ABSTRACT
Values education, in Australia at least until recently, has been referred to as the ‘poor cousin of other core areas in the curriculum’ and has even been described as a ‘soft’ or ‘vague’ area of study (Hill, 1991: 3). The teaching of religion in government schools has been even more controversial because public education was established as ‘free, public and secular’. This chapter will examine the place of values education and religion education in Australian schools. It will outline some approaches to values education and religion education and briefly comment on pedagogical approaches to the teaching of both these areas.
