The securitisation of refugee flows and the schooling of refugees: examining the cases of North Koreans in South Korea and Iraqis in Jordan

Drawing on data collected in South Korea, Jordan and the USA, this paper examines the degree to which security concerns impact the schooling of North Korean refugees in South Korea and Iraqi refugees in Jordan. Operating from a framework examining the intersection of migration and securitisation, the authors find that accounts of negative images of and identity concealment among North Korean students present the most compelling linkages to a larger phenomenon of societal securitisation. At the same time, South Korean perceptions of North Koreans’ level of preparedness for working in a capitalist society present the most compelling linkages to economic securitisation. With respect to Christian Iraqi refugees in Jordan, plausible connections can be drawn between societal security and an Iraqi identity generally. With respect to economic concerns in Jordan, measures taken to restrict Iraqi integration into the labour force can be seen as security actions.     

Youth Service and Moral-Civic Identity: A Case for Everyday Morality

Mature moral and civic life is distinguished by respect for common humanity which develops through participation in community service. This proposition is illustrated by studies of adults who rescued Jews during World War II and contemporary adults who lead lives of moral commitment. These individuals do not view themselves as heroic but believe that their moral sense and actions simply express their identity. A putative developmental process is described by studies that longitudinally track youth activism to adult moral-civic behavior 10 to 30 years later and that detail changes in adolescents' thinking during a course on Christian social justice that required community service. Everyday morality seems to be rooted in an essential identity rather than being mediated by calculated reason. It follows that educators who seek to justify service learning can emphasize the identity process while pointing to the life-long linkage between youth participation and adult moral-civic activism.     

A strong commitment: conforming a school identity at one compulsory faith school in a disadvantaged area

The focus of the present study is on how educators and students create a ‘sense of belonging’ and school identity. The ethnography was carried out at an independent Christian school with children and students aged six to sixteen years. This study’s aim is to contribute knowledge about how the identity of a school has become an important factor in the context of the marketisation of education. The identity of the school is articulated as a school with a Christian profile. Further, the results show how diversity and multiculturalism were downplayed. The school can thereby be interpreted as a way to avoid categorisation as an immigrant school. The identity as a Christian school symbolically lifts it from its socio-economic position in the urban geography. This identity becomes central to how the school is presented in an economic market of free school choice.     

A Brave New World: Imagining Faculty Development in the Global Era

What might globalization and the demographic shift in Christianity mean for faculty development programs? What faculty members need most is the ability to imagine globalization as Christians. This article surveys and critiques the most powerful and persistent accounts in the current contest of narratives within the field of global education. These are national security, economic success, missionary or humanitarian impact, and cultural appreciation. Each of these has constructive elements, but all are liable to reductionism and narcissism.

Christian global education needs a different narrative: Christian cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitanism is the idea that all human beings belong to a single world community. Christianity grounds cosmopolitanism in the belief that all human beings share an identity as special creations of God, formed in God's image to be God's children. Humans are also created to dwell in relationship with each other. This narrative framework helps Christian learners unmask their cultural assumptions and see how even their Christian faith has been colored by such assumptions. Cosmopolitanism helps them work through their cultural limits and gain an appreciation of the contributions of many cultures, including what it means to be a Christian.

The article suggests four ways to build Christian cosmopolitanism via faculty development: sharing stories about cross-cultural encounters and how they induced fresh learning; generating new encounters via traveling seminars; convening reading groups that address issues of cosmopolitan identity, global Christianity, and human connection; and creating new campus events and liturgies to enact commitment to Christian cosmopolitanism.     

Denominational School Identity and the Formation of Personal Identity

Three important factors determine the institutional identity of denominational (Christian) schools: their interpretation of the religious truth claim, their conception of the nature of education, and their view of cultural differences as content of education. We investigate conceptually which of these interpretations of identity are consonant with a view of education as a place where the personal identity of students is constructed. We interpret personal identity in a narrative way, as a permanent process of reflexive construction where consistency over time is not seen as an ideal, given the plurality of postmodern culture.     

从基督教信仰之旅看林语堂的文化身份变迁

由于宗教、文化、社会、性格等多方面因素的相互影响和相互渗透,林语堂对基督教文化的态度经历了从信仰到反叛再到重新信仰的迂回反复,也相应地造成了他文化身份的多样性和混杂性。现从林语堂的基督教信仰之旅这一视角出发,探讨林语堂在不断更迭的文化场域中的文化身份变迁。     

基督教体系在中国乡村的认同世界建构——以宏村为个案

以宏村基督教堂建设中的资金筹措为出发点,精心构筑起了以“教堂、教民、教会”为元素的三维故事脉络.认为通过基督教仪式的浸润和信仰体认,教民在信仰世界中形成了对上帝的虔敬,这是动员教民的信仰约制,也是教会组织成功动员的砝码;此外,教会也在村庄公共事务和对外交流中塑造了认同的合法基础,从而从教民和教会两个行动主体的角度回答了基督教信仰与社会认同世界的建构问题.     

Mapping ‘Chinese’ Christian schools in Indonesia: ethnicity,class and religion

Schools are not “innocent” sites of cultural transmission. They play an active and significant role in transmitting values and inculcating culture. Schools also serve as a site for the maintenance of boundaries and for the construction of identities. Previous studies have recognized the relationship between education and identity. Building on existing literature, this study examines the ways in which Christian schools can be a site for the construction and maintenance of religious, ethnic and class identities of the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. The study surveys four prestigious “Chinese” Christian schools in Jakarta. Through a brief but thorough profiling of the schools, the study explores the complexity of and identifies issues associated to religion, ethnicity and class, in relations to Chinese-Indonesians and the Indonesian society at large.     

“Higher” Education: A Perspective from a Christian University Foundation in Contemporary England

The relation between Christian education and the secularized public square, based on how state and church relations are typically portrayed, has been described chiefly in terms of conflict. However, in the case of church-founded schools and universities in Britain, the relationship, in practice, is more ambiguous than polarized. Arguably, there is growing antipathy to direct institutional identity with faith or religion; at the same time, however, there is growing confidence among others that institutions informed by faith bring something indispensable to education. This essay investigates this issue via the existential experience of Liverpool Hope University, the only ecumenical university in Europe. Although Liverpool Hope University is an ecumenical institution, it is also a part of the British State university system. The argument is made that the “way of ambiguity” is not unlike the “way of Incarnation,” which steers between the certainty of public recognition that has often led to forms of triumphalism and the dwindling public confidence that leads inadvertently to the dumbing down of Christian identity in public service. The church's long service to education is essential to its contribution to the common good and is indispensable for the sustainability of humane societies.     

Personality,conventional Christian belief and unconventional paranormal belief: a study among teenagers

A sample of 10,851 pupils (5493 males and 5358 females) attending Year 9 classes (13‐ to 14‐year‐olds) and a sample of 9494 pupils (4787 males and 4707 females) attending Year 10 classes (14‐ to 15‐year‐olds) in non‐denominational state‐maintained secondary schools in England and Wales completed questions concerned with conventional Christian belief and unconventional paranormal belief, alongside the short‐form Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The data demonstrated that conventional Christian belief and unconventional paranormal belief occupy different locations in relation to the Eysenckian model of personality in respect of the psychoticism scale and the lie scale. While conventional Christian belief is associated with lower psychoticism scores and higher lie scale scores (greater social conformity), unconventional paranormal belief is associated with higher psychoticism scores and lower lie scale scores (lower social conformity).     

‘Jeesis is alive! He is the King of Australia’: segregated religious instruction,child identity and exclusion

Religious categorisation occurs at enrolment in Australian state-run (public) primary schools, with children segregated into religious instruction classes during their first week. Lesson content has no government oversight and, in some schools, options are limited to Christianity. The effect of this categorisation on children’s attitudes to religious diversity is not well researched but the role of religion in public schools is increasingly controversial. Social identity theory (SIT) considers cultural hegemony as a factor in individual identity construction. SIT posits that inter-group bias increases with in-group identification and suggests that categorisation itself is a source of prejudice. This paper explores the implications of SIT in the development of children’s strength of religious identity. An exploratory study suggests that a Christian emphasis at school may influence a child’s tendency to exclude those with different beliefs.     

T．S．艾略特的保守主义政治文化观

T．S．艾略特自称为英国温和保守主义的继承者,他对当时自由主义的平等、民主、自由和个人至上等观念大加斥责,对保守主义政治意识形态大加赞赏。他提出健康与和谐的社会应该尊重传统,当然他所认为的传统是动态发展的,是具体社会一历史的。面对世界大战带来的社会危机,他主张建立社会等级制,确保少数精英在文化、政治等各方面的社会导向作用。同时,他主张建立拥有新的基督教文化的基督教国家以及基督教社会,救赎濒临崩溃的西方文明和西方社会。艾略特的保守主义政治文化观呈现了他的社会忧患意识,展示了他敢于“面对社会发言”的形象。     

Looking for god in the university: examining trends in Christian higher education

Amid the many recent treatments of the global growth of both Christianity and higher education, little to no attention has been given to distinctly Christian higher education. The survey reported in this essay uses an understanding of Christian education developed from analytical work by Robert Benne to examine the number and nature of colleges and universities that retain and nurture a distinct Christian identity. The results indicate that Christian higher education continues to expand throughout the world, challenging the assumed linear trend toward secularization. This paper focuses upon the results of our survey in countries beyond Canada and the United States where most of the recent growth is occurring. We found a total 579 institutions outside of these areas. When we analyzed the origins, denomination, size, funding, and areas of study of these institutions we found some unique patterns that shed light upon the group as a whole and how they relate to larger trends within higher education.     

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.     

元代泉州基督教天使雕饰的多元文化选择

泉州出土的基督教石刻中,天使图像的刻画十分奇特,它反映了多种不同的文化来源,这在当时的宗教艺术中是前所未有的。泉州基督教团体的这种文化选择,是他们努力寻求宗教认同的见证,也投合了教徒的需要与归属感。     

The politics of normalcy: Intersectionality and the construction of difference in Christian-Jewish relations

This article examines the workings of a discourse of normalcy for a group of black Christian fundamentalist students. Focusing on the intersection of religion and race the essay analyzes the representation of Jewish people as dark and other, while constructing Christians who are white and normal. The inversion of racial identities unfolds in contradictory ways, reinscribing a discourse of colorblindness while simultaneously reifying categories of race. Through discourse analysis the article discusses how the political moves in both centrifugal and centripetal directions to construct a "universal" (Eurocentric) Christian identity while suppressing subgroup differences.     

Performativity,Faith and Professional Identity: Student Religious Education Teachers and The Ambiguities of Objectivity

Abstract

This paper considers the way in which Christian Religious Education (RE) teachers articulate the difficulties and challenges they experience both in school and with their peers as they navigate their way through their Initial Teacher Education. The paper offers a unique exploration of the relationship between elements of the three discourses of faith identity, emerging professional identity and the requirements of a performative teacher training context. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 184 student RE teachers across three universities. It became clear that all students interpreted the Standards and policy guidelines ambiguously, as being value-laden or value-free. The idea of the ‘good teacher’ as someone who was, by very definition, neutral and objective immediately made the faith position of students problematic. This is a key point in relation to the notion of performativity and education and the disproportionate impact it made on Christian students. It appeared as though many Christian students were concerned to stress that although their faith was personally important for them it was not something that contributed to their understanding of a ‘good teacher’.     

Ecclesiastical and religious factors which preserved Christian and traditional forms of education for citizenship in English schools, 1934–1944

Participants in the public discourse pertaining to religious education and education for citizenship in English schools between 1934 and 1944 included many ‘Christian educationists’. They advocated a conservative and elitist form of education for citizenship as taught through indirect training, Arnoldian public school traditions and ecumenical, liberal Protestantism. This contrasted with the conception of education for citizenship promoted by the founder members of the Association for Education in Citizenship. They wanted pupils to be educated into a liberal, democratic and secular version of English citizenship by means of ‘progressive’ pedagogies and direct instruction. This article identifies the ecclesiastical and religious factors which preserved the Christian and traditional form of education for citizenship in English schools between 1934 and 1944. These factors included the revival of the Christian foundations of British national identity and citizenship, the development and acceptance of non‐denominational forms of Christian education, the increasingly positive response which an evermore coherent and professionalised cohort of Christian educationists received from the Board of Education and the Consultative Committee, and the political power of the Anglican Church within the dual system combined with the religious settlement agreed in the 1944 Education Act.     

Christian Education,White Supremacy,and Humility in Formational Agendas

Christian education served as a tool of White supremacy that played a central role in the devastation of millions of human lives throughout the colonial era of Western expansion. An adequate account of how Christian education paired with colonial imperatives helps to identify where the legacy of White supremacy and imperial domination lives on in contemporary practices of Christian faith formation and religious education. While any educational venture requires authority and is an act of power, humility is an essential partnering virtue for Christian educators who do not wish to replicate this history of domination.