A Review of “Interreligious Learning”

This article considers Religious Education (RE) from the perspective of socialization theory. After clarifying the concept of socialization, an understanding of socialization processes, requiring the simultaneous development of both a personal and a social identity, is linked with RE. The development of both a personal and a social identity calls for hermeneutic and critical reflective skills, which may be acquired in RE classes. Therefore, RE is an important means of socializing children and youths that may have great civic value and has a rightful place in the school curriculum. The article concludes with the argument that schools with an open religious identity are best suited to provide the type of RE advocated here.     

The Two Contested Concepts of Culture and Tradition in Religious Education

Culture and tradition are two highly contested concepts in religious education. Grounding their theoretical contribution in concrete practice, the authors begin with a report on a summer camp with young adults and analyze that experience in light of concepts of culture and tradition, focusing on participation and transformation as two core characteristics. Finally, the relationship of culture and tradition and religious education is dealt with using a Peircean, abductive line of interpretation as an alternative way of understanding the dynamic relationship of culture and tradition.     

Editorials

This article discusses historical and contemporary influences on changes in special education assessment, with emphasis on three persistent themes: accurate classification, fairness to minority students, and special education outcomes. Dunn's contributions to each of the themes are discussed, along with other influences such as legislation and litigation. Current dynamics leading to significant changes in special education assessment are discussed, particularly in the disability category of specific learning disabilities.     

A Vygotskian perspective on teacher education

Contemporary teacher education demonstrates the continued use of competency‐based, personality‐based and inquiry‐based approaches. These approaches are commonly regarded as representing alternative paradigms for designing curriculum and pedagogy. From a Vygotskian perspective, characterized by the use of bridging concepts relating individual functioning and personal development to sociocultural process and setting, these approaches may serve to provide elements for a more comprehensive paradigm of professional development. Drawing on Vygotskian theory, a teacher‐education environment offers support to trainee teachers for developing a professional identity. A central element is that trainees explore the practice of teaching for its underlying public meanings and as these meaning relate to their own structures of personal meanings. Such an exploration involves the shaping and testing of personally‐meaningful action in professional practice. Commitment to meanings found to be valid and practicable constitutes the core of professional identity. The task students face in developing professional identity on the basis of an assignment of meaning to teaching needs an appropriate teacher‐education environment. These conditions are worked out from a Vygotskian perspective on professional development.     

Predictors of Alzheimer's Disease Caregiver Depression and Burden: What Noncaregiving Adults Can Learn From Active Caregivers

This study examined similarities and differences between active caregivers (adult children and spouses whose family member had Alzheimer's disease) and not-as-yet caregiving adults (adult children and spouses whose family members are older, but do not as yet suffer from Alzheimer's disease). The objective was to determine what factors predict depressed mood and caregiver burden. Findings indicated that there were both differences and similarities between active caregivers and not-as-yet caregivers. While personality (extraversion) and anxiety about their own aging were the major predictors of depression for active caregivers, perceptions of a lack of social support was the major predictor of depression for not-as-yet caregivers. Regarding caregiver burden, perceived lack of social support, internal attributions of causality, and anxiety about their own aging were predictors for both groups. These findings are not only in concert with past research on the well-being of active caregivers, but they also importantly provide would-be caregiving adults with important information regarding caring for a family member with Alzheimer's disease. These findings suggest that not-as-yet-caregiving adults could better prepare for potential caregiving distress by learning active self-care skills, identifying what is meaningful about both growing older and about caregiving, and building a social network of support, all in anticipation of active caregiving.     

Empirical Validity for a Comprehensive Model on Educational Effectiveness

Educational effectiveness research is often criticised because of the absence of a theoretical background. In our study we started out from an educational effectiveness model which was developed on the basis of educational theories and empirical evidence. We have tested the main assumptions of the model by reanalysing a large-scale longitudinal dataset which contains elementary school data of subsequent student cohorts, their teachers and their schools. We found some expected positive effects on achievement of individual classroom and school factors in the effectiveness model but these were not stable across school subjects and student cohorts. When factors were grouped into clusters the findings remained essentially the same. To interpret the clusters we made use of the concept of consistency, which refers to a balance between factors which may enhance effectiveness. Some teachers and schools are more consistent than others, but this does not affect the achievement of their students. Cross-level interaction effects were not found. The instability of effects makes it hard to suggest changes in the model at this moment.     

Support options provided and required for modeling with DynaLearn—A case study

Science educators strongly advocate the importance of scientific modeling within science education. Although widely advocated for students, modeling is a complex task involving integration of topics, “languages” and abstraction levels. Thus support for the modeling task and for developing modeling skills is required. The goal of our study was to explore how novice modelers use several support options while performing modeling assignments with DynaLearn—an intelligent learning environment for qualitative modeling. The support options differ by the type of support, the presentation of the support, the relation to previous support, the adaptation to the learner and timing. Findings are expected to influence modifications and further development of support methods as well as providing guidelines for effective teaching using DynaLearn. Additional contributions of the study are insights on how novice modelers approach a modeling task, what type of support they are looking for, how they use each of the different support types, and what kind of instructional interventions might be required.     

Living and learning in the presence of the other: defining religious education inclusively

Recent developments in praxis and theory of religious education point to the growing interest in inclusive forms of didactics. Interreligious learning invites children and young people to deal constructively with religious diversity in the classroom. In this paper, philosophical and theological arguments for inclusive religious education are presented and widened for a learning environment in which people with and without special needs learn in each other’s presence. The experience of radical otherness, of difference and vulnerability of fellow learners, is the starting point to reframe religious didactics, religious pedagogy and theology. It is also the culmination point: radical inclusive religious education ends up with the experience of learning as ‘receiving the gift of friendship’ (Hans Reinders). This framework is helpful to plan different sorts of learning arrangements and to conceive of different sorts of learning relationships, even outside the religious education classroom.     

Homework and Student Math Achievement in Junior High Schools

In the school year 1994/1995 homework characteristics and effectiveness in math education among secondary schools were compared. The study examined the 1st year of secondary education (average age level: 12.3 years). The sample consisted of 28 schools, 56 classes and 1,394 students. The results show a lack of policy directed at the co-ordination of and increase in the amount of homework in Dutch schools. Nevertheless most math teachers give homework every lesson. Multi-level analysis shows that the amount of homework was the only homework variable related to achievement. It explained 2.4% of the variance. Frequency of homework and homework time were not related to achievement. There is a sharp contrast between Dutch and US teachers in ‘checking and grading’ of homework. However, in this study this variable was not related to math achievement.     

From School Effectiveness and School Improvement to Effective School Improvement: Background,Theoretical Analysis,and Outline of the Empirical Study

School effectiveness and school improvement have different origins: school effectiveness is more directed to finding out “what works” in education and “why”; school improvement is practice and policy oriented and intended to change education in the desired direction. That means that in the orientation on the outcomes, input, processes, and context in education, school effectiveness and school improvement also have much in common. In the project Effective School Improvement (ESI), the merger of the 2 traditions has been pursued. In the theoretical part different orientations have been analysed and combined in a model for effective school improvement. Based on this analysis the framework is developed for the analysis of the case studies on school improvement projects in the participating countries.