Religious Literacy Series

As people increasingly interact with individuals from different faith traditions at work, in school and throughout their communities, interest in religious literacy is growing. That growing interest was evident at the Boniuk Institute's 2026 Religious Literacy Series, which this year welcomed 82 educators, nonprofit professionals, museum staff and community leaders from across the Houston area. Through lectures, discussions and interactive teaching modules, participants explored the beliefs, symbols and cultural contexts of major world religions while discussing how those insights can be applied in classrooms, workplaces and communities.

This one-day professional development opportunity for educators and community-facing professionals seeks to better understand how religion shapes contemporary life, and is centered on the play of symbols, exploring how religious meaning is communicated and contested across contexts--from classrooms and workplaces to media and global public discourse.

The Boniuk Institute's annual Educator Professional Development program for secondary school educators and student-facing professionals offers instruction and training to deepen content knowledge of different religions for successful incorporation in classrooms, creating awareness, and enabling teachers to more confidently include and address the role of world religion in their classroom subject matter or student-facing discussion.

Each spring, the Boniuk Institute presents its online Educator Professional Development for secondary social studies educators. Participants receive training in basic religious literacy and TEKS-aligned resources, which creates awareness and enables them to more confidently include and address the role of religion in their classroom subject matter. Participating educators received continuing education credits at the completion of this series.

Online professional development course for secondary social studies and ELAR teachers will engage local and global topics in religion, explored through history, geography, culture, and the arts more broadly designed for inclusion of world religions. Themes include celebrations of pluralism in religion and music, religion and museum arts, as well as challenges to pluralism in religion and war (ukraine) and antisemitism; with additional sessions on teaching about the Bible and exploring the Texas social studies standards rewriten process under SB3.