Religious and Spiritual Diversity in K-12 Schools

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>K-12 educators are called to understand, value, and respond to students’ cultural backgrounds when supporting students’ healthy development. Religion and spirituality reflect critical aspects of human diversity that impact school-aged students’ development, yet school personnel may erroneously retreat from responding to students’ religious and spiritual worldviews due to political concerns, a misinterpretation of state and federal laws, personal beliefs, and possessing limited knowledge and skills to address students’ needs. Failing to address matters related to students’ religiosity and spirituality is problematic, given that students and families will have various religious and spiritual beliefs that inform how they perceive and interact with the world around them. Furthermore, in a global, pluralistic society interacting with people from different religious and spiritual and nonreligious and nonspiritual backgrounds is inevitable. Individuals may experience various levels of comfort and tolerance when navigating religious and spiritual diversity in public institutions, including schools, because religiosity and spirituality are often identified as deeply personal and sacred phenomena. This book is designed to help K-12 teachers, administrators, and related service personnel (e.g., school mental health providers) respond to religious and spiritual diversity in K-12 schools when providing academic, social, emotional, and behavioral support for school-aged youth.</jats:p>