Measurement of metacomponential processing in young children

The purpose of this study was to provide initial information regarding: (a) the applicability of Sternberg's componential theory of intellectual functioning to young children's thinking, and (b) the validity of an observational approach to the measurement of metacomponential processing. Results indicated that both reliability and construct validity of the observational instrument were acceptable. The results also provided support for Sternberg's theory as applied to young children's cognition and suggested separable phases of componential processing.     

Autobiographical Research and the Emergence of the Fictive Voice

Autobiographical research is promoted as a means by which educational practitioners can critically analyse their professional lives. This goes beyond the valuable work already done on teachers’ lives by embracing personal critique. However, much of recent psychological research into autobiographical memory, particularly in terms of its veridicality or truth content, has not been widely disseminated within the world of education. This article discusses such research and its application to professional autobiography. It also offers a means forward for further study, emanating from the author's own autobiographical analysis. This is termed the fictive voice. By this is meant memories which, recreated from the perspective of hindsight and one's own self‐schema, are believed incorrectly to be true, but which may, when critiqued, offer the means by which one can arrive at an accurate recreation of one's professional past     

Attitudes towards faith-based schooling amongst Roman Catholics in Britain

Separate Catholic schooling in Britain has historically been a key mechanism for the religious socialisation of children within the denomination and for the transmission of communal identity and heritage. Catholic schools currently comprise around a tenth of all state schools in England and nearly all ‘denominational’ schools in Scotland. This study analyses Catholics’ attitudes towards publicly funded faith schools for different religious groups using a nationally representative survey of adult Catholics in Britain. It assesses the impact of social characteristics, religious behaving and believing, and moral attitudes. Catholics’ religious orthodoxy is consistently related to support for state-funding of faith schools, irrespective of the religious group in question, providing some support for the ‘solidarity of the religious’ perspective. The effects for moral attitudes are less consistent, with socially conservative views associated with support for faith schools for Catholics and Anglicans, but associated with opposition to faith schools in general and for non-Christian religions.     

The Recuperation of Participatory Arts Practices

Creative participation in the arts is a complex and abstract concept that bridges the gap between cultural production and its consumption. It is highly contextual and defined through a range of discourses besides aesthetics that concern access and inclusion, cultural identity, socio‐political rights, collective working, transformation and emancipation as advocated by community arts philosophy and praxis. These ideas are theoretically explored and critically evaluated in practice through three popular visual arts events in which the general public engaged and performed, demonstrating varying degrees of active involvement and dialogue. They also highlight the recuperation of radical cultural activism and communality where participation has become associated with spectacle and the co‐option of self‐determined thinking and resistance. Such cases are of obvious interest to community arts educators, particularly their value, the terms of participatory engagement and the extent to which radical non‐authoritarian and collective practices have been appropriated by cults of individuality and celebrity.