Andrew McGrady | Trinity College Dublin (original) (raw)

Papers by Andrew McGrady

Drawing on data provided by 2,838 parents of Catholic students attending second-level Catholic sc... more Drawing on data provided by 2,838 parents of Catholic students attending second-level Catholic schools within the Republic of Ireland in 2003, this study introduces the McGrady Index of Parental Attitude toward Catholic Schools (MIPACS). This instrument displayed good internal reliability (α = .84) and good construct validity, assessed in terms of motivations for choosing a Catholic school, preferred choice of school, and satisfaction with the school. The individual items generate insight into Catholic parents’ expectations regarding Catholic voluntary secondary schools and suggests that in 2003 parental support for the religious ethos of such schools was waning. It is recommended that replication of this original study would document the extent to which parental attitude toward Catholic schools may have undergone further change

Against the background of the changing religious landscape of the Republic of Ireland, this study... more Against the background of the changing religious landscape of the Republic of Ireland, this study was designed to explore the connections between Catholic identities and both religious faith and moral values at the beginning of the twenty-first century in order to provide a baseline for future studies. Catholic identities are conceptualised as comprising the intersection between religious affiliation and religious practice. Drawing on data provided by post-primary students between the ages of 16 and 19 years, collected in 2003 from 65 Catholic voluntary secondary schools, comparisons were drawn between five groups of young men: 96 who claimed affiliation with no religious group and 1,231 Roman Catholic students distinguished by four levels of mass attendance: weekly (614), at least once a month (265), several times a year (254), and never (92), leaving six who did not report on their level of attendance. The data demonstrated that the religiously unaffiliated young men retained some...

Against the background of the changing religious, cultural and social landscape of the Republic o... more Against the background of the changing religious, cultural and social landscape of the Republic of Ireland, this study was designed to explore the religious identity of 16- to 19-year-old school-leavers in single sex Catholic voluntary secondary schools in the early 2000s. Drawing on data provided by 1,648 young women and 1,231 young men who self-identified as Catholics, the analyses explored the themes of religious attendance, sacramental participation, self-assessed religiosity, personal religiosity, anticipated future religious engagement, influences on religiosity, and religious affect. The most important findings from the study is that both young male and young female Catholic school-leavers perceive themselves as being less religious and less institutionally affiliated than their perceptions of their parents. While, in accordance with general findings elsewhere young women are more likely to engage in prayer than young men, within the Republic of Ireland young women feel less ...

Veritas eBooks, 2019

Young Catholics growing up on the island of Ireland are part of one world-wide Roman Catholic Chu... more Young Catholics growing up on the island of Ireland are part of one world-wide Roman Catholic Church, sharing in the one heritage and tradition. At the same time young Catholics in Ireland are growing up in two different social, political, and religious cultures. In the Republic of Ireland, the Catholic Church had enjoyed decades of political influence, but is now situated in an increasingly secularised culture. In Northern Ireland, the Catholic Church has coexisted within a religiously segregated society alongside the significant presence of Protestant and Reformed Churches. Drawing on data generated from a survey conducted during 2011 among sixth-form students in Northern Ireland and senior cycle students in the Republic of Ireland, the present study employed the notion of intersectionality (embracing gender and socio-political context) to interrogate differences in the religious beliefs and practices and in the moral values of self-identified Catholic students: 3,015 in the Republic of Ireland and 1,624 in Northern Ireland. The data draw attention to the effects of both gender and cultural context in shaping two somewhat different expressions of Catholic identity within the two jurisdictions on the relatively small island of Ireland

International Handbooks of Religion and Education, 2009

Section four of this handbook considers some of the many influences that determine policy towards... more Section four of this handbook considers some of the many influences that determine policy towards the provision of religious education in schools worldwide. The chapters are arranged into three parts according to the dominant focus of their authors. Part one considers the legal, philosophical and theological foundations of policy. Part two deals with the increasingly important issue of religious education and the public space. Part three provides a selection of case studies concerning multi-faith syllabuses for religious education, proposals to introduce some form of ‘objective’ study of religion in countries in which religious education is prohibited in State schools, and research into the attitudes of religious educators towards issues of gender and equality.

Religious Education at Schools in Europe, 2014

International Handbooks of Religion and Education, 2006

well as his BA and BEd from Melbourne, he has an MA from Cambridge and a PhD from Birmingham. He ... more well as his BA and BEd from Melbourne, he has an MA from Cambridge and a PhD from Birmingham. He has an hon. D Theol from Frankfurt and an honorary doctorate from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is the General Secretary of the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values. His current interest is in the theological education of adults. His web site is www.johnmhull.biz.

Kirche und Erziehung in Europa, 2005

British Journal of Religious Education, 1983

Introduction Recent psychological investigation of pupils' understanding of biblical narrati... more Introduction Recent psychological investigation of pupils' understanding of biblical narrative has been carried out mainly within a Piagetian context. Foremost among such research was that of Ronald Goldman investigating developmental factors associated with pupils' ...

British Journal of Religious Education, 1987

ABSTRACT A vital element that distinguishes religious thinking is a dependence on metaphors and m... more ABSTRACT A vital element that distinguishes religious thinking is a dependence on metaphors and models. Six cognitive elements ‐ recognition, comprehension, production, extension, interrelation and evaluation ‐ are identified. The approach outlined permits the examination of religious thinking to be situated within the perspective of the current theological examination of religious language and to reflect the concerns of contemporary cognitive psychology.

British Journal of Religious Education, 1994

... Andrew G McGrady ... Section three required recognition, comprehension and interrelation of t... more ... Andrew G McGrady ... Section three required recognition, comprehension and interrelation of two parabolic statements of Jesus, the camel and the eye of the needle, part of Jesus' teaching concerning riches (Matthew 19:24) and the parable of the treasure hidden in the field ...

Veritas, 2019

Empirical research studies within Christian and post-Christian cultures have consistently reporte... more Empirical research studies within Christian and post-Christian cultures have consistently reported higher levels of religious practice, belief and affect among women than among men. The present study reported the responses of 1,583 16- to 17-year-old and 1,191 18- to 19-year-old Catholic students within the Republic of Ireland who completed the McGrady Religious Affect Scale (McRAS) in 2003. Among neither age group was a significant difference found between the scores recorded by males and by females. This finding is consistent with the view that young Catholic women may be losing confidence in their religious heritage more rapidly than young Catholic men

Chapter presents an outline of issues, policies and current practice concerning teaching religion... more Chapter presents an outline of issues, policies and current practice concerning teaching religion in schools in Ireland.

University. His teaching and research interests include faith-based schools in multi-cultural soc... more University. His teaching and research interests include faith-based schools in multi-cultural societies, the religious, spiritual and moral dimensions of culture and education, education for active citizenship in democratic societies, and the collaborative use of Information and Communications Technology.

British Journal of Religious Education, 2008