Results Speak for Themselves

The author has undertaken a narrative inquiry that explores the political and cultural positioning of drama education in the English secondary school. The inquiry also serves as both an experiment in and an argument for the relevance of a storying methodology in educational research. The reader is encouraged through the employment of particular expressionistic features, borrowed from the poetic mode, to enter into reflective conversation with the text. This, the author argues, is an approach to research that not only compliments drama pedagogy through its shared values, but that can be regarded as a continuance or widening of the reflexive conversation that begins in the drama classroom.     

Narrative inquiry and the problem of representation: ‘giving voice’, making meaning

In this article, the author argues that the exploration of alternative forms of research representation can result in new possibilities for making meaning in educational research. Narrative inquiry as a methodology has become established as an approach in education but remains contested in many ways. How we come to an understanding of such research findings and in particular how the issues of voice and representation are resolved are subject to much debate. Here, the author proposes that using fictive methods of representation of research, particularly poetry, can have implications for the ways in which meaning is made and therefore the possible meanings that can be made. Further, this article argues that the poetic form allows for the inclusion of many voices and stories in a non-hierarchical manner, making the author's influence explicit without it being dominant. Researchers have argued for poetic representations of research data as a means to evoke the participants' experience whilst making the author's influence explicit; here, it is argued that poetry can be utilized to provide a fuller representation of the research, placing the voice of the participants, the researcher and the literature on an equal level within the whole story of the research project. This article first details narrative inquiry as a methodological approach and its particular application to educational research before discussing the issues surrounding voice and representation. Subsequently, fictive forms of representation are explored as a means of addressing these issues.     

Mediatising childhood religion: the BBC,John G. Williams and collective worship for schools in England, 1940–1975

As part of its stated mission to Christianise Britain, from its earliest years the BBC broadcast religious programmes intended for a child audience. Directed at sites domestic and educational, these broadcasts constituted a means of the mediatisation of religion for children. This paper explores the work of the pioneer children’s religious broadcaster John G. Williams, the nature and character of childhood religion and its nurture espoused by him whilst at the BBC, and as an educationist in the years following the 1944 Education Act. Setting a close reading of Williams’ views on childhood religion and school worship alongside those of a later critique, from the religious educationist John Hull in his School Worship: An Obituary (1975), this article argues that the differences between these two religious educators illustrate fracture lines occurring between religious education in the home, school and broadcast spaces in the long 1960s. Additionally, the historical evidence presented here provides a nuanced understanding of mediatisation as a process, indicating that other social processes in any national context, for example de-Christianisation in the English one, disrupt media logic. Finally, further research is called for on the historical intersections of religious education, and schools and religious broadcasting, as well as the more recent effects of broadcast collective worship in mediatising religion for children.     

Emerging relationships between religious education and citizenship education: teachers’ perceptions and political dilemmas in Cyprus

This article explores the ways in which a group of primary school teachers in Cyprus interprets the relationship between religious and citizenship education. The contextualisation of the meaning of religious education shows the extent to which social, historical and political elements shape teachers’ perceptions about the entanglements between religious and citizenship education. In particular, the present study reveals two important findings – one concerning the conceptualisation of each school subject and their perceived relationship and the other concerning the contextualisation of this relationship in the cultural and political contexts of Cyprus. The findings also reveal important constraints and political dilemmas for the possible trajectories of ‘religious citizenship education’ in Cyprus. The article discusses the implications for curriculum and policy deliberations, as well as further research on ‘religious citizenship education’ in specific cultural and political settings.     

RE-READING MARTIN BUBER AND JANUSZ KORCZAK: FRESH IMPULSES TOWARD A RELATIONAL APPROACH TO RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 1

With the help of a relational approach to education in general, this article works out the possibilities and chances of a relational approach to religious education in particular. It argues that such an approach can make an important contribution to religious education in a pluralistic world. In education theory, the relational approach is associated above all with the work of Martin Buber (1878–1965). Whereas Buber comes from a philosophical background, another Jewish author begins his educational reflections with detailed observations of children and young people themselves: Janusz Korczak (1875–1942). The works of both Buber and Korczak give major impulses toward a relational understanding of religious education.     

Education and Nationhood in Wales: An Historiographical Analysis

Throughout the centuries, a sense of national identity in Wales has manifested itself in a variety of ways – aspirations to statehood, a unique language, cultural distinctiveness, religious affiliation, sporting achievement and, most recently, political devolution. Educational institutions in myriad forms have reflected aspects of these manifestations and themselves shed some light on their nature. In turn, the historiography of education in Wales is itself a product of national, educational, social and scholarly preoccupations which both reflect the ideas and priorities of the time and shed some light on their nature and significance. It is the purpose of this article to make a preliminary exploration into some of these interactions and, in so doing, provide an introduction to some of the major secondary sources of information on Welsh education. To this end, the article outlines in very general terms outstanding landmarks in those elements of Welsh education since the early modern period which might be claimed to be distinctive and the way in which the historiography reflects and reinforces such claims. Although the article sketches the picture in the centuries from the Tudors to industrialisation, its main thrust, reflecting the historiography, is on the period since the nineteenth century when the England/Wales state took over the financing of the education of its citizens to an ever increasing extent. Within this period, there is particular emphasis on such episodes as the ‘Treason of the Blue Books’ in 1847, the Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889, the ‘Welsh Revolt’ following the Education Act of 1902 and the more subtle but steady devolutionary episodes evident in the twentieth century, culminating in the creation of the National Assembly for Wales in 1999. All have generated a range of secondary works which itself reflects the priorities of historians in a scholarly environment which, since the 1960s, has seen changes in approach to the study of history which have allowed historians of Welsh education to take their place in the mainstream of historical studies.     

Addressing issues of religious difference through values education: an Islam instance

The article’s main focus is on exploring ways in which modern forms of values education are being utilized to address major issues of social dissonance, with special focus on dissonance related to religious difference between students of Islamic and non‐Islamic backgrounds. The article begins by appraising philosophical and neuroscientific research relevant to the underpinning concepts behind such forms of education. It then explores evidence from the federally funded Australian Values Education Program, and its various related research projects, that suggests that values education has potential to impact on a range of educational measures, including those related to enhancing understanding and tolerance across lines of religious difference.     

LOOKING AT PEOPLE AND ASKING "WHY?": AN ETHNOGRAPHIC APPROACH TO RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

This article argues that ethnographic research can provide direction as to both the processes and content of religious education. Crain offers advice on a research method that relies on interviews and focus groups and concludes with clues from her research about how religious education can be more efficacious.     

Between secularism/s: Islam and the institutionalisation of modern higher education in mid-nineteenth century British India

This paper problematises clean distinctions between secular and religious by tracing the history of modern higher education of Muslims in British colonial India. Grounded in the interpretive research tradition and with an empirical focus on the formative mid-nineteenth century, the article argues that relational notions between singular secularism and multiple secularisms best capture this historical trajectory. The institutional imaginary of colonialism constituted a significant milieu that, on the one hand, resulted in British policies in India that were at a tangent to similar developments in England at the time and, on the other, informed Muslim agency in its own institutionalisation of higher education. Muslim educational philosophy, politics and even theology were shaped in a concrete, historical, power-laden context. One of the consequences of this was a peculiar construction of ‘secularism’ in relation to Islam – again, related but at a tangent to the same notion in Europe. With a view on contemporary Pakistan, it is argued that such relational histories must be accounted for if policy and academic discourse is to move beyond largely stale and unhelpful binaries of Islam vs. Western modernity in religious education.     

Yesterday,Today, Tomorrow: reflections on action research and qualitative inquiry[1]

In this article the author argues that the current state of educational inquiry, particularly as it relates to action research and qualitative inquiry, is in high flux. If this were true, several possible implications follow. First is the idea that with this flux all inquiry occurs in a context that is politcial, organisational, and geographical. Second is the need to see local adaptations of action research – origins, structures, variations, and meanings for the participants. Inquirers and practitioners work in these local settings and typically hope to make improvements and reforms there. Third, a historical view seems exceedingly important as one assesses the current situation and looks to the future of action research. Knowing how things ‘were’ facilitates possible visions of the future. Fourth, each of these implications has importance in the breadth or narrowness of the definition(s) of action research, that is, what counts as action research. Finally, working on the belief that most if not all action research is autobiographical, the author carries the argument through a series of autobiographical stories of a particular local endeavor involved in building an action research community. For some, that might be an unusual organisational structure of an article.     

How We Get Somewhere Religiously: Religious Education and Deconversion

Engaging the work of Robert Kegan, Mary C. Boys, and John Caputo, this article explores whether disaffiliation, or more accurately deconversion, might be one possible outcome of successful religious education forming a mature religious consciousness for postmodernity's changing religious landscape. Through a presentation of deconversion literature alongside a trialogue of these developmental, philosophical, and religious educational theories, the article critically and experimentally constructs a religious educational discourse for the changing space we find ourselves in, and suggests deconversion research offers significant theological and practical material for reflection on how we might be getting somewhere religiously.     

COLLABORATING WITH PEOPLE TO STUDY "THE POPULAR": IMPLEMENTING PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH STRATEGIES IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

This article seeks to describe the theoretical foundation upon which the author has pursued research into questions of how religious educators could and should interact with popular culture. The methodology employed is most often labelled "participatory action research," and is used in an attempt to bring together the various disciplines of theology, psychology, media studies, and religious education into one conversation that sheds light on the dilemmas facing religious educators in a mass-mediated context. In many ways the choice of which methodology to use to pursue these questions has its roots in the situatedness of the author's own educational journey. Locating herself in a particular context leads into a discussion of the distinctions between "method," "methodology," and "epistemology"; and from there into a very brief consideration of "standpoint" epistemology and its utility in the convergence of feminist practice and religious educational practice. From there her understanding of participatory action research, and how that methodology has worked to structure a collaboration with other religious educators around the use of media literacy within religious education is explicitly described.     

基于微观史学新视域之教育史研究的传承与超越

通过分析微观史学的方法,认为它是以缩小的世界为观察的对象,是一种深入细致分析历史问题的策略。日常生活批判理论、文化人类学理论和马克思历史学理论是微观史学的三大理论基础。微观史学的三大特点在于注重史料的精确性,关注一般民众的行与为,综合运用多学科尤其是人类学和心理学的研究方法。在微观史学的视角下,教育史研究应拓宽传统教育史的研究范围、开辟新的研究领域和主题、拓展史料的采纳范围、深挖日常生活的教育信息并且综合考察教育史具体问题。     

Interpreting images: An investigation of the problem of literalism in language use and religious thinking

Abstract

This article discusses the use of metaphor in human attempts to communicate religious experience and insight. In particular, it argues that, all too often, metaphors are misunderstood because they are interpreted literally. Examples of primary school children's writing are provided to illustrate the problem of literalism in religious understanding. The article concludes by recommending the extensive teaching of metaphor throughout education.     

浅析当代英国教育史学的转型

世纪之交,英国教育史学面临学科独立性受到质疑、学术团队萎缩、课程教学减少和研究“碎片化”的危机。在全球史观、民族主义教育史学的引领下,教育改革的现实性牵引教育史学呈现多元化、跨学科的态势,为当代英国教育史学的转型带来了契机。转型的主要路径是关注社会现实、构建多元化的学科理论与方法论体系,从而提升教育史研究的学术价值。     

Education’s role in the economy: towards a new perspective

The economics of happiness is a developing field of inquiry that is arousing more and more interest among public policy-makers. This article discusses some of the educational implications that stem from this new field of inquiry. The article argues that the economics of happiness shows that the present educational focus on enhancing productivity is insufficient in and of itself and that greater emphasis should be placed on how education can help to transform wealth into happiness. It also maintains, however, that it would be inadvisable to directly derive the role that education should play in the economy from the findings of the economics of happiness. The current educational aim of enhancing productivity, it is concluded, must be complemented by an educational emphasis on informing, guiding and even shaping people’s economic preferences.     

教育史学评论的客观基础与评价标准

教育的历史发展过程是教育史研究的客观对象,也是教育史评的客观基础和确立教育史评标准的重要依据.教育史学评论的社会标准往往集中体现为一定的阶级和政治标准,尤重其"资治"功用,但必须尊重教育历史的客观事实,遵循教育史学自身的客观规律.教育史学评论的学术标准主要是史学内容的真实性和表现形式的完美性.     

Inclusive education in the Slovak Republic two decades after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia

The fall of Communist regime in 1989 and the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993 significantly affected the educational system of today's Slovakia. As a sovereign state, Slovakia has ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities obliging its signatories to practise ‘inclusive education’. This article explores the current educational policies of the Slovak Republic in light of this obligation. Using the official statistical data the article argues that the current state educational policies have not succeeded in meeting the objective of practising inclusive education, as the proportion of students educated in segregated special educational provisions has been consistently rising over the last decade. This article attempts to identify particular aspects of the current educational policies which might have contributed to this phenomenon.     

Religious doctrines and critical religious education: teachers’ epistemic switching in a confessional setting

The purpose of the present article is twofold: first, to examine whether epistemic switching is documented in the context of religious education; and second, if it is, to show the challenges as well as the strategies that teachers utilise when they engage in epistemic switching. The context of our study is religious education in the Greek-Cypriot educational system – an example of a confessional setting in which Greek Orthodox Christianity is the only religion being taught in schools. This article describes a qualitative case study research – which is part of a larger, 1-year project – that explores the understandings of religion and interculturalism as well as the pedagogical perspectives on religious education of six Greek-Cypriot primary school teachers. The findings show how the possibilities and obstacles of teachers’ epistemic switching could inform larger debates concerning the entanglements between critical religious education pedagogies and religious doctrines, especially within confessional educational contexts.     

Should religious studies be part of the compulsory state school curriculum?

This article argues that of the various approaches taken in state education internationally, the inclusion of a discrete academic subject dealing with religious traditions and spiritual or secular alternatives is the most effective way of addressing religious plurality in education. It examines the increasing presence of religion in public discourse, various educational responses to this, and argues that a separate subject, taught by specialist teachers, is the most likely to achieve the aim of the United Nations for mutual understanding and peace between diverse religious and cultural traditions.