ABSTRACT
This concern with the analysis of the distinctiveness of Catholic education is apparent on both sides of the Atlantic. In England and Wales, for example, the question of distinctiveness has featured prominently in reports and debates (see, for example, Study Group on Catholic Education, 1981, Ch. 2; Ch. 5 especially sec. 3) and much attention has recently been given by the Catholic Education Service to encouraging both primary and secondary Catholic schools to address questions of distinctiveness in a sustained and practically significant way (Catholic Education Service, 1994a). Such a concern with distinctiveness is mirrored in the United States, where the nature of the distinctiveness of the Catholic school is central to the important recently published study ‘Catholic Schools and the Common Good’ (Bryk et al., 1993).
