Pedagogies of piety: Comparing young observant Muslims and Christians in the Netherlands

In this article, I compare the active religious engagement found among many of today's young Dutch Muslims and Christians. I show that such comparison requires a move beyond the separate frameworks through which these groups are commonly perceived, found both in widely shared public discourses (‘allochthons’ versus ‘autochthons’) and in academic research (minority studies versus the sociology of religion). In their stead, this comparative analysis examines in what ways both groups give shape to observant religious practice in the shared context of contemporary Dutch society. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, I show that young Christians as well as Muslims participate in social settings of religious pedagogy, where they are encouraged to attain, sustain and improve personal piety in today's pluralist Dutch society. Such social participation does not preclude, but rather comes together with a strong emphasis on reflexivity and authenticity.     

A TALE OF TWO CONTROVERSIES: COMMENT

Abstract. The educational controversies that Martin Eger discusses regarding moral education and the teaching of "creationism" arise from taking a single aspect of moral education and making it the whole, and from taking a single aspect of scientific work and assuming that it is the whole. The distinction between teaching science as application and teaching it as education is crucial in confronting these problems.     

Focus on clinical psychology postgraduate training: Taking the curriculum into the next decade

Abstract: Clinical psychology, like many applied disciplines, often suffers from a lack of congruence between best‐practice in terms of pedagogy and evidence‐based practice and the actual structure and content of training programs. A small but growing international literature addresses such issues. A small group of researchers from five Australian Universities, led by a team at the University of Queensland, has received grant money over two years to examine and offer constructive strategies for revising and revitalising the clinical psychology training curriculum in Australia, with reference to international pedagogy and training standards.     

Teaching critical psychology of ‘race’ issues: problems in promoting anti‐racist practice

The aim of this paper is to illustrate the difficulties faced by teachers of issues related to ‘race’ and racism in psychology when trying to develop anti‐racist practice in their teaching. I argue that the promotion of anti‐racist practice can be impeded by the institutionalised cultures of some psychology departments and that such cultures have developed out of an over‐reliance on positivist ideas. Positivism obscures the fact that knowledge is constructed from positions of power and privilege, which in turn obscures the social and ideological construction of ‘race’. This is clearly a problem when trying to develop anti‐racist practice in teaching. It also leads to fixed ideas about what should be included in teaching content and what can be considered as good pedagogical practice, where notions of ‘balance’ and ‘neutrality’ are advocated, effectively overriding arguments for understanding the dynamics of knowledge production. It also obscures the power and privilege associated with workings of ‘whiteness’. I illustrate this by presenting examples from my own experiences of teaching ‘race’ issues on undergraduate degree courses. I conclude with suggestions for developing anti‐racist teaching by proposing a collective reflexive approach to changing institutional cultures that are currently at odds with anti‐racist practice. I also invite further discussion and suggestions on how best to achieve such collective conscientisation. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Class in the Classroom: Engaging Hidden Identities

Using Marcuse's theory of the total mobilization of advanced technology society along the lines of what he calls "the performance principle," I attempt to describe the complex composition of class oppression in the classroom. Students conceive of themselves as economic units, customers pursuing neutral interests in a morally neutral, socio-economic system of capitalist competition. The classic, unreflective conception of the classroom responds to this by implicitly endorsing individualism and ideals of humanist citizenship. While racism and cultural diversity have come to count as elements of liberal intelligence in most college curricula, attempts to theorize these aspects of social and individual identity and place them in a broader content of class appear radical and inconsistent with the humanistic notion that we all have control over who we are and what we achieve. But tags such as "radical" and "unrealistic" mark a society based on the performance principle. Marcuse allows us to recognize a single author behind elements of psychology, metaphysics, and capitalism. The fact that bell hooks hits upon a similar notion suggests that we might use Marcuse's theory of the truly liberatory potential of imagination to transform and reconceive our classrooms so that the insidious effects of class, racism, and individualistic apathy might be subverted. Specifically, I outline and place into this theoretical context three concrete pedagogical practices: (a) the use of the physical space of the classroom; (b) the performance of community through group readings and short full-class ceremonies, and (c) the symbolic modeling represented by interdisciplinary approaches to teaching. All three of these practices engage students in ways that co-curricularly subvert class (and, incidentally, race divisions) and allow students to imagine, and so engage in, political action for justice as they see it.     

“Educating the Whole Body”: Addressing and Equipping the Imagination in Theological Education

This paper seeks to explore the relationship of the imagination to the processes of integration in theological education. It describes the way in which the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. addresses the imagination. It draws on those insights to summarise an understanding of imagination, particularly how imagination relates to conceptualisation and the naming of God. It then explores the way in which valuing the imagination effects pedagogy in pastoral theology. In conclusion, it names what might be involved in creating an environment in theological education that values and encourages the imagination.     

幼儿教育名家思想给多元智能教育的启示

首先扼要阐述西方和中国各五位幼儿教育名家的背境,继而指出这些名家有那些关于潜能开展的主张,而这些主张若能得以承传,有望丰富实践多元智能教育关于“因才施教”这理想的内涵。最后从加德纳(Howard Gardner)对元智能的定义,总结学校欲实践多元智能教育所应具备的前提,以及设计教育活动时所遵从的四大教育原理。     

Teaching about Christianity: a configurative review of research in English schools

This article presents a systematic review of empirical research on teaching about Christianity in state schools in England between 1993 and 2013. First, I explain the background to this religion’s current place within English religious education. The value of a configurative review is set out, and inclusion criteria are outlined, leading to the selection of 58 publications. Then the article’s theoretical frame is explained, drawing on activity theory, and the analysis is set out under three broad organising principles: (1) Teachers’ professional and pedagogical intentions; (2) How teachers draw on different pedagogical strategies to enact these intentions, for example systematic or thematic approaches; and (3) How these intentions and strategies affect pupil learning, such as pupils’ conceptions of difficult topics. The implications for research in religious education are then drawn together, notably the need to consider the pedagogical issues for different religions individually.