“Re-acculturation” through Community-Based Religious Education

Reflective engagement in reciprocal community partnerships holds tremendous potential for guiding members of congregations through the process of “re-acculturation.” One of the “best practices” named in research about community-engaged learning for undergraduates is “re-acculturation”—an ongoing process of critical reflection about one's own cultural formation and the cultural realities of people one encounters through community partnerships. Only through this kind of honest critical reflection can people develop friendships of true mutuality and reciprocity. Religious education should include biblical, ethical, and theological reflection, combined with historical and cultural research about ethnic, economic, and religious diversity in relation to particular congregation–community partnerships.     

劳动教育的文化研究

劳动教育是人改造外部世界,满足人的物质文化与精神文化需求,实现人的自由全面发展的文化实践。"劳动崇拜论""劳动决定论""劳动终结论"和"劳动起源论"批判和中外教育史上有关劳动教育的论争揭示了,文化是劳动和劳动教育的本质,劳动教育研究需要文化研究。"劳动""文化"和"教育"在词源上有共通之处。劳动教育,作为文化实践,是通过物质、能量转换改造自然的"化育"和通过信息、符号改造社会的"教化"的统一,蕴含价值-规范、行为-作用、语言-符号、知识-技术等不同的文化层级和实践综合。劳动教育有文化唯物性,也就是具有物质生产性和面向社会现实的大众文化性。劳动教育有文化启蒙价值,它是解放所有人的文化启蒙,是反映和表现社会生活文化的知识文化启蒙。总之,劳动教育的文化本质和实践充分呈现了人与自然、社会之间进行的物质、能量和信息转换,以及物质文化和精神文化创造的过程,是劳动的"教育性"与教育的"劳动性"、体力劳动教育与脑力劳动教育、化育与教化、精英与大众、理论与实践之间历史的、现实的、社会的辩证统一。     

Norwegian Religious Education Workbooks after World War II: Exploring Teachers’ Workbook Constructions by Interpreting Traces of Textbooks and National Curricula

Twenty religious education (RE) workbooks covering half a century were examined in a search for RE teachers’ typical patterns of workbook construction. Three chronological main types were distinguished: “the biblical workbook,” “the workbook of Christian cultural nurture,” and “the RE workbook of diversity.” Of greater interest, however, were the particularities found in a few workbooks produced in the two interims between the chronological types. This article discusses—in the light of collective memory theory, social semiotics, and Norwegian RE history—the meaning of the teachers’ implicit contributions to the typical as well as the untypical workbook constructions. The concept of an “irreducible tension” between active agents and mediating means is found analytically fruitful. Religious education teachers are seen as cultural reproducers, interplaying with the central contextual curricular factors. In times of interlude and change, teachers have had other sets of contextual conditions and contingencies than in times of stability. The relatively quick implementation of a non‐confessional RE after the 1997 school reform is interpreted in line with economic priorities and with a curricular adjustment to the changed “spirit of the times.”     

Shaking Religious Education: A New Look At The Literature

This article offers an analysis of religious education practice through the literature that informs it. It engages Derrida's critique of the “metaphysics of presence” (1982a) to develop a theoretical framework for a new look at the ways in which different approaches to religious education represent religion and racial difference. The article specifically examines literature that has impacted mainstream Christian and “secular” religious education in South Australia from the 1970s until today. The article concludes by proposing a new approach to racial, cultural, and religious difference in religious education—one that begins to understand religious education's engagement with Others in terms of ethical questions, deliberation, and a radical openness to what is unforeseeable. It argues for the need for religious educators to begin to actively and deliberatively engage with “who” and “what” has traditionally been absent from multireligious approaches to religious education.     

The Gender Equity Expert Panel: A Dissemination Model

Poor white children, often with roots in Appalachia, can present puzzling and intractable challenges for the multicultural educator. These students are not considered in multicultural textbooks, yet they face language and dialect issues, low educational attainment, under-representation in curriculum, and negative cultural stereotypes. This article details the history, language, dialect, and school experiences of marginalized ethnic Whites; explores problems inherent in representation related to race, class, and marginality; and discusses action research on pre-service education intended to strengthen teachers' perception of the special problem of marginalized Whites. This work highlights the importance of problematizing and expanding “basic” categories and terms such as “black,” “white,” “urban,” and “rural” to consider important differences of experience—an imperative in an education profession committed to diversity and social justice.     

White Religious Educators Resisting White Fragility: Lessons From Mystics

Abstract

Decades of work in dismantling racism have not yielded the kind of results for which religious educators have hoped. One primary reason has been what scholars term “white fragility,” a symptom of the structural racism which confers systemic privilege upon White people. Lessons learned from Christian mystics point to powerful ways to confront and resist the siren call of such formation and instead to make resisting racism an integral part of Christian identity for White people.     

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AT THE EDGE OF HISTORY

This article suggests that religious education discourse in the future must be multilingual if it is to prepare people to participate in a postmodern world of religious diversity and secularism. Five “languages” are suggested, including those native to the religious education of particular religious communities, the language of interreligious education, the language of public religious education, a postreligion religious education language, and the language of academic religious education.     

A Visit to “The Clearing” and “Warrior Falls”: In Search of Brave and Beyond Spaces for Religious Education

Abstract

This article seeks to address the question: “How can religious educators learn from those who have been marginalized and whose voices are not usually heard because of the hegemony of whiteness?” My primary sources are scenes from the work of two U.S. black creatives. Specifically, I examine the “Clearing” scene in Toni Morrison’s 1987 Pulitzer Prize–winning fiction novel Beloved and the “Warrior Falls” scenes in Black Panther, a 2018 film co-written and directed by Ryan Coogler. I draw attention to their common themes and their implications for approaches to religious education that can de-center white normativity.     

A Mythical Realist Orientation for Religious Education: Theological and Pedagogical Implications of the Mythical Nature of Religious Story

This article proposes a concept of “mythical realism” as a way of understanding important characteristics of religion and orienting religious education. The focus is on beliefs as one central aspect of religion. The author draws on recent cognitive studies in religion to illumine the “counterintuitive” and “mythic” character of religious belief, while also arguing that religious thinking should be and commonly is held together with “intuitive,” “scientific” understandings of experiential reality. A case is made for the enhancement of “mythical realist” religious understanding as a fundamental goal of religious education. Pedagogical suggestions are given for nurturing such mythical realist faith.     

TRANSFORMING TRADITIONS: TAKING POPULAR CULTURE SERIOUSLY IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Making traditions “accessible” and making the connections between traditions and transformation “manifest” (this is Boys's definition of religious education), is a challenging endeavor in mass mediated popular culture contexts. Although definitions of “tradition” may differ from community to community, there is generally a sustained pattern of practice over time that shapes the religious identities of the people in question. Religious educators need to engage this pattern in multiple ways, some of which may extensively if not completely rework it. This essay illustrates such engagement by considering two examples of the televisual mediation of rituals following September 11, 2001, as well suggesting useful digital resources for religious educators in this context     

Pretending to Be Japanese: Artistic Play in a Japanese-American Church and Family

This article highlights the potential of symbols, specifically those David Tracy calls “religious classics,” to anchor both dialogue among people of differing beliefs and the formation of young people by their religious communities. Symbols present a particularly propitious focal point for such dialogue because of (1) the congruence of symbolic expression with the dynamics of human cognition and (2) the suitability of this mode of expression to the present cultural context. A dramatic example illustrates the process of shared reflection on classic religious symbols through which and for which religious communities should form their youth for responsible participation in public spaces.     

A SURVEY OF TYPICAL CHURCH BIBLE CLASSES FOR BOYS AND MEN

Emerging social media that build on digital technologies are reshaping how we interact with each other. Religious education and identity formation within these new cultural flows demands recognition of the shifts in authority, authenticity, and agency that are taking place, as well as the challenges posed by “context collapse.” Digital storytelling is one mechanism by which religious educators can help people to apprentice into practices shaped by a commitment to human freedom and relationality, rather than to public performances of hatred.     

The Free Schools “Riddle”: Between traditional social democratic,neo‐liberal and multicultural tenets

The question of what role free schools should perform in the Swedish educational system has been a contested subject between three ideological, theoretical, political and policy tenets. The first, “contribution to pedagogical diversity in a controlled school market” reflects a traditional social democratic view. The second, “contribution to a better education on a competitive school market” reflects a neo‐liberal approach. The third tenet, “contribution to the maintenance of groups' and individuals' cultural and religious identity” reflects a multicultural view insisting on the thesis that a family's cultural and religious identity should be a steering motive for the school choice. The aim of this article is to take a closer look at what the three tenets that constitute the “riddle” contain—including their claims, responses to critics, arguments and empirical evidence—and to discuss some of their practical impacts on the shaping of educational policy.     

中国传统文化中的劳动教育及其当代价值

在中国传统文化中,“劳动”这个词最初并不具有人们今天所理解的“生产劳动”“生活劳动”等方面的含义,而“劳”“劳力”“劳心”“劳作”等词却已基本具有了人们今天所理解的“劳动”的基本内涵。中国传统劳动教育渗透于人们日常生活之中,主要通过礼仪制度渗透劳动教育,在学校教育中采取耕读结合的劳动教育模式,通过家训家风等途径实施劳动教育。中国传统的耕读结合的劳动教育模式、普及大众的劳动教育规范、身体力行的劳动教育典范、脍炙人口的劳动教育读本,可以为新时代的劳动教育提供有益的借鉴。     

Association between “grease-the-wheel”, “sand-the-wheel”, and “cultural norm” motivations for making informal payments with satisfaction in public primary,secondary, and vocational education in 27 nations

The current dominant discourse in the research literature postulates that informal payments in public education will be negatively associated with satisfaction with public education. In contrast, we theorize that informal payments can be classified into three different groups based on the motivations of the people who make such payments, namely, “sand-the-wheels”, “cultural norm”, and “grease-the-wheels” motivations. We further hypothesize that each of these motivations will have distinctly different patterns of association with satisfaction with public education. We test our hypotheses on a diverse sample of 27 post-communist countries in Eastern and Central Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Our main findings confirm our hypotheses. The “sand-the-wheels” motivation is indeed associated with lower satisfaction. However, the “cultural norm” motivation is associated with higher satisfaction. As well, the “grease-the-wheels” motivation does not have a significant association with satisfaction. These findings are true for education at the primary/secondary and vocational levels. These findings are also true for fixed effect and for random effect multilevel models. Overall, 12 % of users made informal payments in public primary/secondary education and 14 % did so in public vocational education. Most informal payments were made because users had been directly asked to do so by educational personnel or when users felt that such payments were required by educational personnel.     

Education of Roma Youth in Hungary: Schools,Identities and Belonging

Historically, schools have been homogenizing institutions that often disadvantaged people of color and ethnic and religious minorities. In this article I examine Roma education in Hungary, focusing on (re)production of racial identities and the negotiation of ethnic labels. I distinguish two models of education as they relate to ideas of integration, and assess the evolving ethnic labels: “bad Gypsies” and “good Roma.” These labels reflect different philosophies of education, and both contain different tensions and challenges.     

The “mission” of nuns in female education in Ireland,c.1850–1950

This article provides a review and critique of scholarship on female education in Ireland, arguing that researchers have provided a consensual narrative in which women religious (nuns) played a central role in providing academic education to girls and higher education to women. The tendency has been to claim the activities of women religious as part of the impetus that drove the organised women’s movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and that brought about a “revolution” in female education. But there remains a need to stand back from this decidedly secular “cause and effect” narrative, and turn a critical eye on the urge which congregations themselves identified as central to their mission in education. This is a revisionist perspective, qualifying and modifying claims made elsewhere by this author, and challenging the way in which the work of nuns in education has been interpreted as a part of the female education “revolution”. Recognising the spiritual impulse within religious orders that found expression in acts of duty, vocation and mission, the article concludes that convent education had purposes that were quite distinct from those prescribed by official “state” education programmes and examination systems, and that these purposes demand greater scrutiny in order to provide a more balanced understanding of female education in Ireland.     

Globalisation and Its Malcontents: In pursuit of the promise of education

In the course of exploring critiques of globalisation, this essay will focus on two postures—each with its range of arguments—that have emerged as alternatives to globalisation, namely, the delinking position and the subverting position. The first argues for standing “outside” of globalisation and its educational cultures and apparatuses. It brings together positions found in black feminism (as in the work of Audre Lourde), various religious, cultural, and ideology-centred approaches such as Islamic education and Afrocentric education, and critical dependency theorists such as Samir Amin, all of whom argue in one way or another for delinking the “South” from the “North”. The second argues for working “inside” the globalised world. This posture, represented by an eclectic group of philosophies and approaches that span radical constructivism, different versions of multiculturalism, and, on the left, old and new interpretations of Marxism, argues variously for developing more authentic and relevant pedagogies and for making a case for mobilising social structures behind political efforts to change the curriculum. The direction that this essay will take, in the course of critiquing these “outside” and “inside” postures, is to argue that neither is sufficient, by itself, as a reply to the assimilative and exclusionary impulses of the form of globalisation that dominates the world today. It is suggested, instead, that a way towards an alternative imagination to the hegemonic culture of globalisation lies in exploring the relationship between an engaged “inside” and “outside” view.     

论人文主义哲学在高等教育中的文化角色变迁

人文主义哲学在高等教育史中的文化角色经历了从边缘到中心、从自我到他者的变易过程。人文主义与科学主义的矛盾演替,不仅影响了其文化角色的历史变迁,也造成了其在高等教育当下时空中的异化与悬空,其价值、理想、教育与空间正逐渐被科学功利主义及其衍生的“科学至上论”、“效率第一论”、“现代优越论”和“适者生存论”文化所异化。未来高等教育所亟需的,并不是人文主义哲学的虚幻繁荣,而应该是其文化角色的真实复归。     

Learning together,living apart: the experiences of university students in Northern Ireland

Elementary (primary) and high (secondary) school education in Northern Ireland (NI) is essentially segregated along religious lines. The vast majority of young people from the Protestant/Unionist/British community attend state “Controlled” schools while Catholics/ Nationalists/Irish attend schools in the Catholic Church‐based “Maintained” sector. Going to university represents for many the first opportunity to share a significant educational experience with someone from a different politico‐religious group and cultural background. This paper presents the results of a focus‐group based study designed to illuminate students' experiences of intergroup relations at a NI university. Through focus‐group discussions information was generated on cross‐community contact, the influence of group difference, prevalence, and identity, on attitudes and intergroup communication. The university environment as a factor in potential relational development, the role which student bodies and academic staff may play, and policies and practices on accepting diversity are discussed. Recommendations and considerations are highlighted for other pedagogical institutes where complex and difficult intergroup dynamics exist.