Challenges Facing Research into Catholic Schools

This book provides practical and theoretical guidance on how to conduct educational research into aspects of Catholic education or in Catholic schools, and opens up ways of completing education research in a Catholic setting. This book is divided into four sections. The first seeks to orientate researchers in Catholic education within the range of contexts, issues and challenges that are needed to navigate this field of studies. These range from shifts in catholic theology (of education) to the socio-political contexts within which Catholic education takes place. The second section presents a range of ways in which Catholic education could be researched, by drawing on nine researchers who have completed their doctoral studies within the past decade. The third section presents insights from those who have supervised doctoral studies in Catholic Education over the past two decades. Overall, this book supports and guides researchers who have no experience of Catholic Christianity, and also those who are Catholic, but yet remain uncertain about how best to navigate their research in a Catholic setting.

Introduction.- Headwinds crosswinds and a roadmap challenges and opportunities for catholic school research in canada and the united states.- Researching catholic schools ethos and educators an irish perspective.- What makes a school catholic revisiting research findings in the landscape of multi academy trusts an english perspective.- Researching catholic education an australian perspective.- Renewal in the catholic community the important contribution of focused research.- Research on catholic schools a kenyan context.- Navigating the place of philosophy and theology in catholic education research.- Researching catholic education communicating the tradition.- Academic research in catholic education reflecting on the past and building for the future.

Sean Whittle is Senior Lecturer in Catholic Education at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, and a member of CERRL (the Centre for Catholic Education, Research, and Religious Literacy). He is also a Research Associate working with Professor Gerald Grace (the founding and former Director of the Centre for Research and Development in Catholic Education). For many years alongside these academic roles he worked part-time as a secondary school RE teacher in West London. His book, “A Theory of Catholic Education” (Bloomsbury 2014), presents a robust philosophy of Catholic education that draws fruitfully on insights from Karl Rahner. He makes a sustained case for a non-confessional way of framing Catholic education.