This book is important for three reasons. First, Catholic schools (as the book explains) constitute a very large number of schools both world-wide and in the UK. No comprehensive account of education can omit reference to their distinctive contribution to education as a whole. Second, that contribution is increasingly challenged externally by those who see the very nature of faith-based schools to undermine the integrating nature of schooling in diverse and multicultural societies. 'We should be supporting the 'common school''. Third, the nature of that contribution is increasingly challenged from within the Catholic Church as the curriculum and the teaching need to take account of the cultural influences impinging on the lives of its pupils.The book - careful, systematic and well-informed - deals with each of these challenges. It is both philosophically and theologically of high quality.

It deserves to be read by all those who govern and teach in Catholic schools, and by those who question their very existence in an increasingly hostile world.