

Graham McDonough shows how controversial issues are explored in Catholic schools’ classrooms. McDonough finds that the pedagogical question of how to treat intra-Church controversies is itself a controversial subject within the school and Church and argues that Catholic schools need a framework for a pedagogy of dissent. 

9

A Canadian Islamic School in Perspective: A Critique of the “Moderate” and “Strong” Categories in Faith-Based Schooling

Qaiser Ahmad

Qaiser Ahmad observes a major limitation in categorizing religious schools as either “moderate” or “strong.” He reflects on his experience teaching at an Islamic school in Toronto in order to demonstrate that a religious school can simultaneously cultivate students’ critical dispositions and promote a deep religious commitment. 

10

Diversity and Deliberation in Faith-Based Schools: Implications for Educating Canadian citizens

Avi I. Mintz

Avi Mintz concludes by discussing how there exists spaces for meaningful deliberation across differences in many of the schools featured in the book. He contends that this deliberation can serve as a valuable well-spring of citizenship education, should school leaders recognize and embrace it.