THE POSSIBILITY OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IN AN INSTRUMENTALIST AGE

In our increasingly instrumentalist culture, debates over the privatization of schooling may be beside the point. Whether we hatch some new plan for chartering or funding schools, or retain the traditional model of government‐run schools, the ongoing instrumentalization of education threatens the very possibility of public education. Indeed, in the culture of performativity, not only the public school but public life itself is hollowed out and debased. Qualities are recast as quantities, judgments replaced by rubrics, teaching and learning turned into exchange values. Schools should be central to public life: key locations for the regeneration of values, the cultivation of judgment, and the creation of the conditions for positive freedom. In this article Chris Higgins, drawing on Hannah Arendt and Alasdair MacIntyre, goes beyond typical treatments of the schools as equalizer of individual opportunity to explore three aspects of educational publicity: the school as an object of communal concern, schooling as preparation for public life, and the classroom as public space.     

LESSONS FOR RELIGIOUS EDUCATION FROM COGNITIVE SCIENCE OF RELIGION

Recent work in the cognitive sciences provides new neurological/biological and evolutionary bases for understanding the construction of knowledge (in the form of sets of ideas containing functionally useful inferences) and the capacity for imagination (as the ability to run inferences and generate ideas from information) in the human mind. In recent years, a growing number of scholars are making use of cognitive science to understand and explain religious beliefs and behaviors in terms of these evolved cognitive capacities and structures of mind. Based on a literature review of cognitive studies of religion, this article examines relevant themes from cognitive science studies of religion toward drawing pedagogical lessons for religious education.     

THE FELLOWSHIPS OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF RELIGION IN HIGHER EDUCATION

This article explores the interaction between the work and lives of five religious qualitative researchers whose research studies investigate both culture and religion. The ways their personal backgrounds, experiences, and values affect their choice of research topics and their relationships with research participants and with data, are revealed through the stories they tell about their work. Implications are drawn both for the conduct of qualitative, cultural study and for religious education.     

新论幼儿科学教育的原则

幼儿科学教育是一门年轻学科，许多理论问题尚处于探讨阶段，就幼儿科学教育的教育原则而言，长期以来不为人们所重视，在此方面的研究探讨甚少，笔者在十几年的教学理论研究与实践探索基础上，提出幼儿科学教育应坚持自然性、科学性、发展性、综合性原则     

THE MISREPRESENTATION OF RELIGION IN MODERN BRITISH (RELIGIOUS) EDUCATION

ABSTRACT:  The purpose of this paper is to articulate a new perspective on British multi-faith religious education that both complements and, in part, subsumes existing critiques. My argument, while controversial, is straightforward: it is that British religious education has misrepresented the nature of religion in efforts to commend itself as contributing to the social aims of education, as these are typically framed in liberal democratic societies. Contemporary multi-faith religious education is placed in context and its underlying theological and philosophical commitments identified and criticised. It is concluded that current representations of religion in British religious education are limited in their capacity to challenge racism and religious intolerance, chiefly because they are conceptually ill equipped to develop respect for difference.     

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DEWEY'S AESTHETICS IN ART EDUCATION IN THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION

On the occasion of Dewey's sesquicentennial anniversary, Kazuyo Nakamura explores Dewey's aesthetics, which holds the plurality of art and culture in high regard. Nakamura develops a theoretical foundation for art education in the present age of globalization based on educational insights drawn from Dewey's aesthetics. The theme of this essay unfolds based on three topics: Dewey's view of the educational value of art in general education, the fundamental viewpoint of art in relation to democracy, and the discussion of the educational aspect of individuality and community with respect to the experience of art. Based on Dewey's aesthetics, this essay presents new perspectives on art education that emphasize the realization of personal values, development of intelligent visual literacy, and enhancement of the quality of communication of art, in the context of globalization.     

论科学的本质与科学教育

科学的本质是科学教育领域中的一个重要问题。本文从定义和内涵两个角度对科学的本质进行了分析和阐述。科学既是一种过程,同时也是一种结果。科学活动的过程和科学活动的结果是紧密结合在一起的。作为探究与思维的科学、作为态度与精神的科学、作为知识与能力的科学是科学内涵的三个重要体现。在对科学本质进行分析的基础上,本文进一步对科学教育的目标与内容、过程与方法进行了探讨。     

潜科学在化学教学中的应用研究

首次把潜科学应用于化学教学,结合化学教学内容,对化学进行潜科学分析,把潜科学的理论和方法融入化学课堂教学,在传授知识的同时,起到了开发潜能、启迪思维、开阔视野、培养素质、揭示规律、提高能力的作用,教学效果显著,创造性地给出了一套把潜科学溶入化学教学的理论方法．