Subaltern Thinking in Religious Education? Postcolonial Readings of (German) Schoolbooks

ABSTRACT

This paper deals with the disclosure of subaltern thinking in current German-language textbooks for religious education. For the hermeneutical framing of this analysis, the approach of a postcolonial reading is particularly profitable. Obvious hierarchical relationships from clearly up and down can consequently be made visible and their presumed self-evidence unmasked. Even hidden hegemonic forms of expression can be uncovered in this way. With regard to current theology and religious education racism and misogyny, environmental degradation and sexual exploitation are attitudes that have already and almost as amatter of course been taken up critically. They are pedagogically reflected and attempted to overcome by using counter-models such as cultural diversity, equal rights, sustainability and sexual self-determination.In exciting contrast to this there are still nowadays textbooks used with remnants of exactly such formats of colonial thoughts. We argue that decolonising schoolbooks can be a useful part of decolonising the religious education curriculum. The schoolbook analysis carried out for this purpose is structured by four leading categories: Anthropological assumptions (1), religious classifications and interpretations (2), conceptions of culture and its hybridity (3) and finally the relationship to creation and environment (4). Textbooks from primary, secondary and vocational schools were examined.     

Measures of long-term trends in mathematics: linking large-scale assessments over 50 years

Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability - International comparative assessments of student achievement are constructed to assess country-level differences and change over time. A...     

Reasoning and working memory as predictors of school grades

The present paper contributes to individual difference research in the field of working memory (WM) and reasoning and their contribution to the prediction of real-life criteria. Therefore, a broad WM test battery, a well-established measure of reasoning, and school grades were applied. It is argued that abilities as assessed with the WM component coordination are relevant for good performances at school, especially for science courses. The verbal task of the WM component storage in the context of processing was assumed to be relevant for the prediction of performance in language courses. As expected, reasoning turned out to be the best predictor of school grades. However, it was also confirmed that variance shared by coordination and reasoning can explain school performance, especially as concerns science courses. The verbal storage in the context of processing task significantly accounted for variance in language courses above and beyond reasoning. Thus, the present study provided further insights into the differential validity of different WM components.     

Searching for Macro-Meso-Micro-Level Links in Studies of North-South Research Collaborations

Minerva - Scientific collaboration between Northern and Southern researchers and development programs for research capacity-building have received new attention of practitioners and scholars during...     

What drives scientists to start their own company?: An empirical investigation of Max Planck Society scientists

Studies on academic spin-off companies have shown that the researchers’ scientific potential, experience and established networks with other scientists or companies affect entrepreneurial activity. Most studies investigate official data such as patents and citations or qualitatively study a research group or spin-off formation. Only a few studies focus on the individual scientist. Our study fills this gap by analyzing survey interviews of 2604 scientists working for the Max Planck Society in Germany. Our empirical results indicate that the entrepreneurial activities of scientists heavily depend on patenting activity, entrepreneurial experience, and personal opinions about the benefits of commercializing research and close personal ties to industry.     

Congenitally deaf children's care trajectories in the context of universal neonatal hearing screening: a qualitative study of the parental experiences

The objective of this study is to examine the early care trajectories of congenitally deaf children from a parental perspective, starting with universal neonatal hearing screenings. The analysis using a three-dimensional care trajectory concept is aimed at developing a basic typology of postscreening care trajectories. Children with severe/profound hearing loss, registered in the Flanders' (Belgium) universal neonatal hearing screening program, born between 1999 and 2001. Thematic content analysis of qualitative data collected retrospectively from participant's parents. Two basic types of care trajectories emerged; based on differences in care-use in the phase of further diagnosis and related parental experiences. Subtypes resulted from events related to cochlear implantation. Five trajectory phases were identified: screening, further diagnosis, care and technology, cochlear implantation, and reduction of care and were characterized by specific parental experiences such as confusion, disbelief, disappointment, and uncertainty. Those experiences relate to care professionals' acts and communication and the child's functional evolution. Early care interventions could benefit from coordinated transition between phases, parent support throughout the care trajectory, and a broad approach to deafness in professionals' communication.     

On Sources of the Word Length Effect in Young Readers

We investigated how letter length, phoneme length, and consonant clusters contribute to the word length effect in 2nd- and 4th-grade children. They read words from three different conditions: In one condition, letter length increased but phoneme length did not due to multiletter graphemes (Haus-Bauch-Schach). In the remaining conditions, phoneme length increased in correspondence with letter length. One presented monosyllabic words with consonant clusters (Herbst); the other presented disyllabic words without consonant clusters (Kö.nig). Phoneme and letter length contributed to the length effect in naming latencies. Words with consonant clusters elicited the largest length effect. We interpreted this finding as reflecting difficulties of young readers with accessing the output phonology of the tightly coarticulated consonant clusters from the separate phonemes delivered from serial grapheme-to-phoneme conversions. Moreover, eye-movement data indicated that increased reading speed, accompanied with decreased word length effects, is due to more efficient grapheme-to-phoneme conversions rather than the emergence of whole-word recognition.     

Teacher students’ dilemmas when teaching science through inquiry

Background: Inquiry-based science education (IBSE) is suitable to teach scientific contents as well as to foster scientific skills. Similar conclusions are drawn by studies with respect to scientific literacy, motivational aspects, vocabulary knowledge, conceptual understandings, critical thinking, and attitudes toward science. Nevertheless, IBSE is rarely adopted in schools. Often barriers for teachers account for this lack, with the result that even good teachers struggle to teach science as inquiry. More importantly, studies indicate that several barriers and constraints could be ascribed to problems teacher students have at the university stage.

Purpose: The purpose of this explorative investigation is to examine the problems teacher students have when teaching science through inquiry. In order to draw a holistic picture of these problems, we identified problems from three different points of view leading to the research question: What problems regarding IBSE do teacher students have from an objective, a subjective, and a self-reflective perspective?

Design &; method: Using video analysis and observation tools as well as qualitative content analysis and open questionnaires we identified problems from each perspective.

Results: The objectively stated problems comprise the lack of essential features of IBSE especially concerning ‘Supporting pupils’ own investigations’ and ‘Guiding analysis and conclusions.’ The subjectively perceived problems comprise concerns about ‘Teachers’ abilities’ and ‘Pupils’ abilities,’ ‘Differentiated instruction’ and institutional frame ‘Conditions’ while the self-reflectively noticed problems mainly comprise concerns about ‘Allowing inquiry,’ ‘Instructional Aspects,’ and ‘Pupils’ behavior.’

Conclusions: Each of the three different perspectives provides plenty of problems, partially overlapping, partially complementing one another, and partially revealing completely new problems. Consequently, teacher educators have to consider these three perspectives.     

Figures of Disengagement: Charles Taylor,Scientific Parenting,and the Paradox of Late Modernity

In this essay Luc Van den Berge and Stefan Ramaekers take the idea(l) of “scientific parenting” as an example of ambiguities that are typical of our late‐modern condition. On the one hand, parenting seems like a natural thing to do, which makes “scientific parenting” sound like an oxymoron; on the other hand, a disengaged stance informed by the latest scientific findings is uncritically demanded of parents, as such an approach is conceived of as a panacea. Instead of taking sides in this discussion, the authors seek a way to make sense of it, drawing upon the work of Charles Taylor, who offers a striking account of our contingent modern condition as well as of our ontological human constitution. They focus particularly on two examples Taylor gives where the contingent self‐understanding does not coincide with our timeless human features. This opens a space for what might be considered paradoxes in our late‐modern Western culture. This essay thus confronts Taylor's philosophy with the new parenting discourse to reveal how our moral horizons have evolved. Following this approach, the authors both expand on Taylor's thinking about our late modernity and at the same time try to assess the new scientific parenting discourse.