Religious Literacy Resource Guide: Home
Resources for teaching religion in the schools.
Timely Resources
TALKING ABOUT 9/11, 20 YEARS ON
- Talking About 9/11, 20 Years Later: An Educator's Toolkit20 years after 9/11, religious bullying in schools surges. As we welcome Afghan refugees into the American social fabric, let us commit to respectful dialogue and action to foster understanding and peace.
Boniuk Institute Associate Director Dr. Zahra Jamal created this Educator's Toolkit to help foster discussion around the ongoing repercussions of 9/11.
Timely Topics
- THE NEW YORK TIMES:Document - Biden's Strategy for Combating Domestic Extremism
- PRRI:The 2020 Census of American Religion
- PEW RESEARCH CENTER:Key Findings About Religion in India
- IRF GLOBAL SURVEY:Global Opportunities for Expanding and Coordinating Religious Freedom Initiatives
- PEW RESEARCH CENTER:Pastors Often Discussed Election, Pandemic and Racism in Fall of 2020
- THE NEW YORK TIMES:In ‘Exterminate All the Brutes,’ Raoul Peck Takes Aim at White Supremacy
- THE VIRGIN MARY: A MUSLIM ROLE MODEL:Mary, the humble mother of Jesus, is a model of faith, humility and virtue - both in the Bible, and in the Quran. Learn more about how both Christians and Muslims express their love for this revered figure.
Prominent Resources
The following are resources for teaching children and adults about the religions of the world as a way to increase religious literacy and tolerance.
- Harvard Religion & Public LifeIn 2011, Diane L. Moore proposed the creation of the Religious Literacy Project (RLP) to sustain Harvard Divinity School’s legacy of enhancing the public understanding of religion through education. The RLP method provides a way to understand religion in context, with special attention to questions of power, peace, and conflict. The approach is non-devotional and academic with the goal of building a more just and peaceful world.
- Tanenbaum: Combating Religious Prejudice
Tanenbaum is a "secular, non-sectarian nonprofit that promotes mutual respect with practical programs that bridge religious difference and combat prejudice in schools, workplaces, health care settings and areas of armed conflict." - Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute
Seeks to find common ground on public policies that serve the common good. Provides materials about religion that are recommended by various religious and civic groups such as the National PTA and the National School Boards Association. - Interfaith America
Movement operating on college campuses seeking to make interfaith cooperation a social norm. - American Academy of Religion: Guidelines for Teaching About Religion in Public Schools
"Written for public school teachers, administrators, members of school boards, and other citizens to provide guidance for how to teach about religion in intellectually sound ways from the nonsectarian perspective appropriate for public schools." - National Council for the Social Studies: Study about Religions in the Social Studies Curriculum
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With this position statement, National Council for the Social Studies reiterates the importance of inclusion of study about religions in the curriculum in ways that are both constitutionally and academically sound.
- Boniuk Institute: Religious Diversity and Tolerance Study Guide
Resources on religious pluralism, tolerance, and diversity compiled by Rice University's Boniuk Institute.
- National Council for the Social Studies: Supplement on the Academic Study of Religion
The National Council for the Social Studies “Religious Studies Companion Document for the C3 Framework” recognizes religious studies as an essential part of social studies curricula. The C3 Framework is widely used by state and school district curriculum experts for social studies standards and curriculum development. - Social Science Research Council: Blogs
The blogs and bloggers represent various sectors of the blogosphere engaged in conversation about religion, public life, and academia. - The Center for Spiritual & Ethical Education
CSEE is a hub for a diverse group of independent schools that strive to bring excellence to their pursuit of forming the "whole student." CSEE provides research-based publication, webinars, experts, and events on topics such as: advisory, empathy, leadership, academic integrity, diversity, and service learning. We provide on-campus services for schools seeking to go to the next level in their practice, and forums for peers around the country to connect. - The Social Science Research Council: Religion & the Public Sphere
Religion has been increasingly acknowledged in recent years as an important aspect of national and international politics, a pervasive and contentious cultural force, and a subject of significant public concern. Through a range of projects, the Council’s Program on Religion and the Public Sphere seeks to foster engagement and cooperation among social scientists and others working on religion, secularism, and related topics, to support new and innovative scholarship in this critical area of study, and to elevate the quality of both academic and public discussion.
Textual Resources
- Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion Series
Over the past four decades, scholarship on contemporary religion has been expanding at an explosive rate. The aim of the Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion is to capture this development by publishing cutting-edge scholarship that simultaneously charts new directions for future research. The Handbooks are international in scope, drawing on the expertise of scholars across the globe, bringing in contributors from a broad spectrum of academic disciplines. Individual volumes will be devoted to areas of study that have generated substantial bodies of research such as Western Esotericism, to common themes in the study of contemporary religions like Authority of Science or New Media, and to specific religious movements.
2010 U. S. Religion Census by ISBN: 9780615623443Publication Date: 2012-05-01An enumeration of religious congregations, attendees, members, and adherents by county, state, and nation for 236 religious bodies. Includes 32 pages of maps and graphs.
Encyclopedia of American Religions by ISBN: 0810321335Publication Date: [2003]Representing many years of research, this impressive three-volume reference series explores the broad sweep of North American religions--19 families encompassing some 1,500 different religious bodies. Each volume features in-depth essays on the historical development of specific religions, descriptions of each group's membership, cross-references and other important data.
Encyclopedia of Religion by ISBN: 0028657330Publication Date: 2004-12-17Mircea Eliade's Encyclopedia of Religion won the American Library Associations' Dartmouth Medal in 1988 and is widely regarded as the standard reference work in the field. This second edition, which is intended to reflect both changes in academia and in the world since 1987, will include almost all of the 2750 original entries - many heavily updated - as well as approximately 600 (1.2M words) entirely new articles. Preserving the best of Eliade's cross-cultural approach while emphasizing religion's role within everyday life and as a unique experience from culture to culture, this new edition will be the definitive work in the field for the 21st century. An international team of scholars and contributors have reviewed, revised and added to every word of a classic work to make it relevant to the questions and interests of readers, whether students, specialists, or laypersons.
Overcoming Religious Illiteracy by ISBN: 9781403963499Publication Date: 2007-10-02In Overcoming Religious Illiteracy, Harvard professor and Phillips Academy teacher Diane L. Moore argues that though the United States is one of the most religiously diverse nations in the world, the vast majority of citizens are woefully ignorant about religion itself and the basic tenets of the world's major religious traditions. The consequences of this religious illiteracy are profound and include fueling the culture wars, curtailing historical understanding and promoting religious and racial bigotry. In this volume, Moore combines theory with practice to articulate how to incorporate the study of religion into the schools in ways that will invigorate classrooms and enhance democratic discourse in the public sphere.
Public Research
- PRRI (Public Religion Research Institute)A nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to conducting independent research at the intersection of religion, culture, and public policy
- Pew Research Center Religion & Public LifePew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research.
- ARDA (Association of Religion Data Archives)The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) strives to democratize access to the best data on religion. Founded as the American Religion Data Archive in 1997 and going online in 1998, the initial archive was targeted at researchers interested in American religion. The targeted audience and the data collection have both greatly expanded since 1998, now including American and international collections and developing features for educators, journalists, religious congregations, and researchers.
- ADL 100: An Anti-Defamation League SurveyA 2013 survey about attitudes towards Jews in America, comprised of 1200 interviews plus an oversample of African Americans and Hispanics.
- American Muslim Poll 2017 from ISPU (Institute for Social Policy & Understanding)The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) offers an evidence-based contribution to the often misinformed national conversation. Muslims were surveyed not as isolated specimens, but within the context of their country’s faith landscape, along with Jews, Protestants, and Catholics. The survey examines the attitudes of these American faith groups on various topics from politics and religion, to violence and identity.
- Gallup: Teens and Religious ToleranceIn the spring of 2003, Gallup introduced its Religious Tolerance Index, a five-item scale that measures people's attitudes toward those who adhere to different religious traditions than themselves. Now, for the first time, Gallup has included the items of the Religious Tolerance Index in its semiannual Gallup Youth Survey.
- Southern Poverty Law CenterThe Southern Poverty Law Center is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society.
- World Religion DatabaseThe World Religion Database (WRD) contains detailed statistics on religious affiliation for every country of the world. It provides source material, including censuses and surveys, as well as best estimates for every religion to offer a definitive picture of international religious demography. It offers best estimates at multiple dates for each of the world’s religions for the period 1900 to 2050. The WRD will be constantly updated with new sources of data as they become available, such as estimates of religious affiliation at the province level within countries and religious freedom information for all countries.
Attribution
This guide was created by the Boniuk Institute, including Associate Directors Dr. Zahra Jamal and Laura Johnson, Program Director Dr. Gayle Pagnoni and student intern Emily Higgs. Digitization was provided by Fondren Library Government Information and Education Librarian Linda Spiro and Boniuk Institute Department Coordinator Kate Eubanks.
Questions regarding this content should be directed to the Boniuk Institute at tolerance@rice.edu.
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