ABSTRACTS OF DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION, 1973‐1974

The ethos of the Enlightenment placed religious and spiritual concerns in a private sphere, while politics became a public concern. In this vein, many American educators, including John Dewey, have vigorously insisted that public schools remain free from religion while inculcating a common civic virtue. Recently, however, educational theorists and practitioners influenced by Dewey have worried about the public's lack of spiritual intelligence and have asked how democracy and spirituality might be reconciled within schools. I approach this question through an examination of Elmer Thiessen's Teaching for Commitment: Liberal Education, Indoctrination, and Christian Nurture (1993). While not a follower of Dewey, Thiessen's work raises important questions for those who follow Dewey and who are concerned with the relationship between democracy and spirituality.     

STATE POLICIES ON RELIGIOUS AND MORAL EDUCATION IN INDIA, 1765–1858

Our research concerns the genealogy of the modern peda‐gogical evaluation of the family. This study examines the place and significance of the family in Rousseau's writings. Following a brief review of the current Rousseau literature, resulting in a retrieval of the notion of pre‐Romanticism, a re‐interpretation of the two great pedagogical novels is presented, on the basis of the “Discourse” on inequality and the “Social Contract”. Rousseau touched on all the themes of the modern evaluation of the family as educational environment, without himself arriving at a coherent theory of family education. The reasons for this are discussed.

"Es ist eine Beschwerde vor den Verstand Geschmack zu haben. Ich muß den Rousseau so lange lesen bis mich die Schönheit der Ausdrucke gar nicht mehr stört und dann kann ich allererst ihn mit Vernunft untersuchen. “ (Kant)

     

CITIZENSHIP AND EDUCATION IN THE NETHERLANDS BOTTOM‐UP TRADITIONS

The author states that, taking into account historical changes and variations, citizenship in the Netherlands mainly developed as a bottom‐up affair. She stresses the structural conditions (geographical: an early and high degree of urbanization, the co‐operative regulation of the waterlevel; social and political: limited forms of a central political authority, a multiplied religious map, pillarization; economic: a highly developed merchant capitalism and a late emergence of industrial capitalism) and points at the special contribution of the Dutch educational system to these processes: the operation along local (urban) lines; the early decline of the relevance of the grammar school (from the sixteenth century on); a curriculum for higher and lower social strata set up from a relatively congruent utilitarian point of view; and a structural transformation of the school system in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth century, starting at the level of elementary education and not just (as in Germany and France) in secondary or tertiary institutions.     

RESPONSE: “SLEEPER TRANSITIONS” AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Abstract

In this article the authors present the results of their research of cooperation schools in the Netherlands. These schools are an exception in the dual educational system because they originate from a merger of a religiously neutral public school and a religious school. The data, provided by school principals, show key values of the cooperation schools. These values are compared to characteristics of public education. The authors also focus on the organization of religious education. This study is a first step in a broader research of Dutch experiments concerning the merging of different religious school identities.     

EDUCATION,TASK MEANINGFULNESS,AND COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE IN YOUNG‐OLD AND OLD‐OLD ADULTS

Previous research has indicated that when tasks are made more meaningful, the performance of the elderly generally improves. A closer look, however, reveals that improvement occurs mostly for educationally disadvantaged elderly, highly educated older adults not benefiting differentially from meaningful material. Consequently, the present study compared performance of high‐ and low‐education adults on traditional and meaningful space and reasoning measures. A total of 246 male and female volunteers were divided into subgroups by age (53‐65 and 70‐78 years) and by education (high and low). Separate analyses of variance for reasoning and space revealed main effects for education and age on both abilities. In addition, main effects for test and sex, and a significant age by test interaction were found for space, with the performance differential between the familiar and traditional tests being much greater for the young‐old group. A trend for an education X age X test X sex interaction was found for reasoning, as expected, with low education, young‐old men doing more poorly on the traditional form. Suggestions for future related research are discussed.