The Catholic Dialogue School: From Theory to Practice and Back

Based on diligent theological work and practical experience, Boeve explores how Catholic schools can reconfigure their identity in an increasingly secular and pluralised world.

At a time when Christian values education has lost its plausibility and effectiveness, this work examines how a wider ’Catholic dialogue school’ project would welcome the plurality of beliefs among its staff and students, actively facilitate dialogue between them, and introduce the Christian voice into this dialogue in a contemporary and challenging way.

This book offers chapters on the theological background of the project and its social relevance. With empirical evidence and case studies from across the world, Boeve dextrously analyses the practical implication of these Catholic dialogue schools. The processes of secularisation and pluralisation have changed school demographics and this has affected the construction of both individual and collective identities. In response to this changed context, this work shows how the ’Catholic dialogue school’ project actively engages with such identity construction.

The book concludes by considering whether recent Church teaching supports this project and how it can strengthen the position of Catholic education in discussions about its legitimacy in contexts of (soft) secularism and shrinking educational freedom.

Lieven Boeve is Professor of Fundamental Theology at KU Leuven, Belgium.