Centrality of the construct "Faith Development" in Catholic Religious Education

(G.M. Rossiter, 1998, The centrality of the concept faith development in Catholic school religious education, Word in Life, 46, 1, 20-27.)

The development of pupils' religious faith within the context of the Catholic faith tradition has long been, and rightly remains, a fundamental aim of Catholic school religious education. However, interpretations of what this means in practice have been problematic.

The concept 'faith development' has come to dominate the popular language of Catholic religious education in Australia since the mid 1970s, [1] even though it is common for those who use the term to be vague when questioned about what it means to them. When asked this question, religious educators tend to hesitate and then respond that faith development has something to do with Fowler's stage theory; they imply that religious education is concerned with facilitating pupils' transition from one Fowler stage to the next -- even though most of Fowler's theory is concerned with the spiritual development of adults. Other phrases like 'deeper faith' or 'stronger faith commitment' may be used (also the term 'faith growth', paralleling personal growth). Surprisingly, a more comprehensive knowledge of the Catholic faith tradition and a better understanding of its Theology, Scripture, and morality are not so prominent in their interpretations.

One of the reasons for its popularity is that faith development sounds important even if its connotation is not clear. It has become an established part of the culture of Catholic religious education; it has a significance and emotional resonance that ensure it will be used in school vision and vision statements, just as it is used or implied in diocesan religious education documents. While faith is a key goal for religious education, the use of faith development language has not always helped clarify the complex links between the two.

This article proposes that there is a need to revise the way that faith development language is used in Catholic religious education. It will argue that better religious knowledge and understanding is the aspect of faith development that Catholic school religious education promotes most naturally and effectively. A recommended way of interpreting the role of religious education in fostering faith development will emerge from the discussion under the following headings:-

* The use of the concept 'faith development' to differentiate activities in religious education

Some of the difficulties with the use of the concept faith development relate to the limited nature of the metaphor 'development'. As used in psychology, and consequently with reference to the spiritual life, development derives much of its meaning from Western economic thinking.

Even though the terms often have a strong spiritual connotation, personal 'growth' and 'development' also tend to be interpreted as psychological 'increases', like growth in individual wealth or in the national economy. This is explained in Gabriel Moran's book Religious Education Development, in which he questions the relevance of the metaphor 'development' in the language of faith development and human development generally. [2] A result of this thinking is an unacknowledged but influential presumption that personal/spiritual development means 'increase'; it must be 'bigger', 'better', 'higher' or 'deeper'. Also, conceptual schemes for personal/spiritual development that have scores or stages for measuring progress will inevitably be popular -- higher scores or stages are indications of success and achievement. So in Western countries the term faith development tends to take on the note of increasing perfection and better performance -- in short, spiritual success according to an acceptable social scale, like improving one's spiritual IQ. It would be unrealistic and unfair to claim that this is the main meaning that educators ascribe to the term faith development. However, it is important to acknowledge the more problematic meanings that are also implied, even if their presence is minimal.

Questions can be raised about the appropriateness of faith development language for giving helpful insights into the quality of people's relationships with God and the quality of their interaction with other people. When all the aspects of faith as understood through a long Christian history are considered, [3] one might conclude that a number of metaphors with a collective richness are needed to help interpret faith; and that the one metaphor 'development' is limited, and can distort an understanding of faith if it predominates at the expense of other metaphors.

There is a need to look more carefully at the current use of the term faith development in Catholic school religious education. How faith development is understood will colour the aims and objectives of religious education, and will have a bearing on the activities, teaching procedures and student materials used in teaching religion. As in any area of teaching, teachers need some achievable outcomes, some tangible goals towards which they can direct their endeavours. If these goals are expressed more or less exclusively in terms of faith development, by nature involving complex, high order, personal changes, then teachers are working with 'over the horizon' objectives that will not be tangible enough and close enough to give immediate direction to their teaching. It would be like writing all of the outcomes for school social science in terms of committed, creative adult citizenship. This is too vague and distant to serve as an immediate functional goal and it is too influenced by other social and cultural factors to be regarded as a rather exclusive aim for teaching.

One suggestion is to consider that faith development is more of a hope than an aim for religious education. There are more immediate, even measurable goals and outcomes, while there is the hope that the experience of religious education will over time enhance the development of religious faith. It is important to have hopes for religious education because these can give a valuable basic orientation to the process; but a preoccupation with hopes at the expense of shorter term, realisable goals can confuse the teaching/learning activities and create unrealistic expectations for personal change.

Another task that can help with this clarification is to consider what aspects of faith development are most pertinent to school religious education. It is instructive to analyse what remains implicit but unarticulated when religious educators speak about faith development. They should not be content with the vague, emotional loading to faith development that implies 'more faith', 'deeper faith' or 'more effective faith'. Does this understanding of faith development mean: "more ready to believe"; "will believe more about the tradition"; "will believe with less questioning"; or simply "more prayerful." Or does it mean: "a higher standard of achievement"; or "deserving of greater reward"; or "more committed to social justice".

If the 'deeper faith' type metaphors are to be used, then an unambiguous and relevant meaning needs to be clarified. Does "deeper faith" mean a stronger sense of personal and emotional attachment to God? It seems to be used in the same way as one would talk about a 'deeper' personal relationship -- more personal, more exclusive, more faithful and more communicative. While this idea is valuable in the long term and is a relevant hope for religious education, it does not lend itself to realistic implications for classroom teaching.

Another aspect of faith development is a more profound knowledge and understanding relating to one's beliefs and religious tradition, as well as to the more general spiritual dimension of life and to contemporary moral issues. This interpretation has much to recommend it, especially as far as school religious education is concerned. It suggests that one of the major ways of 'deepening' faith is through a knowledge and understanding of the faith tradition. This is important because it proposes that the study of religion is very relevant to the development of faith.

The idea of faith development as becoming 'more committed' also needs consideration. This sounds pertinent because of the importance of the notion of commitment in religious faith. However, its relevance to school religious education is tenuous: firstly, because an important change in commitment is long term, and is unlikely to be caused exclusively by classroom teaching; secondly, it would be very difficult, and perhaps unethical, to try to measure changes in personal commitment as a result of such teaching. For example: how would one know if an individual was more committed or not? How would one get an indication or a measure of commitment? One answer to these questions would be observation of behaviour both inside and outside school over a period. Individuals who are more committed would go to greater lengths to honour their commitments. While the aim of promoting commitment remains appropriate, as does the provision of opportunities for the expression of commitment, attempts to measure or assess its development are inappropriate and not practical.

A common, but not always well understood, interpretation of faith development is in terms of Fowler's scheme. It provides a valuable insight into the different patterns of psychological operation at different stages of faith. Much of Fowler's scheme applies to the spiritual development of adults. However, the earlier stages (mythic literal or imitative faith and conventional faith and its transition through a searching faith to the next stage) are relevant to the lives of school children and young adults. [4] While Fowler's theory gives interesting insights into the psychological operations embedded in the believing process, there still remains a question as to whether a 'higher' stage of Fowler faith development necessarily means 'closer to God' and, 'a better, more sensitive human being'.

Returning to the ideas of Gabriel Moran referred to earlier: He considered that the notion of spiritual development has for too long been dominated by economic thinking and that there is a need to use a wider range of metaphors to account for the variety of changes that could be said to involve human growth and faith development. For example, the Gospel of Mark and various Christian writings over the centuries can suggest that the spiritual growth of an individual will involve suffering and trauma. 'Gethsemane' experiences and a 'theology of the cross' can be important phases in the spiritual life of people. These images do not fit comfortably with the idea of travelling further up a ladder of spiritual perfection; rather, they give the impression that some spiritual progress may well appear to be 'downhill' and painful.

This discussion suggests that if religious educators are to use the term faith development, then they need to think through the metaphors that will make the concept more realistic and useful both for themselves and their pupils. This should include some understanding of what the development of religious faith can mean for children and adolescents. The dictum of Saint Anselm "faith seeking understanding" is an aspect of faith development that relates well to school religious education.

A strong, but usually unacknowledged emotional component is often influential in the way faith development is interpreted by religious educators. This is because of the influence of humanistic psychology and existential thinking over the last thirty years on understandings of spiritual development. Humanistic psychology, as evident in the work of psychologists like Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, etc. highlighted the importance of inter-personal relationships for bringing about personal change. [5]

The idea of personal sensitivity came to be thought of as an important part of spiritual development. This resulted in a tendency to think that faith development would occur best during the communication processes of an intimate personal group. This also influenced the interpreting of spiritual development partly in terms of emotion and euphoria. Group discussion was thought to be more effective in promoting spiritual development where the participants had good feelings about the discussion -- whether they liked it or enjoyed it, or whether it meant something for them.

As discussed later, this led to an inappropriate dualism which talked about faith development experiences (liturgy, prayer, retreats, discussion groups) contrasted with the teaching of religion or religious education which was thought to be more concerned with 'just' knowledge and understanding. This view presumed the classroom was 'less faith intensive' than a retreat. It resulted in a conflation of the words 'emotional' and 'personal' with faith. The retreat could well be more personally and emotionally intensive, but not necessarily more faith intensive. Or, another way of putting it is to say that faith was given a more emotional and personal expression during a retreat -- but, should this be considered as the full measure of faith development? For a time during a retreat or 'mountain top' experience, the emotional aspect of faith could be intensified and felt more palpably. But questions could be raised as to whether this should be regarded, more or less exclusively, as the essential faith development.

This thinking led to the problematic understanding of religious education as made up of two components -- one for faith development and one for knowledge. [6] It is also at the heart of misunderstandings that often go with the use of the contrasting terms 'education in faith' and 'education in religion'. [7]

This discussion suggests that popular, but non-discriminating use of the term faith development has contributed to the confusion of purposes in, and ambiguous expectations of, Catholic school religious education.

The use of the concept 'faith development' to differentiate activities in religious education

As one result of the thinking described above, 'faith development' has been used to differentiate activities in religious education. For example, in the new Guidelines for Religious Education in the Archdiocese of Brisbane, the aim of promoting 'religious literacy' is used to emphasise the educational aspect as the main concern of the formal religion curriculum dealing with knowledge and understanding of the faith tradition; while other contexts and activities (retreats, school life, parish groups, etc) were said to have a 'faith development focus'. [8] This language differentiates the 'faith development' activities from the 'religious education' activities.

The distinction between different types of activity (as well as the differentiation of contexts) is important in religious education; but the terminology used here implies an artificial division between religious education and faith development. It implies too narrow a dependence on psychological processes as the core of faith development and it neglects the significance that formal classroom religious education has for faith development.

The contrast is also inappropriate because the two nouns used are of different orders. Religious education is an intentional educational activity conducted by teachers and others; faith development is a change in the type of believing activity of the individual or changes in other aspects of spiritual development like knowledge, understanding, commitment, social action. Faith development is a very personal, complicated process, much of which is not open to scrutiny by others; it is influenced by a variety of factors, only one of which is religious education. Hence, it is an inappropriate concept for differentiating types of educational activities - as if one sort does not affect faith while another does. Classifying activities according to the presence or absence of faith gives the impression that religion teachers would need an inbuilt 'faith meter'!

It is more realistic and less presumptuous to propose that all types of activities in religious education, as well as the religious and social life of the school, have potential to contribute to the development of pupils' religious faith. Some of these activities are more formal and instructional. Others may be more informal, more personal, more emotional, more silent, more reflective, etc. This would be a more appropriate way of talking about different religious education activities than presuming that one can know which type of activity is more effective in producing faith development.

There is also another reason for questioning the use of faith development language to differentiate processes in religious education. This is the Christian interpretation that the Holy Spirit is involved in any invitation to a response in personal faith. If the image of teachers needing faith meters colourfully highlights the problem of presumption when using faith development language in religious education, then the image of teachers requiring Holy Spirit detectors should make the inappropriateness of such language even more obvious.

It has long been recognised that the educator charged with the responsibility of coordinating religious education in the Catholic school has been overloaded with responsibilities. Hence it has been valuable to divide the role so that two or more individuals might share the responsibilities. For example, in some instances a liturgy coordinator has taken on the role of promoting better liturgy at class, form and school level, relieving the religion coordinator of a very time-consuming task; also, from an area of work where specialist skills in liturgy and music are advantageous. In other situations, responsibility for the organisation and planning of retreats through the school has been devolved from the religion coordinator to year coordinators or others.

Another arrangement has a campus minister working in partnership with the religious education coordinator. The campus minister takes on the more pastorally-oriented tasks, leaving the religion coordinator to concentrate specifically on the organisation and implementation of the formal classroom religion curriculum.

In some dioceses, the religious education coordinator is named Assistant Principal Religious Education (APRE), and this position carries membership in the school's administrative executive. The pros and cons of this system need further consideration than will be given here; but one thing is clear: it increases rather than decreases the responsibilities and demands on the religion coordinator. And a number of the new administrative responsibilities have little to do with the religious mission of the school.

The idea of devolving the religious education coordinator's role into complementary parts involving two or more staff members has certainly been valuable for religious education. However, the practice in some schools where the division is into the roles of religion coordinator and faith development coordinator creates problems for the expectations of religious education.

While the division of labour is not in question, the use of the terms is unfortunate because it implies a misleading notion of the nature and purposes of religious education. The term faith development coordinator arises from the thinking (discussed above) which tends to associate the development of religious faith with the more expressive personal activities like retreats, voluntary youth groups, celebration of Eucharist; while the study of religion in the classroom is thought of as less concerned with faith. This usage, and its unarticulated presumptions, create a false dichotomy between the cognitive and personal aspects of spiritual development.

The artificial division between faith development and religious education, as if these were two different processes (and consequently the dependent division between religion coordinator and faith development coordinator), displays a faulty, dualistic idea of religious faith. Also, it obscures the importance of knowledge and understanding of the Catholic faith as the major channel through which religious education and the Catholic school actually affects the faith development of pupils.

So the suggestion here is that religious educators think again about the problems that are subsumed when a division of labour makes use of the term faith development coordinator to contrast with the role of religion coordinator. It gives the impression that the religion coordinator is not concerned with faith development. If this is the case, then it contradicts the important conviction that classroom religious education always has been and always will be very much concerned with the spiritual development of pupils.

One area of Catholic religious education for which this discussion has significant implications is that of outcomes. Only an introductory comment will be offered here.

Over the last two decades what might be called the Outcomes movement in education has had a notable influence on curricula, teaching and assessment in Australian schools. The emphasis has been on measurable outcomes for shaping the aims of education, for providing measures of effectiveness and for requiring accountability. The system works well for knowledge and skill outcomes, but has difficulties when dealing with outcomes in the personal/values areas. [9] Consequently, with the great emphasis on faith development in Catholic religious education, it could be expected that its linkage with outcomes education will certainly be of great interest and will generate debate.

The idea of officially documenting religious education in the same way as the state education authorities document the key learning areas (KLAs) in the school curriculum is important for the public recognition of religion as an important learning area in Catholic schools. A number of Catholic dioceses have been moving their religious education guidelines in this direction. A discussion of how this has been done for Catholic dioceses in Queensland has been described recently by Graeme Barry. [10]

The general focus of outcomes on knowledge and skills should be beneficial to religious education by drawing attention to the immediate and achievable goals which tend to have been neglected. But as anticipated, ambiguities will arise when religious educators begin to articulate values and faith outcomes -- especially if such outcomes are talked about in much the same way as knowledge/skills outcomes.

In brief, it is proposed that a language of hopes (or hoped-for long term outcomes) be used rather than outcomes written in faith development language. These personal/spiritual hopes need to be distinguished from the measurable knowledge/skills outcomes because of the complexity of their origins and development. This same advice could be usefully applied to general education where it deals with outcomes in the values area.

The discussion about spiritual outcomes for religious education has much relevance for assessment and reporting in religious education. There is not scope for considering this further here; however, a series of articles in recent years in Word in Life and Catholic School Studies raise questions about assessment and reporting that can be used to link up with the discussions of spiritual outcomes and of the use of faith development language in religious education.

Another interesting aspect of the use of faith language with reference to Catholic religious education is where educators prefer to use the term 'faith formation'. When this happens, an impression is given that they are emphasising actual changes in faith. Use of the word 'formation' in this context echoes its traditional connotation from the process of forming new members of religious orders and new priests. What was done in the houses of formation (juniorates, novitiates, seminaries and scholasticates, etc.) was renowned for its effectiveness in changing behaviour and piety and in producing uniformity. Religious formation has been jokingly, but realistically, rated by Catholics as a process that exceeded in psychological effectiveness what was done in Marine boot camp or in communist brain washing -- in religious formation there was the added pressure that "this is what God wants of you."

So when the words spiritual or faith formation are used (or even 'faith education'), one gets an impression that what is implied is more than just religious education (perhaps an industrial strength version). The emphasis is directly on bringing about personal change. This was illustrated by the comment of one diocesan director who stated: "What we want is not just a religious education but a faith formation". This sort of thinking also enters into the naming of departments and projects in Catholic Education Offices where faith formation and spiritual formation have been chosen in preference to religious education.

This sort of language shows a special leaning towards faith and the bringing about of changes in faith. Just as with the use of the term faith development coordinator, it implies a narrow understanding of faith which tends to undervalue the components of knowledge and understanding. And it tends to think of religious education too much as a process for attitudinal and behavioural change.

Michael Trainor, in his book Nurturing the Spirit: Faith Education Within Australian Catholicism, [11] exemplifies Catholic religious education's preoccupation with faith development. He preferred the term 'faith education' to religious education. While his major interest was in religious education in the local faith community, he did not distinguish the important difference that the context makes. He talked about school religious education as if it was identical with parish faith education; and as referred to in the material referenced in endnotes 6 and 7, he misinterpreted the theory about relationships between 'education in religion' and 'education in faith'.

The concept 'faith formation', like other concepts, (evangelisation, catechesis, ministry, witness, mission etc.) can be used as a lens for analysing the processes of Church ministry and religious education. When used in this way, a concept like faith formation takes a particular perspective on the activity being analysed: in this instance, the possible ways in which teaching/learning processes might occasion a change in the religious faith and life of the participants. It is legitimate and important to look at religious education from this point of view, that is, in terms of the contribution it can make to the spiritual development of the children and young people.

One of the problems with Catholic religious education is that this perspective has been exaggerated at the expense of others. The language of intentions and purposes has been dominated by religious faith. Talk about how activities are intended to change the level of students' faith development is not very different from the sort of language used to describe changes in their knowledge and cognitive skills. As noted before, this does not seem to acknowledge the great complexity in processes of spiritual development and it creates an atmosphere of unrealism in the language of religious education. Ultimately this carries through to ambiguous expectations by the teacher, with consequences for teaching activities, content and resource materials.

In his book What is This Thing Called Religious Education? [12] , Terry Lovat used the descriptor 'faith-forming approaches' to differentiate denominational religious education from phenomenological, multi-faith approaches. His concern was to establish a new identity for an approach to general (non-denominational) religious education in the state school where the aim of promoting personal faith in a particular religious tradition was inappropriate. By claiming that state religious studies courses were not 'faith forming' Lovat participates in the same problem described above which seems to presume that there are inherently 'faith-forming' and 'non faith-forming' approaches to religious education. While in the Catholic sector there is a tendency to overrate the influence of religious education on personal faith, in the state religious studies sector the tendency is to underrate the potential of the course to have a personal influence. [13] This has to do with the political and educational need to differentiate state courses from denominational religious education.

In his classification of denominational approaches to religious education, Basil Moore (an influential figure in the development of religious studies courses in Australia, who taught at the University of South Australia) used the descriptor 'faith development' approaches. [14] Both he and Terry Lovat also used the term 'enfaithing' as an alternative to 'faith-forming' activities. This shows how educators writing about general religious studies contribute to the tradition of using faith development language to distinguish religious education in church related schools.

The general problem with the use of faith development language for differentiating approaches to religious education revolves around a number of issues, one of which is the relationship between educational intentions, educational processes and outcomes.

At the level of intentions there are grounds for differentiating between purposes for religious education. Catholic religious education aims at enhancing faith development; state religious studies does not. But the division at this intentional level breaks down when applied to the actual teaching/learning processes and to the outcomes (Eg. learning, behavioural, attitudinal, values and beliefs outcomes). There is not the same order of relationships between intentions for educating in knowledge and skills, the appropriate classroom processes and the results (outcomes) as there are for intentions/processes/results related to education for the development of personal faith. The same applies to any education intended to bring about personal changes in beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviour and commitment.

The reason for this basic incomparability is the different orders of causality. The chain of causality between processes which teach children mathematics and the outcomes of such teaching can be mapped with some logical precision and this can be demonstrated with empirical measurements. However, personal and spiritual change are of a different order from knowledge/cognitive skills and any potential causal links between educational treatments and personal faith will be overshadowed by a complex network of other factors which have a bearing on spiritual development -- not the least of which is the freedom of individuals to determine to some extent their beliefs and values. There are also both empirical and ethical problems to do with measuring faith development outcomes.

So while there is a case for arguing that the intentions of the religious educator may or may not be faith-forming, ambiguities arise when the actual teaching/learning processes and outcomes are considered. For example, how could educators know whether a process was faith-forming or not? There is no simple observational method, and ethical questions can be raised about trying to determine whether or not faith is being influenced. It is interesting to note that when educators do talk about their experience of 'faith-effective religious education', it would be more accurate and more realistic to say that they were talking more about emotion, euphoria and intimate conversation - and not so much about religious faith.

The discussion to this point presumes that faith development should be retained as a fundamental goal for Catholic religious education. However, religious educators need to be careful to avoid talking about faith development in much the same way as they might talk about outcomes in the standard key learning areas of the school curriculum. A more careful and discriminating use of faith development language is called for. The following suggests another track that might be taken to help with clarification of the links between religious education and pupils' spiritual development.

One of the attractions of faith development language for religious educators was the richness of the concept. They could feel unhappy with a description of their role as teaching just 'knowledge and skills'. As could be expected, concerns for the affective domain, for religious experience, for beliefs, values, intuition, the aesthetic, prayerfulness, sensitivity to social justice, and committed action were more attractive.

Hence the proposed conceptualisation above may not at first sight be very appealing to religious educators who have grown accustomed to the use of faith development language. For them the new interpretation could seem less important and less relevant -- it can appear more mundane, more limited and secular. Retention of faith development as a hope while giving more attention to achievable aims/outcomes can help. But what is also needed is an expansion of what education for 'knowledge and skills' can mean; together with an expansion of the theory that explores how the experience of religious education can lead into personal and spiritual development.

One useful approach here is to study what is emerging from the literature of education, the social sciences and theology about the nature of knowing. Theorists who expand on the notion of knowing may offer material which promotes a richer understanding of the aims, processes and outcomes of religious education.

One example is the theology of Bernard Lonergan which develops the concept of 'authentic knowing'. Some introductory ideas on its relevance for religious education were presented in Word in Life by Tony Jones. [15]

Paulo Freire talked about a 'liberational' component to knowledge. [16] Literacy and freedom from oppression were linked. Knowledge, particularly about values issues, ideology and power was crucial to the individual's interpretation of social reality and thus it had consequences for judgments about social justice. Knowledge could also become a fundamental part of convictions which motivated individuals and groups to social action. Freire's thinking implied a 'praxis' way of knowing. This theme was taken up by Thomas Groome in his writings about shared Christian praxis. [17]

Mary Boys (in Educating in Faith) [18] also gave consideration to an enlarged, educational interpretation of knowledge and understanding. Her book provided openings for a number of channels of investigation. It included reference to contributions from various psychologists and to Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences; he used this metaphor to develop a richer notion of the learning potential in the educative process as an alternative to the old cognitive/affective scheme. Boys also argued for the acknowledgment of a feminist way of knowing.

Contrasting with these ideas which, in the main, are cognitive, there is a need to consider what aesthetic knowing means, how imagination is involved, and what implications this may have for religious education. [19]

The above are only a few of the possibilities that can be explored. It is, however, interesting to note that both Groome and Boys, as is evident in the titles and chapter headings of their books, still give a priority to faith development language in religious education.

This article proposes that a better understanding of the nature of faith development will enable religious educators to use the term in a way that highlights the best contribution that classroom religious education can make to the process. This will help avoid ambiguous expectations of religious education. It suggests that one of the most significant aspects of faith development is more knowledge and understanding of the Church's Theology and Scripture, and this is the aspect to which classroom religious education is most attuned. It questions a relatively exclusive association of faith development with emotional and personal activities This does not minimise the importance of other aspects of faith like closeness to God and commitment. It merely emphasises the aspect of faith to which religious education can give special attention. And it calls for more discrimination when using the language of faith development to describe the role of religious education coordinators.

Writers and curriculum developers in religious education need to provide leadership in this endeavour. A review of the language used in Catholic religious education should begin in diocesan guidelines and in theory for religious education; and it needs to flow on to school programs. Careful thought should precede the potential use of terms like faith development or faith formation, because other concepts might be more realistic, more appropriate, and less likely to imply a faulty understanding of the nature of faith and the nature of religious education.

Perhaps a more balanced usage of faith development language will come when further complementary attention is given to 'hope development', 'love development' and 'justice development', as well as to the emotional component of spiritual development.

[1] . The first book to popularise the term faith development in Australian Catholic Religious Education was published by the United States Episcopal priest, John H. Westerhoff, in 1976, (Will Our Children Have Faith?, Dove Communications, Melbourne).

[3] . See for example the detailed summary of thinking about faith in Avery Dulles, 1994, The Assurance of Things Hoped For, New York, Oxford University Press. (especially the chapter on the Development of Faith).

[4] . Fowler, J.W. 1980, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning, San Francisco: Harper and Row.

Fowler, J.E. 1986, Becoming Adult, Becoming Christian. New York: Harper and Row.

Fowler, J.E., Nipkow, K.E., Oser, F. and Schweitzer, F. 1993, Stages of Faith and Religious Development: Implications for Church Education and Society, London: SCM Press.

[8] . Archdiocese of Brisbane, 1997, Guidelines for Religious Education (Consisting of curriculum Statement, Profile and Syllabus, Catholic Education Office, Brisbane.

See also: Barry, G. 1997, Religious Education: A Key learning area in Catholic schools, Word in Life, 45, 2, 14-15.

[13] . This difference is evident in the evolution of religious studies in government schools in the United Kingdom (1950-1990), as well as in the evolution of such courses in Australia where developments closely followed the British pattern. Part of the process of establishing an educational identity for religious studies was to make it look very different from denominational religious education -- hence the claim that it was not concerned with the promotion of personal faith in a particular faith tradition. The fundamental question to be clarified here is the way in which any education (denominational or non-denominational) can promote or catalyse changes in pupils' beliefs. For a discussion of the development of religious studies courses from the perspective of their relevance to spiritual development see Crawford, M.L. and Rossiter, G.M. 1994, The Nature of Religious Education in Public Schools: The Quest for an Educational Identity, Panorama: International Journal of Comparative Religious Education and Values, 5, 1, 77-94.

[16] . Freire, P. 1971, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Herder and Herder, New York.

Freire, P. 1980, Education for Critical Consciousness, Continuum, New York.

[17] . Groome, T.H. 1980, Christian Religious Education: Sharing Our Story and Vision, Harper and Row, San Francisco.

Groome, T.H. 1990, Sharing Our Faith, Harper & Rowe, San Fransisco.

[19] . Some preliminary ideas on these issues can be found in the following:-

Harris, M. 1987, Teaching and Religious Imagination, Harper and Row, San Francisco.

Durka, G. and Smith, J. (Eds.) 1979, Aesthetic dimensions of religious education, Paulist Press, New York.

English, G. Imagination: The past and the future of religious education, Word in Life, 37, 1, 9-11.

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The centrality of the concept Faith Development in
Catholic School Religious Education

By Professor Graham Rossiter (Word in Life, February 1998)

	Cardinal Clancy Centre for Research in the Spiritual, Moral, Religious and Pastoral Dimensions of Education.
Spiritual, Moral and Religious Education is a Flagship area for Research in Australian Catholic University

The centrality of the concept Faith Development in Catholic School Religious Education

By Professor Graham Rossiter (Word in Life, February 1998)

The centrality of the concept Faith Development in
Catholic School Religious Education