Showing papers on "Religious education published in 1997"

Religious education : an interpretive approach

Abstract: This work examines fundamental issues for religious education, such as how far it is possible to understand someone else's religious position and how religions should be interpreted in the classroom. It gives an overview of some important developments in religious education since the 1970s and makes suggestions about how we should "interpret" religion.

Creating Social Identities through Doctrina Narratives

Abstract: This study describes narrative activity in a doctrina class (children's religious education class in Spanish) composed ofMexican immigrants at a Catholic parish in Los Angeles. During the telling ofthe narrative ofthe apparition ofNuestra Senora de Guadalupe (Our Lady ofGuadalupe) doctrina students and their teacher collaboratively construct a multi- plicity of identities in an ongoing narrative version. These past and present identities are represented as Mexican, de aqui (from here), and dark-skinned against the backdrop ofthe description ofan oppressive colonial past in Mexico. The paper compares a doctrina class with a racially mixed religious education class conducted in English (catechism) at the same parish to llustrate differences in the way social identities are created in both classes. This study describes how teachers and students in doctrina class (a religious education class in Spanish) composed ofMexican immigrants at a Catholic parish in Los Angeles construct social identities in the course of telling the narrative of the apparition ofNuestra Senora de Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe). During the telling of this narrative, doctrina teachers at the parish of St. Paul' employ several discursive and interactional resources to represent a multiplicity of identi- ties within a coherent collective narrative, establishing in this way links to tradi- tional Mexican world views. Like narratives of personal experience, this tradi- tional narrative organizes collective experience in a temporal continuum, extend- ing past experience into the present (Heidegger, 1962; Ricoeur 1985/1988; Polkinghorne, 1988; Bruner, 1990; Brockelman, 1992; Ochs, 1994; Ochs& Capps,

The Education of the Whole Child

Abstract: What is the education of the whole child? the educational climate and the children and worldviews project how we carried out the research children's experience of conflict and loss children's religious and scientific thinking the identity of "Asian" children taking children's stories to other children children and parental separation religious identity and children's worldviews the implications for education the implications for the classroom religious education and collective worship children's spirituality and our contemporary culture prospects for education.

Relationship between school‐level and classroom‐level environments in secondary schools

Abstract: Investigates relationships between school and classroom environment Explains how in Australian secondary schools, instruments were developed and validated for assessing seven dimensions of school environment (empowerment, student support, affiliation, professional interest, mission consensus, resource adequacy and work pressure) and seven dimensions of classroom environment (student affiliation, interactions, co‐operation, task orientation, order and organization, individualization and teacher control) The study involved a sample of 2,211 students in 104 year nine and year 12 religious education and science classes and 208 teachers of religious education and science in Catholic and government secondary schools Indicates that weak relationship between school and classroom environments emerged, suggesting that the school environment cannot be assumed to transmit automatically to the classroom

Teaching Religion: Fifty Years of Religious Education in England and Wales

Abstract: Teaching Religion is the first book to trace the developments in religious education in England and Wales in the half century to 1994. It starts with the 1944 Butler Act and ends with the DFE Circular of 1994 which was issued to take further the RE provision in the 1988 Education Reform Act. Teaching Religion sets the changes in religious education against changes in education as a whole and changes in society. The complex interaction between and influence of religious thinkers, religious educators and politicians is explored, as is the suggestion that how we handle religion within the national education system can offer insights into the sort of society we are and aspire to be.

Indonesia's Nurcholish Madjid and Abdurrahman Wahid as intellectual Ulama: The meeting of Islamic traditionalism and modernism in neo‐modernist thought

Abstract: This paper examines two of Indonesia's leading Islamic intellectuals, Abdurrahman Wahid and Nurcholish Madjid, and the movement of thought with which they are associated, neo‐Modernism, a new movement in Islamic thought in Indonesia that emerged amidst much controversy in the early 1970s and has since been of considerable influence in the development of Islamic thought, particularly amongst younger Muslim intellectuals. The paper argues that this new movement of thought represents the coming together of Islamic traditionalism, Modernism and Western education in the persons of a generation of thinkers from traditionalist backgrounds, who as youths obtained a pesantren (traditional religious boarding school) religious education and then went on to undertake modern Western‐style, higher education. In doing this it focuses on the life experiences of two of the most outstanding thinkers to emerge from this generation: Nurcholish Madjid, a respected scholar and public figure and one of Indonesia's lead...

Shifting Alliances: Church and State in English Education

Abstract: An historical perspective on the churches and education in England prior to 1944 the 1944 Education Act partnership of Church and state in education since 1944 religious education and collective worship - the debate since 1944 the future of the Church/state partnership in education.

Competing and consensual voices : the theory and practice of argument

Abstract: Situating the teaching and learning of arguments within historical contexts, M. Daly Goggin ushering in the tigers of wrath - playfulness and rationality in learning to argue, S. Clarke narrative and arguemnt, argument in marrative, Mike Baynham argument as a key concept in teacher education, G. Harvard and R. Dunne argument, dialogue and religious pluralism - reflections on the current state of religious education in Britain, Howard Gibson and Jo Backus argument and science education, Carol J. Boulter and John K. Gilbert raised and erased voices - what special cases offer to argument, J. McGonigal extending children's voices - argument and the teaching of philosophy, Patrick Costello conflict and conformity - the place of argument in learning a discourse, S. Mitchell signalling valuation through argumentative discourse, M.A. Mathison thinking through controversy - evaluating written arguments, C.A. Hill negotiating competing voices to construct claims and evidence - urban American teenagers rivalling anti-drug literature, E. Long et al a different way to teach the writing of argument, A. Berner and W. Boswell argumentative writing and the extension of literacy, P. O'Rourke and M. O'Rourke.

The rise and fall of religious knowledge in Singapore secondary schools

Abstract: This paper examines the short-lived imposition by the Singaporean government of Religious Knowledge as a compulsory subject for upper secondary students. The move to introduce Religious Knowledge arose out of concern on the part of senior cabinet members that the moral values of the wider society were under threat from modernization and undesirable 'Western' values. Six options- Bible Knowledge, Islamic Religious Knowledge, Buddhist Studies, Confucian Ethics, Hindu Studies and Sikh Studies- were made available in 1984. However, barely five years later, in 1989, the government announced that Religious Knowledge would no longer be a compulsory school subject from the following year onwards and would instead be an optional subject to be conducted outside curriculum hours. Among the several interesting issues posed by the short-lived experiment in introducing Religious Knowledge in Singapore are: (1 ) questions surrounding curriculum knowledge; and (2) the importance of treating curriculum as a contextualized...

Church, State and Education: Catholic education in Hong Kong during the political transition

Abstract: Roman Catholic schools represent an important sector in Hong Kong's education system, both in terms of number and historical significance. As in many colonies in other periods of history, the Roman Catholic Church, in addition to other Christian Churches, had a partnership relationship with the colonial government in the provision of education in Hong Kong. Was there any change in this relationship during the political transition to 1997? Did the prospective return of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China (PRC) affect Catholic educational policies? This article examines these two questions in relation to the experience of other places in the world and in relation to the special nature of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong, namely its link with the Vatican and its relations with China where Church schools no longer exist.

Rebecca Gratz: Women and Judaism in Antebellum America

Abstract: This is the first in-depth biography of Rebecca Gratz (1781-1869), the foremost American Jewish woman of the nineteenth century. Perhaps the best known member of the prominent Gratz family of Philadelphia, she was a fervent patriot, a profoundly religious woman, and a widely known activist for poor women. She devoted her life to confronting and resolving the personal challenges she faced as a Jew and as a female member of a prosperous family. In using hundreds of Gratz's own letters in her research, Dianne Ashton reveals Gratz's own blend of Jewish and American values and explores the significance of her work. Informed by her American and Jewish ideas, values, and attitudes, Gratz created and managed a variety of municipal and Jewish institutions for charity and education, including America's first independent Jewish women's charitable society, the first Jewish Sunday school, and the first American Jewish foster home. Influenced by the religious and political transformations taking place nationally and locally, Gratz matured into a social visionary whose dreams for American Jewish life far surpassed the realities she saw around her. She believed that Judaism was advanced by the founding of the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society and the Hebrew Sunday School because they offered religious education to thousands of children and leadership opportunities to Jewish women. Gratz's organizations worked with an inclusive definition of Jewishness that encompassed all Philadelphia Jews at a time when differences in national origin, worship style, and religious philosophy divided them.

Part One: the hermeneutics of modern religious education

Abstract: Hermeneutical reflection on the nature, process, and scope of understanding tends to flourish whenever standard procedures of interpretation begin to falter. The contemporary study of religion is a case in point: conflicting results reflect a lack of consensus regarding appropriate methods of investigation. As a result, hermeneutics enjoys an increasingly significant role in religious and theological exploration. The discipline of religious education, despite constant wrestling with the ambiguity of religion, has not followed suit: it possesses no developed and sustained tradition of hermeneutical deliberation. This attempt to open up hermeneutical debate within the field of religious education begins by identifying romanticism, post‐modernism and critical realism as three key perspectives within contemporary hermeneutical theory (Bleicher, 1982; Jeanrond, 1994; Mueller‐Vollmer, 1986; Palmer, 1969; Thiselton, 1980, 1992). This article offers an account of the hermeneutics implicit in religious ed...

"A Delusive Clothing:" Christian Conversion in the Antebellum Slave Community

Abstract: Citing church membership figures accounting for fewer than twenty percent of the antebellum slave population, a number of revisionist historians have recently challenged the widespread view that Christianity was embraced by millions of slaves hungering for its message of love, hope, and salvation.(1) And although revisionist critics have responded that such statistics provide a far from accurate gauge of just how deeply Christianity permeated the slave population,(2) the question remains as to whether or not the mass conversion of as many as four million slaves within a single generation ever occurred, given that the vast majority had little or no exposure to Christian teaching prior to the Jacksonian period.(3) Despite such controversy, nearly all interpretations of slave religion maintain that after about 1830, Southern planters, motivated by a desire for social control as well as sincere concern for the salvation of bondsmen, successfully introduced Christianity to the spiritually starved slave community. And even though support for this conclusion rests heavily on supposition and interpolation, it has nonetheless been presented in a number of the modern era's most influential studies of slave religion. For example, Eugene Genovese's seminal work, Roll Jordan Roll, maintains that after 1831 Southern planters successfully overcame initial qualms over introducing religion to slaves and that, in the end, the conversion effort "generally . . . succeeded."(4) Consistent with this interpretation, Lawrence W. Levine's highly regarded study, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, insists that a "widespread conversion of slaves to Christianity" occurred "by the time of the Civil War." In particular, Levine points to the slaves' spiritual songs as proof of widespread conversion.(5) By far the most comprehensive treatment of antebellum slave spirituality is Albert J. Raboteau's Slave Religion. Agreeing with most scholars that slaves "remained only minimally touched by Christianity by the second decade of the 19th century," Raboteau argues that the conversion process began in earnest in the 1830s, overcoming considerable slave resistance, so that "by the eve of the Civil War, Christianity had pervaded the slave community."(6) Discounting church membership figures as misleading, he maintains further that even though "not all slaves were Christian, nor were all those who accepted Christianity members of a church," nonetheless "the doctrines, symbols, and vision of life preached by Christianity were familiar to most."(7) There is, of course, little question but that a comprehensive conversion effort was indeed undertaken by a number of antebellum Protestant denominations. Spearheaded by such notable religious leaders as William Capers, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and Charles Colcock Jones, advocates of religious instruction labored tirelessly to overcome entrenched planter opposition and galvanize moral and financial support behind the program.(8) Hampered by legal restrictions on slave literacy, limited funding, and a shortage of manpower, the Methodist program alone grew to include some 83 stations and 95 missionaries by 1845, and to 329 missions and 327 workers in 1861.(9) In addition to itinerate missionaries, local preachers were encouraged to minister to nearby plantations and, in regions lacking sufficient clergy, slaveholders, themselves, were urged to hold prayer meetings among bondsmen.(10) Also, many churches invited slaves to join their congregations, often partitioning off separate areas such as balconies to enable them to worship alongside whites. Taken as a whole, then, it is difficult to deny that Christianity played an important role in at least some quarters of the slave community after 1830. The problem for the historian is determining the true extent of Christianity's impact, and whether the religious weltanschauung or worldview of the antebellum slave can most accurately be characterized as Christian, African, or a syncretic marriage of both influences. …

Reforming Religious Education in Northern Ireland: A Critical Review

Abstract: This essay is intended as a tribute to Dr John Greer, who retired in 1993 from a Readership in Education at the University of Ulster, Coleraine and died in August 1996. Its aim is to provide a straightforward account of the process and results of recent educational reform in Northern Ireland with regard to Religious Education. Discussion focuses on the joint production by the four main churches of a Core ('Agreed') Syllabus, and the Government's decision to accord it statutory status. Reactions to the Core Syllabus are recorded and a number of critical points are made.

Religion, Religionism and Religious Education: Fostering Tolerance and Truth in Schools

Abstract: THIS ARTICLE IS a response to John Hull's analysis of ‘religionism’ and of its significance for religious education. The article takes issue with both Hull's understanding of the nature of the prob...

Distinguishing between Aims and Methods in RE: a Study among Secondary RE Teachers

Abstract: Although current debates concerning the theory of religious education in Britain make a clear distinction between the aims and the methods of the subject, little is known regarding the way in which practising religious educators apply different methods to achieve specific aims. The present study, therefore, invited 210 secondary RE teachers to assess the effectiveness of 27 different methodological components in respect of the five aims for RE drawn from the SCAA Model Syllabuses. The findings demonstrate that religious educators perceive a clear link between methods and aim. The paper includes a detailed analysis of the teachers’ views on the effectiveness of different methods of RE for fulfilling different aims.

Belief in God in Great Britain 1945‐1996: Moving the Scenery Behind Classroom RE

Abstract: This paper summarises figures relating to belief in God in Britain in the years 1945‐1996. While acknowledging interpretative and methodological difficulties it concludes that, in the time span reviewed here, belief in a personal God has declined, atheism has increased and a generalised theism has remained roughly constant. Several implications for religious education in England and Wales are drawn out on the basis of the continuance of these trends into the next millennium.

Character, Public Schooling, and Religious Education, 1920-1934

Abstract: Over the past five years, the American public has witnessed a flurry of interest in “character” and “character or moral education.” In 1992, William Kilpatrick wrote a book that attracted widespread attention, Why Johnny Can't Tell Right from Wrong: Moral Illiteracy and the Case for Character Education. A year later, William Bennett's best-selling anthology of remedial readings appeared, The Book of Virtues. More recently, Gertrude Himmelfarb published a book on the Victorian golden age of morals. At the same time, within the educational field, a subprofession of consultants devoted to character work has aimed to affect schooling at the elementary and secondary levels. As early as the mid-1970's, theologians and ethicists began discussing the idea of character, taking their cue from Stanley Hauerwas. Common to all of these writers is the belief that character has a necessary tie to religion and democracy.

Is Christian Education Compatible With Science Education

Abstract: Science education and Christian education are not compatible if by’’Christian education‘‘ one means teaching someone to be a Christian. Onegoal of science education is to give students factual knowledge. Even whenthere is no actual conflict of this knowledge with the dogmas ofChristianity, there exists the potential for conflict. Another goal ofscience education is to teach students to have the propensity to be sensitiveto evidence: to hold beliefs tentatively in light of evidence and to rejectthese beliefs in the light of new evidence if rejection is warranted by thisevidence. This propensity conflicts with one way in which beliefs are oftentaught in Christian education: namely as fundamental dogmas, rather than assubject to revision in the light of the evidence.

Religious knowing: still looking for that tree

Abstract: Can Western consciousness of the content and process of knowing provide an adequate epistemic foundation for religious education? This question is placed in historical perspective and illumined by the critiques of contemporary theorists. The self‐consciously “standpoint” epistemolo‐gies of feminist theorists provide a framework for a constructive proposal for a theory of religious knowing.

Benchmarks of Excellence: Effective Boards of Catholic Education.

Abstract: DOCUMENT RESUME

Religious texts, priestly education and ritual action in south Indian temple Hinduism

Abstract: This article, mainly based on research among the priests of the Minaksi temple in Madurai, Tamilnadu, is a continuation of earlier work on the relation between religious texts and ritual action which was presented in a monograph about the priests and a recent article in Contributions (Fuller 1984; 1993). It contains new data about education in the religious schools attended by the priests and their sons, which show that my previous analysis of the relation between the texts and ritual performance was flawed in some significant respects. My doubts about whether the priests' performance of ritual could be improved through education were also overstated, because educated priests have the crucial ability to recite texts when carrying out rituals, whereas their uneducated colleagues can perform only the physical ritual acts. This article also looks at the priests' `techniques of the body' and shows that education nevertheless has virtually no impact on how priests carry out physical ritual. The article concludes with some further reflections on the analysis of ritual and the problem of its misperformance.

Spirituality, Religious Education, and the Dormouse

Abstract: A simplification of the epistemology of Richard of St. Victor is used to distinguish the knowing of the spirit by contemplation from the knowing of the body by the senses and the knowing of the mind by reason in order to clarify the primary kind of knowing that makes religious education unique. Richard's definition of contemplation is compared to Garvey's description of play and Csikszentmihalyi's flow to provide a contemporary way to evaluate how the teacher and learner will feel when spirit‐knowing is being successfully taught.

John Wesley and the Teaching Ministry: Ramifications for Education in the Church Today.

Abstract: John Wesley, the principal founder of the Methodist movement in eighteenth‐century England, was deeply concerned about the process of shaping persons into Christians. To this end, Wesley developed and applied educational methods, wrote and distributed teaching materials, and insistently exhorted his preachers to fulfill their responsibility as teachers of the faith. In our contemporary culture characterized by spiritual superficiality, biblical illiteracy, and theological confusion, those who seek to form and nurture Christians may profitably attend to the guidance that Wesley's ministry offers.

The Role of Teachers' Stories in the Staffroom of a Religious School

Abstract: Women teachers in the staffroom of a religious high school in a small Israeli town are caught in a conflict between a modern consumer society that requires them to be educated career women, and the religious community of the town that requires them to be mothers and housewives. They solve the dilemma by turning the staffroom into an extension of their homes, by means of stories. The stories not only present the conflict to the teachers in the staffroom, but present the solution to the conflict.