Reflective practice and work-based research: a description of micro- and macro-reflective cycles

The role and importance of reflective practice have been thoroughly documented and its benefits are well established. When coupled with research in a higher education context, a similar importance for reflection can be extended to professional development, leadership, and work-based learning. However, the relation of reflective practice to work-based research, specifically when defined as an element of methodology in higher degree research awards, has yet to be fully examined. In this paper, we explore the basic principles of reflective practice as they relate to work-based learning and highlight the interfaces or ‘bridges’ between reflective cycles, showing their centrality to work-based research. As an example of how these principles might be applied, we also introduce the role of each micro- and macro-reflective cycle in the Professional Studies program at University of Southern Queensland, a relatively new academic approach which utilises both work-based learning and work-based research.     

Critical reflections on postgraduate andragogy from the points of view of a Kenyan student and an Australian academic

In this paper, we use Critical Reflective Practice to give voice to the experience of a Kenyan teacher who travelled to Australia to undertake advanced coursework in leadership and inclusive education studies. It also reflects upon an Australian academic as she tries to be more culturally responsive in her andragogy when teaching, supervising and mentoring postgraduate international students. We use reflective practices over an extended period to lessen the power imbalance between them as academic supervisor and postgraduate student. This eventually allowed for the student to teach and the academic to learn; and together we here shed light on what it is like to study and teach within an Australian university that annually enrols 6000 students from more than 100 countries around the globe.     

Heaven on Earth: The Mind Uploading Project as Secular Eschatology

This paper addresses the greatest aspiration of the transhumanist movement: achieving immortal life through a procedure known as mind uploading. This procedure consists in keeping our minds fully and indefinitely operative after death by transferring them to a non-biological substrate that allows man to be liberated from his bodily confinement. My main thesis is that the mind uploading project presupposes a secular eschatology, consummating the Promethean utopia according to which human beings could redeem themselves, expelling God definitively from their existential horizon. On this basis, the paper offers meaningful contrasts between the uploading as secular eschatology and the Christian tradition.     

Reiki as surrender: evidence of an external authority

In this article I explore the concept of surrender and its significance for Reiki practitioners. Reiki is a hands-on healing method with roots in spiritual practice. The term ‘surrender’ has been emphasised, not always explicitly, by Reiki practitioners in Britain. I posit that surrender within the Reiki context is indicative of an external authority and source of significance. This contributes to previous literature regarding internal self-authority or non-formative social authority and shows that an external authority provides a third form of influence for practitioners. I explicate the idea of surrender and demonstrate that the object of that surrender, understood as reiki energy, has agency and that the power of this agency is operationalised through authority. In effect, surrender illuminates a consideration of reiki as an agential external authority which is legitimised through practice and training, allowing for new forms of a transformed identity and a sense of freedom and autonomy from hegemonic discourses.     

Diverse identities in Christ according to Paul: the enduring influence of the work of William S. Campbell

Abstract

Unlike previous scholarship that asserted that in places where Jewish and gentile identities conflicted, Jewish traditions and practices had to give way to gentile ones, Campbell’s work sets forth the proposition that Paul envisioned side-by-side, diverse identities expressing themselves in unity. Thus, in Campbell’s reading Paul made room for missional activity to both Jews and gentiles, affirming Peter’s work as well as his own. Furthermore, Campbell shifted the conversation from an opposition between Jews and gentiles in the early church to the challenges of forming early Christ-followers’ identity in the face of the pervasive influence of the Roman empire. Although Campbell’s emphasis on Paul’s Jewish identity seems to place him among the New Perspective on Paul scholars, he recognises that Paul’s own identity was not his primary focus in his letters – the in-Christ gentile identities of the new communities was. This emphasis of Campbell’s work moves him beyond the less nuanced approaches of scholars such as Sanders and Dunn. A significant part of Campbell’s work has been to discuss the relationship between Israel and the emerging Christ movement. He concludes that neither Jewish nor gentile identities are obliterated, nor is gentile Christianity absorbed into or a replacement for Israel. Instead, gentile Christ followers are accepted into God’s people as gentiles, alongside Jews and Jewish Christ followers. William Campbell has been instrumental both within the Paul within Judaism movement, but also in pushing for nuanced and innovative developments stemming from that body of work. His past work commands respect and his future work is highly anticipated.     

Cultivating Christians: North American family cultures and religious identity formation

North American Christian families face many challenges as they try to live faithfully in an intercultural, multi-religious, secularising world, particularly with regard to the formation of religious identity in children. Answering the question of how children become Christian is more complicated today than it was for previous generations because adults cannot assume that the Christian vestiges of a civil religion will be sufficient to help children embrace a robust sense of themselves as God’s beloved and called people in a divinely created world. Thus, this essay explores what social science research and theological reflection might offer religious leaders as frameworks and tools for encouraging family cultures that cultivate young Christians, focusing particularly on strategies for sharing religious language, communicating beliefs and values, modelling spiritual practices, encountering symbolic images, and participating in congregational life.     

Solitude among contemplative cloistered nuns and monks: conceptualisation,coping and benefits of spiritually motivated solitude

There are rising perceptions and concerns about social isolation and the prevalence of loneliness in Western societies and their negative impact on people’s psychological well-being. We report on an ethnographic study conducted in two Catholic contemplative monasteries in Spain, focusing on the nuns’ and monks' voluntary search for solitude. Through in-depth interviews we aimed to explore their conceptualisation and experiences of solitude, the motivations behind their spiritual quest for it, and the benefits and challenges that this choice entailed. An extraordinary human template of searching for solitude emerged: although they lived communally (they were not alone), they actively avoided intimacy and closeness with other members of the community (they strove to feel alone out of their own volition). Human solitude was seen as the necessary condition for achieving perfect closeness with God and was interpreted not as leading to isolation but as a channel to communicate more intimately with God.     

Between God and self: exploring the attachment to God and authenticity/inauthenticity tendencies of South African Christian youths

The paper explores the relationship between attachment to God (AG) and authenticity/inauthenticity among Christian youths in relation to a range of socio-demographic variables. Cross-sectional data were collected from 100 South African Christian youths using measures of AG and authenticity/inauthenticity. The correlation results reveal that feelings of insecurity in terms of having anxiety in a relationship with God is positively related to self-alienation (feeling out of touch with oneself) and accepting external influences (conforming to the standards and expectations of others), but negatively correlated to authentic living (being in tune with one’s self). Feelings of insecurity in terms of avoidant God-attachment was also related to self-alienation. In addition, demographic differences were observed for gender and church denomination. These results suggest that insecurity with God may either be linked to feelings of authenticity or self-estrangement among Christian youths and have broad implications, both for clinical usage and further cross-cultural research.     

A reflection on learning crafts as a practice for self-development

This paper represents a reflection on craft as a process that stimulates self-development. Central to this approach is the perception of craft, not as a means of production, but as an exercise of relating to the world. The paper suggests that through the dialogue between the mind, body and environment craft practitioners experience a particular form of connection with the world that reshapes their perceptual and conceptual understanding of it. Rather than following an ego-driven tendency to control, a craftsperson is exposed to modes of ‘knowing’ and ‘being’ that embrace the inherent uncertainty of a complex world. The learning experience of a novice (lead author) demonstrates such a course of development in this paper. In particular, the liminal space that needs to be created for the dialogue between the self and the non-self is explored. This personal narrative is woven together with the experience of craft masters within different social contexts and value systems (from traditional to modern to postmodern) and their views on the process of being and becoming a craftsperson.     

Context-based variations in EFL teachers’ reflection: the case of public schools versus private institutes in Iran

The aim of the present study was twofold: examining the effect of contextual differences on the degree of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ involvement in reflection and exploring context-related factors that may help/hinder the reflection process. A mixed-methods quantitative-qualitative procedure was adopted. Eighty-five Iranian EFL teachers (41 teaching in public schools and 44 working in private language institutes) completed the English-language teaching reflection inventory developed by Akbari, Behzadpour, and Dadvand (2010 Akbari, R., Behzadpoor, F., &; Dadvand, B. (2010). Development of english language teaching reflection inventory. System, 38, 211–227.10.1016/j.system.2010.03.003[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), with 10 of the participants attending a follow-up interview too. The results of multiple sets of independent samples t-tests showed that teachers in the private sector reported significantly more active involvement in lower levels of reflection (i.e. practical, cognitive, and affective reflection), while no measurable difference was detected between the two groups in terms of higher levels of reflection (i.e. metacognitive and critical reflection). Analysis of the interview data further revealed that teachers’ involvement in reflection was influenced by five main context-specific factors namely, knowledge of reflection, institutional demands, teachers’ attitude toward teaching, availability of resources, and collegial support. The implications of the findings for educational policymakers and teacher educators were discussed and suggestions were provided for future research.