Taiwanese students' attitudes to religious education and the impact of it on civic values

This study explores Taiwanese secondary students' attitudes toward religious education and its impact on their civic values. Religious bodies in Taiwan actively provide education services for the community such as operating secondary and primary schools. Religious education is the characteristics of these schools supported by religious values and doctrines. This makes them different from other schools. Students pursuing their studies in these schools are assumed to be influenced by religion in their development, including ways of being citizens and making judgements about social and political issues. By making use of the focus group interview and the dataset generated from the International Civic and Citizenship Study 2016, this study identified that the impact of religious education on Taiwanese students' civic values was low, with the main focus being personal and spiritual life development. Copyright © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Kerry J. Kennedy and John Chi-Kin Lee; individual chapters, the contributors.