The research and practical interests of our Association’s members are wide-ranging, influenced by diverse contexts and commitments. We rarely have an opportunity in an Annual Meeting to showcase the depth and breadth of our work in all its beautiful differences. This year, the REA Board is holding an ‘open-ended’ meeting loosely organized around the theme of ‘sketching the global landscapes and horizons of religious education’. We invite members to propose papers, panels, briefs/posters, and hands-on experiences that showcase the variety of research projects, teaching methodologies and approaches, public engagements, and visionary thinking that animate your current work. We encourage you to share the work you find most meaningful to your vocation and to contextualize your offering as a contribution to our shared work as religious educators. To this end, we hope that proposals will suggest how presenters intend to reflect on one or more of the following questions:
- How does your work draw on the rich and diverse legacy of religious education as it has been discussed and practiced historically?
- What are the primary theories of religious education and practice that inform and animate your work?
- Who are your primary conversation partners as you frame ideas, challenge assumptions, develop methodologies, and/or reflect on practice?
- How does your work question or challenge historical and/or contemporary beliefs and practices about the goals and aims of religious education?
- How does your work intersect with and/or build on REA’s commitment to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion?
- In what ways does your work take diverse bodies seriously and creatively respond to embodied differences?
- How does your work wrestle with social and/or political dissension and division?
- What is visionary about your work?
- What new questions does your work pose for religious education?
- What is your vision for religious education, either in your particular context or more broadly?
Proposals may take one of four (4) forms: Research Interest Group paper, Collaborative session, Works-in-Progress brief presentation, or Demonstration. Descriptions of these categories are provided in the Guidelines for Proposals.
Program Chair Karen-Marie Yust can be reached at rea2026 [at] religiouseducation [dot] net.