Innovating Christian Education Research: Multidisciplinary Perspectives

This book reformulates Christian education as an interdisciplinary and interdenominational vocation for professionals and practitioners. It speaks directly to a range of contemporary contexts with the aim of encouraging conceptual, empirical and practice-informed innovation to build the field of Christian education research. The book invites readers to probe questions concerning epistemologies, ethics, pedagogies and curricula, using multidisciplinary research approaches. By helping thinkers to believe and believers to think, the book seeks to stimulate constructive dialogue about what it means to innovate Christian education research today.

Chapters are organised into three main sections. Following an introduction to the volume's guiding framework and intended contribution (Chapter 1), Part 1 features conceptual perspectives and comprises research that develops theological, philosophical and theoretical discussion of Christian education (Chapters 2-13). Part 2 encompasses empirical research that examines data to test theory, answer big questions and develop our understanding of Christian education (Chapters 14-18). Finally, Part 3 reflects on contemporary practice contexts and showcases examples of emerging research agendas in Christian education (Chapters 19-24).

Dr. Johannes M. Luetz (BA/USA, MBA/Germany, PhD/Australia) is Research Chair at Christian Heritage College (CHC) in Brisbane, Australia. He has consulted extensively for World Vision International on research projects raising awareness of the growing effects of demographic, environmental and climate change on vulnerable communities in Asia, Africa and Latin America. He was raised in Sierra Leone and Switzerland, cares deeply about poverty reduction, holistic education, justice and equity, and has researched and published conceptually and empirically in these areas. He is a big picture thinker and has interdisciplinary research interests at the science-policy interface. His research has attracted grants, prizes, scholarships, awards and distinctions, including best thesis prize (2006), UNSW UIP Award (2009), UNSW ASPIRE Award (2012) and best paper awards (2017, 2018). Dr. Luetz is an Adjunct Fellow at the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), Adjunct Academic at theUniversity of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney and sits on the Editorial Board of Springer Nature journal Discover Sustainability.

Dr. Beth Green is Provost and Chief Academic Officer at Tyndale University, Toronto. Dr. Green is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and a Senior Fellow at the faith-based think tank Cardus. She has a doctorate from the University of Oxford and is also a graduate of Cambridge and London Universities. Dr. Green has an international reputation for her expertise in religious school ethos; leadership and management; teaching and learning and social theory in education. She regularly publishes her empirical research in international journals, including the British Journal of Sociology and Education and the Cambridge Journal of Education. Her consultancy regularly takes her to Europe and Australia where she advises on effective approaches to measurement, professional development, and pedagogy in the religious school sector.