Enhancing Cultural Humility Through Critical Service-Learning in Teacher Preparation

To provide opportunities for preservice teachers to move beyond the limitations of their life experiences, the teacher preparation program at the University of Vermont has worked to advance service-learning experiences that push preservice teachers to examine their own identities and biases by providing them with opportunities to interact with others whose life experiences are different than their own. The goal of these experiences is to assist the preservice teachers in recognizing how their emerging practice, which is entrenched within their own positionality, impacts individuals that they work with as well as the broader community. This interpretive study examined outcomes of the experience through the lens of cultural humility. This study affirms the need to be explicit about practice, particularly as it relates to critical pedagogy to advance social justice. It also offers a glimpse into how teacher preparation programs may construct learning experiences to support the development of cultural humility.     

Intercultural non-conscious influences: Prosocial effects of Buddhist priming on Westerners of Christian tradition

Prosocial concepts and behavior are often found to be activated when participants are primed with concepts of their own religious cultural tradition. We investigated whether similar effects can be found when people (Westerners of Christian tradition) are primed with concepts of a different from their own religious cultural tradition (Buddhist and Islamic). Participants (104 young Belgian adults) were randomly assigned to three conditions. They were supraliminally primed with either Buddhist or Islamic images; or they were not primed (control condition). Priming Buddhism increased prosocial intentions (spontaneous sharing of hypothetical gains), and decreased, among participants highly valuing universalism, implicit prejudice toward an ethnic outgroup. Priming Islam had no effect on prosociality or prejudice. The findings suggest that concepts from one religious and cultural context are transposable, under some conditions, to another religious and cultural context and can influence even implicit social cognition.     

Culturally Relevant Education: Extending the Conversation to Religious Diversity

Culturally relevant education represents a wide collection of pedagogies of opposition to social injustice and holds a commitment to collective empowerment and social justice. By using culturally relevant education as a framework, we make the case to include religious diversity as a part of culturally relevant education intentionally. We believe that by opening the dialogue to include religious diversity, we are working together as educators to promote social justice in schools that benefits all children regardless of their religious backgrounds. We synthesize successful examples of culturally relevant education in connection to religion. Further, we argue for teacher educators to incorporate discussion of religious diversity as part of multicultural and social justice teacher education.     

Religiosity and attitudes toward muslim immigrants in the context of a terrorist attack

Research on religiosity and attitudes toward immigrants is inconclusive, while it has repeatedly been reported that Islamist terrorist attacks lead to anti-immigrant attitudes. In this context, it remains unclear how these aspects interact, especially, since we can assume that religion plays an important role in light of an attack by an extremist religious group like ISIS: How does an Islamist terrorist attack moderate the relationship between religiosity and attitudes toward immigrants? The present study, therefore, analyses the relationship between religiosity and attitudes toward Muslim immigrants before and after the ‘Charlie Hebdo Attack’. It builds on the Uncertainty-Identity-Theory and the Religious Coping Literature. Analyses of European Social Survey (ESS) data reveal that the relationship varies over time: Religiosity does not predict the attitudes before the attack. Immediately after the attack, more religious individuals are less accepting. Lastly, with temporal distance, greater religiosity makes liberal attitudes more likely.     

Exploring religiosity and attitudes towards Christians and non-believers among recent Muslim refugees to Finland

This study is among the first to investigate the religiosity patterns, identity motives and attitudes towards Christians and non-believers among recent Muslim refugees in Finland (N = 128). There are two novelties in this study. First, it applies the religious orientation framework to study religious identities among Muslim refugees in Europe. Second, it combines a variable- and person-centred approach to study religiosity in the context of intergroup relations. Using the variable-centred approach with a multiple mediation analysis, we found that refugees’ extrinsic religiosity was associated with more positive attitudes towards Christians. Neither intrinsic religiosity nor participants’ religious identity motives were associated with out-group attitudes. Using the person-centred approach with a Two-Step cluster analysis, we showed that individuals with higher levels of intrinsic as compared to extrinsic religiosity and those with pronounced religious identity motives were more biased towards non-believers than towards Christians. Attitudes towards Christians and non-believers were similarly positive in a group characterised by equal levels of intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity. We discuss these findings in light of the role of religiosity in understanding Muslim refugees’ attitudes towards receiving societies.     

Magic monks and spirit mediums in the politics of Thai popular religion

In this article, I read the politics of popular religion in Thailand through the case studies of magic monks and spirit mediums, which have been traditional key actors in the popular religious domain and have maintained their lasting popularity in the country in the 1990s and 2000s. Positioning my argument in the context of the much‐criticized commercialization of Buddhism, I accentuate that magic monkhood and spirit mediumship have exhibited themselves as culturally defined channels of, and strategies for, individuals' religious self‐empowerment. In the politics of negotiating and contesting for their religious identities and selfhood, the continued popularity of magic monk and spirit medium has exposed the conventional practices and ideologies of class and gender relations, which apparently favour men over women and, thus, countered attempts by ordinary disciples and followers to move out of their socially marginalized positions in both religious and socioeconomic worlds. In other words, the politics of Thai popular religion point to the affirmation or negotiation of existing religious and socioeconomic structures, but never the resistance against them. The consensus voice in this terrain of everyday life's religious practices emphasizes strong desire and a quest for material wealth and mundane success more than anything else.     

Negotiating a contested identity: Religious individualism among Muslim youth in a super-diverse city

This paper aims to understand how young Muslims in the super-diverse city of Antwerp negotiate the tensions between their religious identification and the broader cultural framework of individualism. Young Muslims in Antwerp face the challenge to present themselves as autonomous, while maintaining their religious identification. Based on 26 interviews with Muslim students in two secondary schools, we describe how presenting a dignified self to both non-Muslim and Muslim audiences requires a delicate balancing act. Drawing conceptually from cultural sociology, we explore how our respondents present themselves towards various audiences by selectively employing elements from the cultural repertoire of ‘religious individualism’. In our analysis, we examine four ways in which respondents employ this repertoire to rework the potential tensions and present themselves as agentive within their religious framework. We also discuss how negotiating a contested identity requires more taxing boundary work for girls, and how they challenge gender norms without denying their religious identification. Overall, our analysis demonstrates how young Muslims in a West European context engage in complex boundary work and creatively draw on the cultural repertoire of religious individualism to negotiate their multiple identifications.     

Host society's dislike of the Islamic veil: The role of subtle prejudice, values, and religion

The wearing of the Islamic veil by Muslim women has become a source of tensions in Western European countries. In order to investigate majority members’ attitudes towards the veil, the present two studies (Ns = 166 and 147), carried out in Belgium, integrated three lines of research that have focused on (a) the role of subtle prejudice/racism on the host society's attitudes towards immigrants, (b) the role of values on acculturation, and (c) the role of religious attitudes on prejudice. Results revealed the effects of subtle prejudice/racism, values (self-enhancement values and security versus universalism), and religious attitudes (literal anti-religious thinking versus spirituality), in predicting greater levels of anti-veil attitudes beyond the effects of other related variables such as age and political conservatism. The studies also suggest the importance of including religious attitudes as part of the intergroup-relation factors that predict attitudes towards immigrants, at least with regard to specific components of intercultural relations.     

Religious broadcasting on UK television: Policy,public perception and programmes

This chapter assesses the developments in UK religious broadcasting over the last 20 years in both the BBC and independent television. Debate about the role and purpose of religious broadcasting is nothing new. However, the debate has taken on new significance recently in the light of wider consideration by broadcasting bodies and the government about the meaning and purpose of public service broadcasting in a multi‐channel television environment.

The first part of the chapter maps developments in broadcasting policy, with particular reference to statements issued by the BBC's and Independent Television Commission's advisory body, the Central Religious Advisory Committee. The chapter also highlights the impact of the changing religious make‐up of the UK, and the advent of dedicated religious television channels on the content of religious broadcasting.

The second part looks at the audience. Research findings may initially suggest that religious programmes are seen primarily as being for ‘other people’. However, closer examination of the audience shows that religious programmes are still watched by the majority of the adult population. And although viewers over 55 are well represented in the audience for many programmes, the audience for religious television is in reality more diverse than public and broadcasting industry perceptions would suggest.

Programmes are the focus of the third part of the chapter. While the amount of time devoted to religious programmes on BBC1 and ITV has remained at similar levels, the scheduling of religious programmes has moved away from peak time on both channels, but particularly so on ITV. Both channels have reduced the amount of religious programme time devoted to acts of worship. The official figures for amounts of religious broadcasting do not tell the whole story, however. Discussion continues both about the definition of ‘religious’ programmes and the future of religious broadcasting departments.

The challenge for religious broadcasting is to redefine itself for the digital age, without narrowing its scope.     

Ideologies of Religion and Diversity in Australian Public Schools

In many multicultural democracies, education has a Christian history. However, teaching religion has ideological variation. Progressives teach about many religions, while conservatives favor (often exclusive) instruction into one tradition. Australian secular education controversially prioritizes faith-forming instruction (mostly Christian). In this exploratory study (N = 123) the author examines pedagogical preference and attitudes toward religious diversity.     

Difficult dialogs: Majority group members’ willingness to talk about inequality with different minority groups

The present study explored attitudes of a majority group, Turks, toward dialog with two minority groups, Kurds and Armenians, in Turkey. We examined whether Turks would be equally likely to avoid discussing inequality (power talk) in imaginary dialogs with Kurds and Armenians, two groups that while equally devalued differ in their likelihood of being considered ingroup members. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that because Turks share a common religious identity with Kurds but not with Armenians, they would be more willing to engage in power talk with Kurds than with Armenians. In addition, we explored the role of intergroup contact, majority group identification (Turkish and Muslim), social dominance orientation (SDO), and the legitimizing ideologies of belief in cultural diversity and perceptions of ethnic discrimination as predictors of willingness for power talk with each group. Ethnic Turks were more willing to talk about commonalities with both minority groups, and less willing to talk about power inequalities with either group, even less so with Armenians than with Kurds. As expected, this difference was moderated by religious identification, such that Turks with stronger Muslim identification were more willing to have power talk with Kurds but not with Armenians. These findings point to the importance of common ingroup identity in majority members’ responses to different minority groups.     

Music,Tradition, and Cultural Adaptation among the Maronites of Lebanon: The Reform of the Funeral Liturgy

The Maronite Church is a branch of the Syro-Antiochean Church and one of the oldest among the Eastern churches. Modernisation, globalisation, emigration, civil war and other factors have together influenced many aspects of local religious expression, but the Maronite Church has succeeded in adapting to the social changes and the spiritual needs of its followers without losing its identity. This is reflected in the Maronite funeral liturgy, which is here examined. I aim to show how the role of music and poetry is perpetuating a sense of communal identity among the members of this religious group, and is creating boundaries with other ethnic and religious groups.     

I feel Moroccan,I feel Italian,and I feel Muslim: Second generation Moroccans and identity negotiation between religion and community belonging

Second generation immigrants in Western societies negotiate between cultural sets: the inherited and the acquired culture. For second generation Muslims the negotiation involves personal dimensions such as identity and it deals with the assimilative pressures of the society where they have grown up: a context where their ethnic and religious identities are combined and mixed. From an ecological perspective, these processes happen in the communities where everyday life and cultural transmission take place.This study examines from an ecological perspective the negotiation of identity in young adult second generation Muslim, how their ethnic, national, and religious ties are intertwined with the pressures from the community they perceive as the most important. We started from the community that the participants felt was most important for them and explored the different ways in which their religious, ethnic, and national identities were related to their most important community. Twenty young adult Moroccans settled in Italy since age 6 years were involved in semi-structured in-person interviews. The interview responses highlighted how complex these individuals find managing their ethnic and religious identities and how this process is related to their conception of religiosity and the forms it takes in everyday life (e.g., a system of values vs. a set of practices).     

Tolerance towards difference: Adaptation and psychometric properties of the Spanish version of a new measure of tolerance and sex-moderated relations with prejudice

The present research aims at adapting to the Spanish context and language a measure of tolerance toward diversity recently developed, at analyzing its psychometric properties, and at examining the moderating effect of participants’ sex on the relations between tolerance and prejudice. We conducted two studies considering two Spanish samples taken from the general population. In Study 1 (N = 586; 70.5 % females; M_age = 37.77, SD = 12.34) we confirmed the three-factorial structure of the questionnaire (i.e., acceptance of diversity, respect for diversity and appreciation of diversity) and their invariance across sex groups. In Study 2 (N = 333; 60.4 % females; M_age = 36.20, SD = 13.36) evidence of validity based on the relations of tolerance with prejudice (modern racism, hostile sexism, and benevolent sexism) are presented. Additional findings reveal the role of the appreciation of diversity dimension to reduce prejudice, as well as differences between men and women in this relation: when participants express low appreciation of diversity, men show more hostile sexism and modern racism than women. Such differences did not emerge for those who highly appreciate diversity. The implications of using this multidimensional questionnaire to measure tolerance are discussed.     

Parenting and social identity contributors to character development in Muslim American adolescents

Using a strength-based approach, the present study examined the mediating role of Muslim American adolescents’ (N = 212; 13- to 18-year-olds; 59% females) multiple-group social identities (i.e., religious Muslim and national American) in the associations between their perceived maternal religious socialization and positive character development. We also explored whether maternal warmth moderated the association between religious socialization practices and identity. Adolescents’ American identity did not mediate the relations between maternal religious socialization and character regardless of adolescents’ perceptions of maternal warmth. However, maternal religious socialization was associated with greater character through adolescents’ stronger Muslim identity, only at moderate and high levels of maternal warmth. Implications of our findings for promoting Muslim-American youth’s positive adjustment are discussed.     

The Languages of Peace During the French Religious Wars

ABSTRACT

The desirability of peace was a common topos in sixteenth-century political rhetoric, and the duty of the king to uphold the peace for the benefit of his subjects was also a long-established tradition. However, the peculiar circumstances of the French religious wars, and the preferred royal policy of pacification, galvanized impassioned debate among both those who supported and those who opposed confessional coexistence. This article looks at the diverse ways in which peace was viewed during the religious wars through an exploration of language and context. It draws not only on the pronouncements of the crown and its officials, and of poets and jurists, but also on those of local communities and confessional groups. Opinion was not just divided along religious lines; political imperatives, philosophical positions and local conditions all came into play in the arguments deployed. The variegated languages of peace provide a social and cultural dimension for the contested nature of sixteenth-century French politics. However, they could not restore harmony to a war-torn and divided kingdom.     

Labrang Monastery： A Last Purified Land

Labrang Monastery has the strongest religious atmosphere among all the Tibetan Buddhist temples that I have visited. In Labrang Monastery, commercial influence is rarely seen here and there are not many tourists. Perhaps due to its solemn religious atmosphere, visitors are not noisy as they are in other sightseeing places. They usually peacefully observe the sacred halls, solemn religious rites and faithful monks with their eyes and camera lens. All these should be attributed to its monks w…     

The Future of Defunct Religious Buildings: Dutch Approaches to Their Adaptive Re-use

Across the Western world, membership in the established organized churches is on the decline with a concomitant reduction in the need for churches and church halls. As redundant and unused churches are the focus of vandalism and decay, owners and heritage managers are looking for options to adaptively re-use such buildings. This article reviews the literature on the re-use of churches in the Netherlands, which has long history of innovatively addressing the problems. The options available range from re-use for religious purposes by other denominations or faiths, to community use (multi-purpose, sport, music etc.), and private use, which can be either commercial or residential. The attitudes of the community and the original property owners play a major part in successful adaptive re-use. Because of its long history, the Dutch experience in adaptive re-use of religious buildings has much to offer heritage managers in other countries faced with this emergent management issue.     

Acculturation preferences and perceived (dis)loyalty of Muslims in the U.K.: Two vignette-based experimental studies

Muslims in the U.K. who maintain their religious culture are often viewed as a suspect community. This pre-registered experimental research examined the mediating role of perceived (dis)loyalty as underlying process and the moderating role of acculturation expectations. A total of 334 non-Muslim White British participants in Study 1 and 810 in Study 2 were asked to indicate their acculturation expectations towards Muslims. They were then randomly assigned to read a text that described Muslims in a fictional town as either (a) maintaining their religious culture or (b) adopting the mainstream British culture, or they read (c) a neutral control text. As expected, in Study 1, when Muslims were presented as maintaining their religious culture, trust decreased compared to the control group. Conversely, when described as adopting the mainstream culture, trust increased while support for surveillance of Muslims decreased. Both effects were mediated by the perception of Muslims being disloyal or loyal to the U.K in both studies, respectively. Perceived loyalty to their religious group did not significantly mediate any effect. We replicated these findings in Study 2. Moreover, we showed that describing Muslims as maintaining their religious culture decreased trust and increased support for surveillance especially among participants who expected Muslims to give up their religious culture. Moderated mediation analysis showed that these effects were partly mediated by perceived loyalty to the U.K. We discuss the societal implications of the findings for policymakers and Muslim leaders along with recommendations for future research.     

Welcome or not? – Natives’ security feelings,attachment and attitudes toward acculturation of immigrants

Cultural diversity due to immigration has become a key topic in many societies today. The question of how the native population experiences these developments is of prime importance for intercultural relations and sets the base for acculturation of immigrants. Drawing on attachment and multiculturalism research, we supposed here that general and specific feelings of security might be related to more positive attitudes toward cultural diversity, whereas feelings of threat might be related to less openness. More precisely, the present study investigated how natives’ general attachment (secure or fearful) as well as their specific feelings of (cultural or economic) security might be related to their expectations about acculturation of immigrants in the multicultural context of Luxembourg. The sample included N = 134 Luxembourg nationals with an average age of M = 45.02 (SD = 17.41) who filled out an online questionnaire. Results revealed that self-reported fearful general attachment was positively related to more unwelcoming acculturation orientations. Relations between general attachment and acculturation orientations were mediated by feelings of cultural security, which had strong effects on host nationals’ (un)welcoming acculturation orientations over and above general attachment. Findings suggest that (un)welcoming orientations toward immigrants, entailing openness for cultural contact and exchange, are related to feelings of cultural and economic security which are partly biased by a general secure or fearful attachment. Feelings of security seem thus to provide a secure base for tolerance and openness to cultural diversity which are needed in order to deal successfully with the challenges of today’s multicultural societies.