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The following paper gives an abbreviated account of the argument in the recent book 'Challenges for Religious Education: is there a disconnection between faith and reason?' In paying particular attention to the perceived opposition between the systematic development of religious faith, on the one hand, and, on the other, the central educational aim of developing the rational basis of knowledge -- especially within a more secular culture -- so the book (and therefore this paper) identifies major challenges to be met by religious education in schools. Those are explicitly identified in the penultimate chapter of the book and briefly summarised in the final section of this paper.

This article sifts the historical and philosophical soil out of which the comprehensive ideal in education has sprung. England's national school system emerged in the nineteenth century imbued with ruling-class assumptions about the education required for each supposed type of child destined to take his or her place in one of the three broad social strata. Continual activity through the organisations of the working class, coupled with the changing needs of a developing economy, helped give rise to the demand for a common school. But a tripartite system persisted across the twentieth century, buttressed by the work of influential psychologists and psychometricians. This settlement began to be adequately challenged only when the first handful of comprehensive schools established themselves in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is making it a requirement of all schools within the Emirates (both public and private) to follow a programme of moral education (MEP), at all ages from grades 1 to 13, which is designed centrally. Explicitly secular and humanist in its approach, this is a remarkable development in a country where Islam is the official religion and where traditional practices and values are deeply rooted. However, it provides an example of an education initiative designed to contribute to a national strategic ambition--that of developing the UAE as a progressive, enlightened country, and one where its residents share a common culture despite the diversity of their origins. This paper describes the programme and sets it in the context of 'virtue education', following a philosophical and ethical tradition to which both Arab and Western philosophers have contributed.

The paper provides an historical but critical context for examining the relation of the pursuit of greater equality in schooling to the development of curriculum. This requires a brief account of what one means by the principle of equality, before showing the different ways in which there have been curriculum responses underpinned by philosophical understandings which need to be examined closely. These different ways are explained in terms of: (1) "rational curriculum planning" with its detailed definition of "aims, objectives, methods and evaluation"--and thereby a "science of teaching; (2) "forms of knowledge" or "realms of meaning" to enable all pupils to have a basic understanding of the physical, social, and moral worlds they inhabit; (3) the pursuit of enquiry through which, for all learners, understanding is enlarged; (4) provision of common curriculum experience as a basis for citizenship; (5) taking diversity seriously; and (6) equalisation of opportunities through a common system of national standards and assessments.However, in the light of greater government involvement in the minutiae of curriculum reform, mainly through changes in qualifications and examinations, there is clearly a need to ask what sort of evidence is relevant to "what works".

The paper traces the development of citizenship in the curriculum in England since the 1960s, emerging particularly from the Crick report. It argues for lessons to be learnt from John Dewey's "Democracy and education", the centenary of which is being celebrated this year.