Should religious schools be publicly funded? Issues of religion, discrimination, and equity

Abstract

This issue offers a critical opportunity to reflect on an enduring question in education: Should religious schools be state-funded? To facilitate this reflection, this issue offers six studies from Canada, Spain, and the United States. Each delves into the unique relationships between state-funded schooling and religion in their respective contexts. In particular, these studies examine how the relationships have shifted due to numerous factors, including changing legal rulings, political ideology, demographic shifts, global migration, and education privatization. The authors carefully integrate (and interrogate) the histories and places where they conducted their analyses. Taken together, these studies offer invaluable and timely insights into the intended and unintended consequences of state funding that expands school choice, marketization, and privatization, particularly with respect to religion. This issue thus aims to inform the ongoing debate about the (potential) impact that publicly funding religious schools has on equity, segregation, and discrimination. Ultimately, we hope this issue highlights the importance of a nonsectarian approach to public education so as to create an inclusive education space wherein all human identities are welcomed and affirmed.