Teaching primary religious education in an increasingly pluralist society brings new challenges and opportunities. This timely, meticulously researched book is an indispensable guide for teachers, students and anyone with an interest in the role of religious education in Irish primary schools today. Anne Hession has consolidated a vast wealth of academic thought, from both within the Catholic Church and the wider community, in order to consider the place of Catholic religious education in twenty-first century Ireland.
The book deftly explores the most salient features of this topic from several perspectives, including the political, theological and educational; and ably demonstrates the ways in which Catholic religious education can not merely survive but flourish in a liberal, multicultural society. This book is informative, easy to read and rooted in a wide body of research. It provides an excellent, cohesive overall framework for understanding the place of religious education in Catholic primary schools. – The Furrow, September 2015 An extremely valuable, well written and very well researched work that deals with one of the most pressing issues in education in Ireland today; namely the role of the Catholic school in an increasingly diverse, more secular (some might argue) post-Christian Ireland.– The Irish Catholic, 8 October 2015