Teaching Religious Literacy to Combat Religious Bullying: Insights from North American Secondary Schools Chan W. Y. Alice

This text explores the phenomenon of religious bullying as it manifests in two North American contexts and theorizes religious literacy as a viable school-based intervention to promote understanding of religious and non-religious difference.Using substantive, qualitative data from schools and communities in California and Quebec, Teaching Religious Literacy to Combat Religious Bullying examines the impact of mandatory religious literacy courses delivered in secondary schools and identifies curricula, teacher attitudes, training, and administrative support as key determinants of course impact. Practical recommendations are made to Drawing on Bronfenbrenner's social-ecological framework, the text then illustrates how the environmental factors both in and outside of the school considerably influence teacher and student attitudes to religious and non-religious traditions.