This study assists educators in conducting an inquiry into the very purposes and values of an education intended to shape students to be citizens of the United States and informed participants in global matters. To this end, the project researchers will describe the various ways in which teachers, school boards and administrators understand the nature and purpose of teaching about religion, evaluate the extent to which teachers provide accurate understanding of religious ideas, and probe the concepts of citizenship implicit in these courses. The role courses in religion could play in public education in the United States will be assessed.

The project's goal is to enable Fudan University's School of Philosophy to establish philosophy of education as a discipline in China and to philosophically inform Chinese educational research and policy. Fudan is working to shape a scholarly tradition in China, a new philosophy of education, one that will have its own association, journals, and graduate program.