ICS Institute for Curriculum Services: Supplement to C3 Framework: Religious Studies
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Religious Studies
Companion Document for the C3 Framework
Commitments and Context
In 2014, the National Council for the Social
Studies (NCSS) reaffirmed its longstanding
position that study about religions should be an
essential part of the social studies curriculum in
ways that are constitutionally and academically
sound. NCSS emphasized that knowledge about
religions is not only a characteristic of an
educated person but is necessary for effective
and engaged citizenship in an interconnected
and diverse nation and world. It recommended
that state departments of education work to
ensure inclusion of study about religions,
including the role of religion in history and
society, in all social studies programs. Teachers
teaching such courses should have appropriate
professional training in the academic study of
religion in order to facilitate meaningful,
constitutional classroom dialogue grounded in
content knowledge. NCSS affirmed that the First
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides
the civic framework for achieving these goals.
In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
state-sponsored devotional practices are
unconstitutional in public schools. At the same
time, the Court made clear that the study of
religion—as distinguished from religious
indoctrination—is an important part of a
“complete education.” Justice Tom Clark wrote
for the Court: “[I]t might well be said that one’s
education is not complete without a study of
comparative religions or the history of religion
and its relationship to the advancement of
civilization.”2 Building upon the Supreme
Court’s guidance, NCSS joined with sixteen
leading educational, religious, and civil liberties
groups in 1988 to reaffirm that the study of
religion is essential to understanding both the
nation and the world.3
Over the next two decades, NCSS and its
affiliates contributed to the development of
state social studies standards that included the
study of religion.4 In 2000, twenty-one national
organizations joined with the NCSS and the U.S.
Department of Education to disseminate a
document to every public school about the
SUPPLEMENT was added to C3 Framework 6/2017
Approved by American Academy of Religion1
825 Houston Mill Rd NE STE 300
Atlanta, GA 30329-4205
1. The writing team was composed of the following
individuals (in alphabetical order): Jessica Blitzer, West
Hartford Public Schools (CT); Seth Brady, Naperville Central
High School (IL); John Camardella, Prospect High School
(IL); Niki Clements, Rice University (TX); Susan Douglass,
Georgetown University (DC); Benjamin P. Marcus,
Newseum Institute (DC); Diane L. Moore, Harvard Divinity
School (MA); and Nathan C. Walker, Teachers College
Columbia University (NY).
2. Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203
(1963).
3. “Religion in the Public School Curriculum: Questions and
Answers” was first published in 1988 and disseminated
widely by NCSS and other sponsoring organizations.
Downloadable at www. religiousfreedomcenter.org.
4. Susan L. Douglass, Teaching about Religion in National
and State Standards (Fountain Valley, CA and Nashville,
TN: Council on Islamic Education and First Amendment
Center, 2000). Downloadable at
www.religiousfreedomcenter.org.
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constitutionality of religion in public schools.
Widely accepted guidelines for teaching about
religion state:
The school’s approach to religion is
academic, not devotional.
The school strives for student
awareness of religions, but does not
press for student acceptance of any
religion.
The school sponsors study about
religion, not the practice of religion.
The school may expose students to a
diversity of religious views, but may not
impose any particular view.
The school educates about all religions;
it does not promote or denigrate
religion.
The school informs the students about
various beliefs; it does not seek to
conform students to any particular
belief.5
In 2010, the American Academy of Religion
(AAR) published Guidelines for Teaching about
Religion in K-12 Public Schools in the United
States to emphasize the importance of using a
religious studies approach to teach about
religion. NCSS affirmed the AAR guidelines in
2014, emphasizing that “schools have a civic
and educational responsibility to include robust
study about religions in the social studies
curriculum.” This Supplement equips state
departments of education and school districts
with student learning indicators and a
framework for studying religion in ways that are
constitutionally sound and consistent with the
AAR’s high academic standards.
Introduction to the Disciplinary Concepts
and Skills of Religious Studies
Religious studies analyzes the impact of religion
on the structure and culture of societies,
examining both historical and contemporary
perspectives in order to understand how
religious beliefs, practices, and communities are
created, maintained, and transformed over
time. Through a non-devotional approach,
students gain the ability to understand religions
as diverse and dynamic, to explain how religions
change over time, and to analyze how culture
affects religion and religion affects culture.
Student inquiry into complex issues—including
the dynamic relationships within a religion,
between religions, and between religion and
secularism—provides a unique environment to
learn how to recognize and evaluate
assumptions without undermining personal
religious identity, to navigate diverse and
shifting cultural values, to engage respectfully
with diverse neighbors, and to resist common
misunderstandings that have negative real-
world consequences. These skills are invaluable
in a society whose increasingly multicultural
schools, workplaces, and local, national, and
international public spheres all need informed,
critical, and engaged citizens.
The study of religion from an academic, non-
devotional perspective in primary, middle, and
secondary school is critical for decreasing
religious illiteracy and the bigotry and prejudice
it fuels. The AAR has defined religious literacy as
“the ability to discern and analyze the
fundamental intersections of religion with
social, political, and cultural life.” Specifically,
the AAR states, a religiously literate person will
possess
a basic understanding of the history, central
texts (where applicable), beliefs, practices and
contemporary manifestations of several of the
world’s religious traditions and religious
expressions as they arose out of and continue
to shape and to be shaped by particular social,
historical and cultural contexts; and the ability
to discern and explore the religious dimensions
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of political, social and cultural expressions
across time and place.”6 [Emphasis added]
5. Based on guidelines originally developed by James V.
Panoch and published in 1974 by the Public Education
Religion Studies Center at Wright State University. The
guidelines quoted here are from the First Amendment
Center’s “A Teacher’s Guide to Religion in the Public
Schools,” which may be found at
www.religiousfreedomcenter.org/ wp-
content/uploads/2014/08/teachersguide.pdf. For all
consensus guidelines on religion in public schools, see:
Charles C. Haynes and Oliver Thomas, Finding Common
Ground: A First Amendment Guide to Religion and Public
Schools (Nashville, TN: First Amendment Center, 2011).
6. Guidelines for Teaching About Religion in K-12 Public
Schools in the United States (Atlanta: AAR, 2010) p. 4.
https://www.aarweb. org/sites/default/
files/pdfs/Publications/epublications/AARK-
12CurriculumGuidelines.pdf. Diane L. Moore was Chair of
the Task Force that produced these guidelines.
Religious Studies Premises and Methods of
Inquiry
Religious studies scholars articulate four basic
assertions about religions and the study of
religion that serve to counter problematic
assumptions while creating a useful method for
inquiry. First, there is a difference between the
devotional study of religion to encourage
religious commitment and the nonsectarian
study that seeks to understand religion without
promoting or discouraging adherence to it. This
premise affirms the credibility of particular
religious assertions without equating them with
absolute truths about the traditions
themselves. Second, religions are internally
diverse and not uniform as is commonly
represented. Scholars recognize that religious
communities are living entities that function in
different social/political contexts. Third,
religions evolve and change through time and
are not static or fixed. Religious expressions and
beliefs must be studied in social and historical
context as they are constantly interpreted and
reinterpreted by adherents. Fourth, religious
influences are embedded in cultures and not
separable from other forms of human
expression.
College, Career, and Civic ready students:
• D2.Rel.1.9-12: Explain and analyze the
distinction between a devotional assertion of
religious beliefs and behaviors and the
academic study of diverse devotional assertions
from a nonsectarian perspective in specific
social and historical contexts.
• D2.Rel.2.9-12: Describe and analyze examples
of how religions are internally diverse at both
macro levels (sects and divisions within
traditions) and micro levels (differences within
specific religious communities).
• D2.Rel.3.9-12: Describe and analyze examples
of how religions evolve and change over time in
response to differing social, historical, and
political contexts.
• D2.Rel.4.9-12: Describe and analyze examples
of how religions are embedded in all aspects of
culture and cannot only be isolated to the
“private” sphere.
Applications of Religious Studies Premises:
Belief, Behavior, and Belonging
Religious studies scholars investigate how
individuals and communities construct their
religious identities. Describing religious identity
requires recognition of the historical, political,
geographic, and economic factors that shape
the beliefs people hold, the behaviors they
exhibit, and their membership within multiple
intersecting communities. Beliefs, behaviors,
and the experiences of belonging to
communities–including but not restricted to
religious communities–shape and are shaped by
one another. Beliefs and values include
theological, doctrinal, scriptural, and ethical
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evaluative claims about daily life as much as
those about a transcendent reality or
experiences of the divine. Behaviors include
practices associated with rites, rituals, and life
both inside and outside of strictly religious
settings. Experiences of belonging include
membership in religious communities and other
social communities with intersecting racial,
national, ethnic, familial, gender, class, and
other identities.
College, Career, and Civic ready students:
• D2.Rel.5.9-12: Explain how religious identities
shape and are shaped by the beliefs people
hold, the behaviors they exhibit, and the ways
people experience membership in intersecting
communities.
• D2.Rel.6.9-12: Identify how internal diversity
is evident in beliefs, behaviors, and experiences
of belonging to various communities.
• D2.Rel.7.9-12: Analyze how beliefs, behaviors,
and experiences of belonging to communities
change over time.
• D2.Rel.8.9-12: Interpret how beliefs,
behaviors, and experiences of belonging to
various communities affect and are affected by
other social, political, and cultural forces.
• D2.Rel.9.9-12: Give examples of how beliefs,
behaviors, and community experiences shape
and are shaped by one another in particular
social and historical contexts.
Critical Inquiry: Representation, Sources,
and Evidence
Inquiry from a religious studies perspective
does not evaluate the theological or devotional
question of what is “right” or “true” for a
tradition or individual. Instead, religious studies
scholars utilize primary and secondary sources
to analyze how religious values, interpretations,
and expressions both shape and are shaped by
individuals and communities. Teacher guided
critical inquiry will explore how and why some
religious individuals and communities gain
social and political prominence and influence
while others become socially and politically
marginalized. Religious studies scholars identify
conscious and unconscious assumptions about
religious identity and its influence on beliefs,
behaviors, and communities of belonging in
private and public life.
College, Career, and Civic ready students:
• D2.Rel.10.9-12: Identify assumptions about
the definition of religion and the proper role of
religion in private and public life.
• D2.Rel.11.9-12: Describe which expressions of
orthodoxy (“right” believing) and orthopraxy
(“right” behaving) are socially and politically
prominent or marginalized in specific contexts.
• D2.Rel.12.9-12: Identify which religious
individuals, communities, and institutions are
represented in public discourse, and explain
how some are obscured.
• D2.Rel.13.9-12: Collect and analyze the
meaning and significance of primary and
secondary religious sources in their particular
social, historical, and political context, including
statements of theology and doctrine, sacred
texts, depictions of rites and rituals,
biographies, histories, ethnography, art and
architecture, and demographic data.
• D2.Rel.14.9-12: Evaluate how diverse religious
sources articulate the relationship between a
religion and its social and historical context.
Brief Overview of the Connections
between Religious Studies and the English
Language Arts/Literacy Common Core
Standards
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Connections with the College and Career
Readiness (CCR) Anchor Standards.
Looking through a religious studies lens,
students develop and use a wide range of skills
that are central to the Common Core College
and Career Readiness Anchor Standards.
Utilizing the methodologies, academic
frameworks, and practices that form the field of
religious studies
provides students with the knowledge and skills
they need to think critically about the historical
and contemporary world.
Religious studies as an interdisciplinary
academic field requires students to develop the
skills necessary to describe, interpret, compare,
explain, and examine the beliefs, behaviors,
attitudes, and institutions associated with
religions. Taking a religious studies approach
allows students to critically examine both
primary and secondary source material to
determine central ideas or themes across or
within religions. Students analyze how source
materials address similar themes or topics in
order to build knowledge, recognize patterns,
or compare ideas. By studying religion, students
come to understand how religions are internally
diverse, dynamic and changing, and embedded
in specific cultural and historical contexts. They
then use this understanding to develop
compelling questions, engage in research,
formulate evidence-based claims, consider how
to communicate conclusions to an audience,
and consider possibilities for appropriate civic
action. The study of religion, when integrated
into the study of civics, economics, geography,
and history, helps students hone the skills
outlined in the Anchor Standards in Reading,
Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language.
As such, religious studies supports students’
successful entry into the world of work or post-
secondary education.
C3 Framework Disciplinary Inquiry Matrix:
Religious Studies
In Appendix A, the Disciplinary Inquiry Matrix
articulates how each of the four Dimensions of
the C3 Framework build upon one another
through the use of a content-specific example:
How bad was the Great Recession? The
Disciplinary Inquiry Matrix describes what
experts think and do. It is a four part target
example to which students should aspire.
The matrix develops through the construction
of disciplinary compelling and supporting
questions (Dimension 1); the data sources, key
concepts, and key strategies specific to each
discipline (Dimension 2); the development of
evidence-based claims (Dimension 3); and the
means of expression (Dimension 4). In the table,
the Great Recession is examined through the
disciplinary lens of religious studies. The
examples in the boxes are illustrative rather
than exhaustive.
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American Academy of Religion. (2010).
Guidelines for teaching about religion in K-12
public schools in the United States. Accessible
at https://www.aarweb.
org/sites/default/files/pdfs/Publications/epubli
cations/ AARK-12CurriculumGuidelines.pdf.
Biondo, V. F., III, and Fiala, A. (Eds.). (2014).
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Douglass, S. L. (2000). Teaching about religion in
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Fountain Valley, CA: Council on Islamic
Education, and Nashville, TN: First Amendment
Center.
Eck, D. L. (2001). A new religious America: How
a “Christian country” has become the world’s
most religiously diverse nation. San Francisco,
CA: Harper.
Greenawalt, K. (2007). Does God belong in
public schools? Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Haynes, C. C. (2008). A teacher’s guide to
religion in the public schools. Nashville, TN: First
Amendment Center.
Haynes, C. C. and Nord, W. (1998). Taking
religion seriously across the curriculum.
Nashville, TN: First Amendment Center.
Haynes, C. C. and Thomas, O. (2011). Finding
common ground: A first amendment guide to
religion and public schools. Nashville, TN: First
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Lester, E. (2011). Teaching about religions: A
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Lester, E. and Roberts, P.S. (2006). Learning
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Marcus, B. (Forthcoming, 2017). In C.C. Haynes
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New York: Palgrave, 2007.
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Nord, Warren. (2011). Does God make a
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every American needs to know–and doesn’t.
New York, NY: HarperOne.
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