Researching Catholic Education: Contemporary Perspectives
An important new book, Researching Catholic Education: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Sean Whittle and published by Springer in February 2018, highlights recent developments in Catholic Education Research. Dr. Gareth Byrne, Director of the Mater Dei Centre for Catholic Education, contributes a chapter on how research supporting second-level religious education in Catholic schools in Ireland has developed in recent years. The chapter, ‘Religious Education in Catholic second-level schools: Building on the past, living in the present, anticipating new directions’, provides further reflection on the keynote address Dr. Byrne gave at the Heythrop Catholic Education Conference in September in 2016. Developments in religious education at second-level in the Republic are engaged with and the impact of Department of Education’s Framework for Junior Cycle 2015 is addressed.
The contribution of the Irish Centre for Religious Education (ICRE), of the EdD Religious Education programme developed at Dublin City University, and of the ICRE religious education lecturers’ forum is recognised by Dr. Byrne and offered as an example of how a new emphasis on religious education research is having a positive effect on teaching and learning in this field.
The more recent emergence of the Mater Dei Centre for Catholic Education (MDCCE) at Dublin City University is also highlighted in the chapter, providing a new focus for the Catholic education heritage of St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, and of Mater Dei Institute of Education at that University, since the full incorporation of the two Catholic colleges into DCU on 1st October 2016. DCU honours the plural nation of Irish society, providing teachers for the Catholic and Church of Ireland school sectors as well as for multidenominational and secular context.