Faith-based education and development: Opportunities, challenges, and controversies

Faith-based schools have long played a vital role in education systems globally. Related academic research in leading international and comparative education journals, however, has not reflected the depth and scope of the contributions or the persistence of the influence of Faith-based education. This special issue is dedicated to exploring the possible distinctive contributions, roles, and issues related to faith-based schools and educational actors and how they are situated in contexts. Beyond summarizing the 11 manuscripts included in the special issue, this article frames the issue broadly, summarizes the scope and historical contributions globally of faith-based education, and analyzes the patterns and gaps in research on faith-based education. The primary motivation for the special issue comes from persistent research asymmetries in the scholarship on faith education, specifically the underrepresentation of comparative and international education research on faith-based education generally and on Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist educational traditions in particular. We document this hitherto overlooked imbalance which is especially striking given the demographic weight of these underrepresented faith communities globally. In this context, the special issue comprises manuscripts from multiple disciplines and geographical regions including scholarship from different faith groups. The articles cover topics as diverse as: the historical contributions of faith-based schools and actors, political and legal issues related to state-religion debates, tensions stemming from how to navigate pluralism in and through educational provision, the contributions of faith-based education to labor markets, and faith-based education for global citizenship, social cohesion, or religious extremism. This collection of articles fills an important gap in the literature on international and comparative education, helping to bring scholarship on faith-based schools more into the mainstream of the scholarly and policy discourse in these fields. • Faith traditions have profoundly shaped education systems globally. • Faith-based schools hold significant market shares across geographies. • Comparative education journals have historically underexplored faith-based education. • Existing scholarship privileges Christian and Jewish over Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions. • This special issue bridges these gaps through a multi-faith, multidisciplinary, and globally representative collection of new research.