Teaching and Learning > PROJECTS
Web Resources
During the first phase of this initiative we have begun to develop a web-based resource that reflects the diversity of material on the web about religious and cultural issues. With respect to 'religions' there are generally two types of material:
- The majority of websites have been developed by religious organisations or individuals affiliated to particular traditions. These give a good insight into the main teachings and customs of different religious traditions, as well as discussion forums and articles that highlight contemporary issues facing those traditions.
- There are also websites that have been put together by academics and other 'informed'/concerned individuals to educate people about different religious and cultural traditions.
We have developed a searchable list of relevant websites which has been organised under three main headings:
- General websites on religious traditions.
- Cross-cutting issues.
- Websites on particular religious traditions (database)
This resource has two main aims:
- To provide people working within higher education with a resource that will enable them to answer specific questions relating to cultural and religious diversity issues (e.g. dates of religious festivals, reasons for types of cultural dress, the basics of different religious beliefs etc.);
- To enable people working within higher education to develop the skills and knowledge to avoid cultural stereotyping through 'religious and cultural literacy'.
General religion websites
The religious movements homepage project
This website is run by Douglas E. Cowen and his sociology of religion students at the University of Virginia. There are detailed profiles of more than two hundred religious groups and movements. In the right hand column you can click on 'religious groups profile' to browse an alphabetic list of pages. There is also a search engine and glossary.
Ontario consultants on religious tolerance
The Religious Tolerance website was set up in 1995. Sponsored by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance (OCRT), it has extensive detail on contemporary religious issues and a mandate to promote religious understanding and knowledge across different faiths. The site offers a variety of resources, including articles on contemporary social debates and religious movements. It seeks to avoid promoting any single belief system over another, and contains a number of articles addressing modern ethical issues and religious responses on topics such as abortion and homosexuality.
BBCi 'A-Z of religions and belief'
The BBCi 'A-Z of religions and belief' website provides a good introduction to the world's major belief systems. The traditions covered are: atheism; Baha'i; Buddhism; Christianity; Hinduism; Islam; Judaism; Mormonism; Paganism; and Sikhism. For each you can find brief articles on beliefs, history, and customs, and information about notable aspects of the tradition, or topical issues connected with it. Each section contains a short list of relevant links. There are also five message boards (for Judaism, Islam, Christianity and Paganism, and Eastern religions) to facilitate discussion.
This website acquaints users with six of the world's major religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism. For each, descriptions are given of its world-view, historical context, central texts and dates, prominent figures, and contemporary influence. These make use of programmes previously broadcasted by the BBC itself. Links to relevant sites are also provided.
The internet sacred text archive
The Internet Sacred Text Archive was established by J.B. Hare to make non-copyrighted religious and mythological texts available to the interested reader. It contains resources collected by the archive itself as well as links to texts on other websites. If focuses on English translations of texts from a range of traditions and cultures including the major world religions as well as indigenous cultures of Africa, Australia and North America, and an interesting set of resources from different traditions on lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-gender issues.
Written by Paul M. Flesher of the Religious Studies Programme at the University of Wyoming, this site opens with a drop down menu where you can choose from Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Each site offers different links to look at: cosmos, organisation, time and worship, text and tales, timeline, religious life, glossary, terms, maps, links and life stages.
Beliefnet describes itself as a "multi-faith e-community" that is unaffiliated to any particular tradition. It is a huge site that deals with different traditions as well as issues that cut across traditions. The articles are presented in an accessible and largely journalistic style, and there is a useful search engine. This site is particularly good for information on contemporary religious and ethical issues.
About.com religion and spirituality
About.com was founded in 1997, and provides articles written by 'experts' on a broad range of topics. Their religion site includes a search engine as well as links to information about particular traditions. There are articles written on a broad range of religious topics, and links to other websites on religion.
The Virtual Religion Index is a specialist academic site based in the Religion Department at Rutgers University. It offers an extensive catalogue of online religion resources and is 'topic-led' with topics including: archaeology and religious art; ancient near eastern studies; comparative religion; all the major world religions; and the philosophy and psychology of religion. Users may join the site's email list if they wish to be kept up-to-date with new additions and alterations.
Philtar - philosophy, theology, religion
A useful resource assembled by two UK academics with information on issues within philosophy, theology and religious studies. The Theology material is organised into two sections: one on the Bible and the other on Church History and Theology. As for the Religion section, entries are organised under these sub-headings: Trans Cultural Religions, Regional Religions, Science and Religion, and the there is a link to an on-line Encyclopedia of Religion.
Cross-cutting themes
Statistics on religious adherence
Adherents.com was created in 1999 Preston Hunter. It provides statistical information on religious groups or organizations around the globe. The site is easily navigable and may be searched by either geographic location or religious affiliation. It also gives detailed information on various sects and denominations within a faith, their distribution, the number of adherents, the percentage of the population, and (when available) the number of congregations or churches. The source information is provided for each entry and often a link to the referring page for electronically published data. There is also a limited amount of historical data available.
National statistics, census 2001, ethnicity and religion
This site provides data gathered by the 2001 UK national census and gives useful information about the UK population in terms of its ethnic and religious composition. You can also look at data on 'ethnic group by religion' as well as 'religion by ethnic group'. Links are provided to statistics concerning issues such as the income levels of different religious and ethnic groups, as well as crime risk levels.
Festivals and religious days
The left hand column - 'religious calendars on-line' - enables you to choose from series of resources. The first one, produced by City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, is very good and can be printed off as a wall chart. However, it does not indicate which days need to be 'no work days' for members of different traditions. Go to 'Faiths Calendar 2004' to find the resource produced by the East of England Faiths Council to find this information. A calendar of religious festivals can be ordered from the website 'The Shap Calendar of Religious Festivals'. There is also the Shap publication 'Festivals in World Religions'. The right hand column of the website is also worth your attention - 'religious resources online'.
Religious freedom, racial equality and human rightsCarnegie council on ethics and international affairs
This website provides sophisticated in depth material with essays written by experts on human rights and ethics topics. There is a search engine that you can use to search for issues relevant to cultural and religious diversity. Founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1941 its aim was to work towards world peace, a strong component of which was a greater understanding of cultural and religious issues.
Commission for racial equality
This is part of the website of the UK government's Commission for Racial Equality. This link will take you to a page entitled 'research' where there are a list of links to websites that are focussed upon racial and cultural issues in the UK. Here you can find a link to CASBAH (Caribbean Studies: Black and Asian History) which looks at the history of Black and Asian community in Britain, as well as the Anti-racist Toolkit for Higher Education Institutions, produced by the University of Leeds.
This site is produced niace (National Institute of Adult Continuing Education) on the subject of 'excluded groups'. A number of the links are concerned with adult education amongst ethnic minorities in the UK, including: 'engaging black learners in adult and community education', 'working with Asian heritage communities' and 'light and shade'. These links take you to details of publications available for purchase, but will be of interest to many. However, there is also downloadable material available. Search for 'cultural diversity day' in the search engine and details will appear including a downloadable 'cultural diversity guide'. Also search for 'Black Practitioners and Learners Network' to find details of their website, which is hosted by niace.
Age
This briefing sheet is produced by niace (National Institute of Adult Continuing Education) with the aim of promoting the learning needs of older people from black and minority ethnic communities to education practitioners, policy makers, managers and funders, and to older people themselves.
The National Youth Agency supports those involved in young people's personal and social development and works to enable all young people to fulfil their potential within a just society.
We achieve this by:
- Supporting those working with young people in a variety of settings;
- Influencing and shaping youth policy and improving youth services;
- Promoting young people's participation, influence and place in society;
- improve and extend youth services and youth work;
- enhance and demonstrate youth participation in society; and
- promote effective youth policy and provision.
We provide resources to improve work with young people and its management; create and demonstrate innovation in services and methods; support the leadership of organisations to manage change; influence public perception and policy; and secure standards of education and training for youth work. (From the NYA website)
This website has been produced by the British Council with the aim of building mutual understanding, learning and respect between young people from diverse cultural backgrounds in the UK and abroad. They have conducted research which has canvassed young people between the ages of 15 and 25 in nine countries about their perceptions of the UK and aspirations for the future. Some of the results are available to download. Details of projects and events are also listed.
Cultural diversityThis is a BBC site that offers articles on different religious and ethnic communities living in London, including: Arabic, Bangladeshi, Brazilian, Chinese and Ethiopian. You can also look at communities by religion.
Gender
This site comes from the Women's Studies Section (WSS) of the Association of College and Research Libraries, USA, and provides an annotated list of links to websites relating to women in religion, feminist theology and the feminine divine. It is divided into 'general sites', 'Buddhism', 'Judaism', 'Christianity', 'Islam' and 'other traditions'.
Internet sacred text archive, women and religion
This is part of the 'Sacred Texts' website with links specifically to women centered texts.
Hartford institute for religious research, women and religion
This website on 'Women and Religion' is produced by the 'Hartford Institute for Religious Research' in the USA. It contains articles and research reports on the topic of women in religion, as well as links to other academic sites on women and religion.
Wabash Institute for teaching and learning in theology and religion, women and religion
This site is produced by the 'Wabash Institute for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion' in the USA. This is a comprehensive academic site split into different sections: syllabi, e-texts, e-journals, websites and bibliographies. If you click on 'guide home' then you will be taken to the main Wabash site with a massive collection resources on religion more generally.
Social science information gateway', women and religion
This is a link to the 'Social Science Information Gateway', UK, to resources on Women and Religion. SOSIG is a site which provides links to internet resources that have been vetted by experts in the field.
Ethics
This BBC website provides an introduction to a range of contemporary ethical issues including same sex marriage, ethics of war, euthanasia, human cloning, genetic engineering, designer babies and abortion. Each issue is discussed from a range of perspectives including religious attitudes.
This website provides links to short articles from the Canadian Medical Association Journal dealing with the attitudes of different religious traditions towards bioethics issues.
Food and alcohol
Taboo table offerings: the intricacies of intercultural menu planning
This short article looks briefly at different food customs in Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, the Mormon faith and Catholicism.
This website is produced by the Victoria Government, Australia, and looks at the relationship between food, culture and religion. At the bottom of the page there is a link to an article that looks at food and celebrations from different cultural traditions.
Dress
The costumer's manifesto, ethnic costumes and textile links
This is a massive website (produced by a PhD student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks) that has information about dress customs in a range of cultures including Africa, Asia, Australia, the Middle East and South America.
Rites of passage
The sacred site, rights of passage
This website has been produced by the Australian Broadcasting Association and gives links to web resources on rites of passages within different traditions. This site is also worth a browse for broader subjects related to religion.
The department of education and skills
This is part of the website of the UK Government's Department of Schools, Children and Families. It is intended as a scheme of work for school teachers looking at rites of passage in different religious traditions and provides straightforward, unbiased information.
This is part of the larger beliefnet.com website that provides links to articles looking at 'life events' within different religious and cultural traditions. It includes information on adoption rites, baptism, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, circumcision, coming of age, confirmation and pregnancy.
This UK based wedding website takes a look at weddings in different religious traditions, including Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Greek Orthodox, Muslim and Quaker.
This is part of the weddingguideUK.com website and provides information on weddings in different cultural and religious traditions.
Ask Ginka wedding and party guide, religions
This wedding site provides information on weddings in different traditions Ask Ginka is a wedding and party guide launched in 2000, and run by Janice Murray, which aims to give information on customs and religion that may be of use when planning an event. Two sections in the top navigation bar are of interest: pick a religion and pick a nationality. She has links to sites of interest (not all wedding related) about different nationalities and religions.
Migration
The 'Moving Here' website is funded by the New Opportunities Fund and is published in collaboration with The National Archives. It provides resources on immigration to England during the last two hundred years, concentrating on four main immigrant groups: Caribbean, Jewish, Irish and South Asian roots. It makes use of a range of resources, including photographs, personal papers, government documents, maps, and audio and video clips. There is a search engine and also two 'Histories Galleries': Migration Histories and Tracing Your Roots. The first provides information on each migrant group, looking at the reasons why people emigrated, and the patterns of settlement in England. The second provides information on undertaking genealogical research, with separate sections that look at how to research Caribbean, Jewish, Irish and South Asian immigrants' family trees. The site also includes a growing range of stories of people's experiences of moving to England.
This page was originally on the website of The Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies. It was transfered here following the closure of the Subject Centre at the end of 2011.
