MODELING THE COSMOS: TRANSFORMATIVE PEDAGOGY IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

This article reflects on the classroom pedagogy promoted by Christopher Southgate and its implications for the science–theology conversation. It highlights several important aspects of Southgate's pedagogy. The use of models of God, humanity, and cosmos emphasize relationality while encouraging the synthesizing of ideas. The promotion of holism in theological reflection is vital for nurturing students to become theologians themselves through the active reevaluation of key doctrines and ideas. An emphasis on ethical considerations reinforces synthesis between theology, science, and ethics, and is vital for perspective transformation. These aspects of Southgate's teaching should be recognized as vital for promoting intellectual independence, partnership, and theological transformation, all of which are essential to good science and theology pedagogy.     

Grouping of Pupils in Secondary School Classrooms: Possible Links between Pedagogy and Learning

Pupil groupings within classrooms are a constant social pedagogic factor which effect participation and learning. The grouping of pupils provides a dynamic relationship between learning tasks and the classroom context within which learning takes place. This paper explores types of pupil groupings found in secondary school classrooms related to themes of group size and composition, learning task, group interaction and teacher presence. The paper questions how classroom groupings may be related to the circumstances that promote or inhibit school learning. Previous studies concerning classroom grouping in secondary schools have been dominated by ability or attainment level of the child. The approach and review presented in this study advances a new and more extensive understanding of social pedagogic activity within classrooms. Empirically, a novel classroom “mapping” method with follow-up questions for teachers was used to identify within-class grouping characteristics of children aged 12 and 15 years (in school Years 7 and 10), across curriculum subjects (English, mathematics, science and humanities) in secondary schools. Maps were drawn for 250 classrooms and explained by teachers from 47 schools in England. Results identified that a variety of groupings were found in most classes. Use of particular groupings related to phase of lesson and, to some extent, curriculum. The results showed: little pedagogic association with learning task or interaction; teacher presence associated with control of knowledge; and group composition dominated by stereotypical adolescent friendships. Discussion considers the social pedagogic potential of grouping (with regard to relational capital), control of knowledge and social structure of the classroom attributed to the teacher, and patterns of grouping that may be associated with polarisation in the classroom. *Research reported was part of the GRIS (The Nature and Use of Within Class Groupings in Secondary Schools) project funded by the ESRC, grant number R000238172.     

Transformations: The World Religions Survey through an Adjunct Feminist Lens

This essay describes a transformation in my experience as an adjunct teaching underprepared students from one of shame toward a desire to assert the value of this work. Insights from my feminist theological training helped me to affirm the importance of encouraging transformative learning in teaching the academically marginalized and prompted my analysis of student writing in an introductory World Religions course, in order to determine whether or not the course was a site of transformative learning. I argue that despite many contextual limitations, the movement toward deepening self‐awareness and increasing openness to religious diversity seen in student writing demonstrates that transformative learning began in this course, and that is valuable for students' lives whether or not they are academically successful.     

Professional Training in Applied Psychology: Towards a Signature Pedagogy for Forensic Psychology Training

Forensic Psychology is a recognised and important sub‐specialty of the Psychology discipline. However, after an expansion in the number of training places that were offered when programmes were first developed, recent years have seen these diminish in response to changes in university policies, resulting from reformulated Federal government funding models. In this article, we argue that it is important for the future of specialist areas of professional psychology to not only articulate the core skills and competencies that are associated with specialist practice but also to develop unique and distinctive approaches to teaching and learning signature pedagogies. Based on the premise that forensic psychological practice is, indeed, a distinctive activity that requires different skills and, importantly, different ways of thinking about the work from other areas of professional psychology, it is suggested that professional training in this area should aim to develop a signature pedagogy which combines methods of teaching and learning that have been developed in legal training programmes with principles of problem‐based learning.     

AFFECTED BY NATURE: A HERMENEUTICAL TRANSFORMATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

The value‐action gap poses a considerable challenge to normative environmental ethics. Because of the wide array of empirical research results that have become available in the fields of environmental psychology, education, and anthropology, ethicists are at present able to take into account insights on what effectively motivates proenvironmental behavior. The emotional aspect apparently forms a key element within a transformational process that leads to an internalization of nature within one's identity structure. We compare these findings with studies on environmental activists, which appear to a significantly lesser degree hampered by the value‐action gap, thereby attempting to understand what provides them with the drive to act more consistently on their moral attitudes. Hermeneutics is found to play a crucial role in the processes that lead to lasting and consistent motivation toward proenvironmental behavior. An empirically informed hermeneutical approach could therefore provide a promising impetus for contemporary environmental ethics.     

The creativity-spirituality construct and its role in transformative coping

The present study examines whether and to what extent creativity and spirituality are used in coping in a cross-cultural and cross-denominational student sample of 610 participants. Two new theory-based instruments, displaying good internal consistency and satisfactory levels of content-, and construct validity, are introduced, the Creative Coping Scale-19 (CCS-19), and the Spiritual Coping Scale-30 (SCS-30). A positive, moderate relationship between creative and spiritual coping emerged, thus supporting the theory of transformative coping. The findings demonstrated that participants applied both creative and spiritual coping in their lives in order to deal with acute and chronic stress. Associations between creative and spiritual coping and demographic variables were outlined. Practical applications for the promotion of mental health were discussed. Future research should seek to replicate and extend the present findings.     

From Civic Engagement to Circles of Grace: Mid‐Range Reflection on Teaching for Global Citizenship

The course “Empowering Youth for Global Citizenship” seeks to equip students to teach global citizenship by engaging them in practices of ascetic withdrawal from consumer habits and active engagement in the public sphere. These goals underlie the design of the assignments, but should have also shaped the relationship between the assignments themselves. This article addresses the issue of course design in the service of empowering students for engagement in the public sphere by reflecting upon the course assignments, with emphasis on a project that worked well, and the implications this has for its relationship to the other course assignments, including one that missed the mark. The exploration of this misalignment between the learning goals and actual outcomes of the different assignments brings to light the unique role of learning communities of accountability and acceptance in deepening the impact of assignments aimed at personal transformation, as well as the rich dynamic that can come from coordinating course assignments to bring “head, heart, and hands” together.     

Leverage Points,Paradigms, and Grounded Action: Intervening in Educational Systems

This article discusses connections between grounded action, leverage points, and paradigm transformation and transcendence. Part one provides background on Meadows' (1999) Meadows, D. H. 1999. Leverage points: Places to intervene in a system, The Sustainability Institute. www.sustainabilityinstitute.org/pubs/Leverage_Points.pdf (Accessed 22 June, 2006) [Google Scholar] approach to leverage points as well as the concept of paradigms. Part two argues that grounded action is inherently suited for leverage points analysis and paradigm-based interventions. Part three offers an example of individual paradigm transformation in the educational context vis-à-vis Olson's (2006) Olson, M. M. 2006. Driven Succeeding—The serpentine path of adult learning: A grounded action study in adult education, Ed.D. dissertation Fielding Graduate University.  [Google Scholar] grounded theory of driven succeeding. The article concludes with considerations of how the application of grounded action in one classroom might leverage system-wide paradigm transformation.     

The ‘Matchbox School’ (1927–1932): Anna Freud and the idea of a ‘psychoanalytically informed education’∗

Of all the applications of psychoanalysis to various fields, perhaps none has been as important – or as fraught – as the application of psychoanalytic insights to education. This paper re-constructs some of the early debates around psychoanalysis and pedagogy that Anna Freud engaged with during the 1920s in Vienna, when the whole question of what education should be became a central issue for politicians, pedagogues and psychoanalysts alike. The paper focuses on the period leading up to the creation of the so-called ‘Matchbox School’, operating under Anna Freud's guidance between 1927 and 1932, and describes the influence of pioneers such as Seigfried Bernfeld and August Aichhorn. Compared to her more well-known work at the Hampstead War Nurseries during the Second World War, Anna Freud's involvement with this earlier educational experiment is relatively neglected. Yet one can argue that this short-lived project not only laid the foundation for much of Anna Freud's later work; it also had some far-reaching consequences, both for psychoanalysis and for the practice of progressive education.