Events

2020 Annual Meeting

Your AAR staff continues to work toward holding the Annual Meeting in Boston, Nov. 21-24, 2020. We are aware of the uncertainty and contradictory projections related to the COVID-19 pandemic and with health and safety as a priority, we will continue monitoring the guidance of governments and health experts as we plan and make decisions. Should any changes need to be made related to the 2020 Annual Meeting, we will promptly notify you.

2020 Regional Meetings

Open Registration:

All remaining regional meetings for 2020 have been canceled

Religion in the Schools

The goals of the American Academy of Religion include fostering excellence in teaching about religion. On the AAR website, lesson plans are available on Art, Religion, and Popular Culture and on Religious Diversity and Pluralism in America. Other resources include the following:

Guidelines for Teaching About Religion in K‐12 Public Schools in the United States, produced by the AAR's Religion in the Schools Task Force and published in April 2010. See here for more information.

K-12 Social Studies Guidelines for the Academic Study of Religion, supplement to National Council for the Social Studies guidelines, was a collaboration of the AAR and the Newseum Institute’s Religious Freedom Center.

First Amendment Center, a program of the Freedom Forum, works to preserve and protect First Amendment freedoms, including freedom of religion as it applies to schools. Its website provides answers to frequently asked questions as well as lesson plans. Its guide to religion and public education, called Finding Common Ground, is a free, downloadable PDF.

Project on Religion and Public Education at California State University at Chico provides workshops, forums, and institutes designed to prepare and support teachers in their efforts to teach about the world's religions in constitutionally permissible and academically responsible ways.

Religion and Education, a journal produced at the University of Northern Iowa, has its tables of contents and excerpts viewable free online.

Religious Literacy Project is the successor to the Program in Religious Studies and Education, a teacher-education program founded in 1972 within Harvard Divinity School.  Begun in 2011 and headed by Diane Moore at HDS, the Religious Literacy Project is a virtual resource and research center housed at the Center for the Study of World Religions. Its primary aim is to create and maintain resources designed primarily for public-school teachers and their students that will promote a better understanding of the religious dimensions of multiculturalism in civic life.

Spotlight on Teaching, a periodical produced by the AAR, has a special edition on religion in the schools, March 2002.