Talk:Christian school/Archive 1

UK
evidence for the "virtual" similarity of christian influenced schools to non-denominational schools is required. From my experience, the empahasis on Christian teaching (especially in RE) was quite prevalent. - —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.198.214.200 (talk • contribs) 02:00, 25 September 2009

Teaching of evolution
The term "scientific community", as with many other such generalizations, should be understood to be just that, a generalization presumed by an author. Many people doing scientific work, and holding legitimate scientific educational degrees, may well not consider evolution (another ambiguous term) to be as supported by objective scientific evidence as the probability that there must have been design involved, for example. To say that a school which does not embrace evolution without question is poorer that one that discourages consideration of the facts would seem to reflect a rather unscientific bias. - —Preceding unsigned comment added by SenorBez (talk • contribs) 21:09, 7 August 2010

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Merge discussion
The term "parochial schools" may refer to the sum of all Christian and Jewish schools in a city. It is appropriate to call Jewish schools parochial but not Christian. This is why the articles should be separate. I understand there is a regionalism aspect to this. Someone living in an area with few Catholics and many Protestants would probably just use the term "Christian." But the meaning is not equivalent like soda vs. pop.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 19:39, 4 February 2019 (UTC)


 * Jewish schools are of course not Christian, but they are not parochial, either. Given that Jews and many Protestant denominations don't have parishes at all, it is peculiar to use "parochial" to refer to religious schools in general. I normally hear it used about Catholic schools, though I suppose in principle it would make sense for Orthodox Christian, Episcopalian, etc. schools (because those denominations have parishes). It's true that there are people who call Jewish schools "parochial schools", on the other hand, I don't think evangelical schools are ever called that, so it's not suitable for religious schools in general. The general term is something like "religious school" or "sectarian school". --Macrakis (talk) 21:21, 4 February 2019 (UTC)


 * That the name in the US is due to Catholics--there can be no doubt about that. I am of the vague understanding that some Lutherans have sometimes used the parish system, although not typically anymore. It is like Kleenex being a brand name but being used to refer to all brands of facial tissue due to ubiquity. In English speaking countries, the largest systems of religious-institution-based schools are Catholic, Episcopalian/Anglican, or Lutheran. Due to the lack of Catholics/Lutherans in the American South, the term parochial is not used there so much, hence the regionalism of the term. Complicating manners for Jews, many Jewish places of worship are called "shul"--which is Yiddish for school. In general Jews do not expect Gentiles to know the names of their systems, so they are not offended (as best I know) by having their schools be considered "parochial" as a generalization when talking about all the "parochial" schools in a city. In the same was with evangelicals and their schools, they are not offended if their schools are referred to in general as parochial. In the specific sense there is probably no reason to use the term, and they may have their own term.


 * For example, denominationally, Reformed schools often end with the word "Academy" and more generally American Protestant school names end in the word "school" or "Christian school." But "parochial" does not compete with these terms because relatively few schools have the word parochial in their title. (Parish is more common, though.) Rather, "parochial" us usually used to qualify the meaning of the word school, not as part of a title. So the schools you are thinking of are not called parochial individually because that is not part of the name. And except in the American South, at least some of the schools in any given area will most likely be Catholic, and by law are treated the same as the Catholic schools. So if a newspaper says, "Parochial schools..." in the headline, it is referring to all of the place-of-worship-run schools.


 * Parochial has more positive connotations than "private" because the governance of a "parochial" school is expected to be community based, legitimating its authority. The problem with calling it a "religious school" is that it does a lot more than religion, and in some cases parochial schools do relatively little with religion. I am of the understanding that some religions have fairly extensive schools for just religious purposes, and there is a desire to avoid confusion with, say, a Madressa or a once-a-week Hebrew school. "Sectarian school" is definitely correct, but it has the most negative connotation of them all except for legal terminology uses, because in everyday speech, sect is like a cult or schismatic group. Private is more negative in connotation than parochial due to the exclusivity implied, unless of course you are so wealthy that it justifies the exclusivity. Hence parochial is preferred... other positive connotation names are "Christian," "Jewish," "Catholic," etc, but "parochial school" is more broad, being synonymous with a 5-day a week place-of-worship run school that teaches mostly secular subjects.


 * Maybe another analogy would be the word "parishioner" which is often used synonymously with "congregant." Obviously the term originated with churches that have parishes, and then like Kleenex became a ubiquitous non-pejorative term.


 * I can see where there is controversy on this. Besides the regionalism factor, sometimes people who are suspicious of parochial schools insist on using the term private, and people who are suspicious of public schools use the term "government schools" as a pejorative.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 19:25, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Oppose: I do not know how the term "parochial school" is used informally in different parts of the United States, but properly speaking, a parochial school is one that is run by a parish. After all, "parochial" is just the adjectival form of the noun "parish." There are many (probably most) Christian schools that are not affiliated with any parish even though they belong to some Christian denomination, hence their description as "private." As far as I know, the concept of the parish (in the context of ecclesiastical jurisdiction) is an exclusively Christian concept, so it is even less appropriate to refer to Jewish or other religious schools as parochial. Perhaps this is just a very informal and very incorrect, regional use of the term "parochial school."  Ergo Sum  04:26, 2 May 2019 (UTC)