This study wishes to examine the different types of parenting styles with respect to their influence on the transmission process of religious versus secular values from parents to children in religious, secular and mixed (religious-secular) families. The study investigates parenting styles and their impact on the intergenerational transmission of values, among 211 Jewish families with heterogeneous religious-secular (R-S) parental dyads in comparison to family groups that are homogeneously religious (R-R) or homogenously secular (S-S). Results illustrate a correlation between Authoritative parenting style and permissive parenting style and child's secular values in all four groups. With respect to religious values, the findings illustrate that the authoritarian parenting style will have a more significant relationship with child's religious values than the permissive or authoritative parenting style. By focusing on mixed families, which remain underexplored in the literature, this study provides a unique lens on how value systems are negotiated and transmitted across generations in pluralistic societies.
Neoliberal education systems often foster a sense of urgency, with teachers and students under constant pressure to meet targets and other demands. The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in the classroom has intensified this sense of immediacy, mirroring broader societal trends. However, AI's speed contrasts with the slowness traditionally linked to spirituality and religion, exemplified in practices like meditation, mindfulness, and contemplation. This article examines the tension between these differing paces through the lens of slow pedagogy, and the concept of metaxis - belonging to two, often contrasting, worlds simultaneously. We argue that this approach offers a valuable conceptual framework for understanding and navigating the temporal differences between AI's immediacy and the slowness essential for holistic education, particularly in regard to the spiritual and religious dimensions of children and young people's lives. The article considers the purpose and role of the teacher in this context, concluding that schools can accommodate both the rapid pace of AI and the slower rhythms of spirituality, although this task is not without its complexities.
The Francis Psychological Type Scales (FPTS) were developed during the early 2000s to operationalise the four components of psychological type theory within survey-style research, proposing measures of introversion and extraversion, sensing and intuition, feeling and thinking, judging and perceiving. Drawing on data provided by 743 university students, the present study examines the factor structure, internal consistency reliability and construct validity of the Revised Turkish adaptation of this instrument, as part of an integrated programme designed to facilitate empirical research in T & uuml;rkiye rooted in psychological type theory. These data afford a solid foundation for further work in this field.
The integration of values in education is a globally recognised practice, with evidence of values being embedded into curricula. A post-primary curriculum, Identity, Multi-Beliefs, and Values Education (IMBVE), was developed for publicly managed schools in the Republic of Ireland as the curricular expression of sectoral values, as outlined in the Patrons' Framework on Ethos. The curriculum aligns with the ethos of these schools and the national lower post-primary curriculum. IMBVE was piloted in 44 schools during the 2023-2024 academic year. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with principals (n = 5) and teachers (n = 11) from six pilot schools, framed by the research question: How did principals and teachers experience the enactment of the IMBVE curriculum within their school contexts? Reflexive thematic analysis identified two interconnected themes - The Evolving Ethos of Publicly Managed Schools and Perceptions of Religious Education (RE). The findings suggest that IMBVE is viewed as more inclusive, a 'better fit' and an 'easier sell' than RE in publicly managed schools. Taken together, the findings highlight that curriculum enactment is inherently context dependent, shaped not only by school ethos but also by historical and cultural legacies that influence how IMBVE and RE are perceived.
The Student Christian Movement positions itself among students as exploring the Christian faith in ways that are progressive, inclusive and radical. Drawing on psychological type theory and temperament theory, together with data provided by 129 female and 68 male young adults associated with the movement, this study illustrates how the profiles of these young men and women differ from the profiles of the men and women found in church congregations. The three main differences between the two groups concern the higher proportion of intuitive types, the higher proportion of the NT Promethean temperament, and the lower proportion of the SJ Epimethean temperament among young adults associated with the Student Christian Movement. It is argued that these differences may lead to difficulties for some of these young adults integrating into established congregations.
Parental religious training encompasses teachings, rituals, and guidance aimed at instilling faith, values, and religious behaviours in children. Despite its importance, culturally sensitive and empirically validated tools to measure this training within a Muslim context are scarce. This study aimed to develop and validate the Parental Religious Training Scale (PRTS) for Muslim adults. Guided by relevant theoretical perspectives on religious socialization, the study followed a mixed-method exploratory sequential design across two phases. Study 1 utilised qualitative methods, including focus group discussions and open-ended questionnaires, to generate 71 preliminary items, which were refined through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with a sample of 461 Pakistani Muslim adults. A four-factor structure emerged, comprising 38 items across subscales of religious faith, practice, values and morals, and parental rules. Study 2 validated this structure using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with a sample of 703, confirming the scale's reliability and construct validity. The PRTS demonstrated significant positive correlations with parental religious emphasis, authoritative parenting, tawakkul (trust in God), and religious coping, while negatively correlating with mistrust in God. These findings establish the PRTS as a reliable, valid tool. Future research should explore its utility across diverse sects and ethnic groups.
Pedagogy in science and religion, like pedagogy in most other fields, does more than just represent the state of a discipline. It also formulates and, in many cases, defines its subject matter. This article describes an attempt to take the pedagogical dimension of science-and-religion seriously on its own terms, through the creation of a course aimed at what might loosely described as non-Anglophone European and Latin-American audiences. The first challenge was to critically engage with the implicit scholarly and popular canons that have permeated the pedagogy in science and religion. The second ordeal was to think of audiences and their respective starting points: should we take for granted that national contexts are the right units? Or should we, instead, distinguish between cultural milieus that run across these geographies, and in what way? Finally, the creation of such a course allowed us to rediscover the links between the creation of history of science qua academic discipline in the first half of the twentieth century with the study of science and religion. It also allowed us to consider the educational possibilities that themes from the science-and-religion scholarship have for teaching in history of science and in the natural sciences.
Most of the United States general population believe in a higher power or universal spirit, but relatively few scientists in the country hold similar beliefs. This disparity may be exacerbated by a worldview that science and religion are in conflict and by Christian distrust of science. Our experimental studies test whether a BioLogos Foundation resource, emphasising compatibility between religion and science, can improve Christians' science outcomes (trust in science, belonging in science, and science performance) despite stereotype threat. These studies also explore associations between Christian trust and interest in science. Findings concerning stereotype threat and intervention were inconsistent. However, we provide consistent evidence that, as compared to non-religious people, Christians are less trusting of science and less interested in science. However, our data also suggest that the relationship between religious affiliation and interest in science is fully mediated by trust - when trust in science is accounted for, there were no differences between Christian and non-religious participants' scientific interest. This suggests that Christian interest in science is likely shaped by their trust in the field, and video interventions to alleviate distrust may be ineffective, or even backfire.
This study examines parents' views on preschool religious instruction in Mu & gbreve;la, Turkey's southern district, using Thomas Kuhn's paradigm concept. In Turkey, preschool education does not legally include religious education, however some local customs may include Islamic religious content. Alternative Islamic courses for 4-6-year-olds are also offered by the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs. Families desiring religious instruction have demanded these courses despite ongoing disagreements over their purpose. The study examines how parental views indicate continuity or change in religious education using Kuhn's paradigm idea. The study investigates parents' views on religious education's necessity, content, and technique and its consequences on children's development. We interviewed 25 preschool parents for the study. Data illustrates parents' various religious educational attitudes. Some parents choose faith-based religious education, while others prefer a more inclusive and value-oriented model or avoid it. The research emphasises school-family cooperation in religious education and indicates that attitudes and expectations matter. Teachers' educational skills, impartiality, attitude influence children's religious education. The study uses Thomas Kuhn's paradigm theory to argue that epistemology and pedagogy affect religious education more than scientific paradigms. Religious education cannot be independent of society's ideologies and cultures; hence flexible techniques are needed to serve varied social groups.
The inclusion of content on religion in Australian curricula has always been a highly contentious issue. Education plays a central role in nation building, and tensions over curriculum content on religion reflect a greater battle waged over the myth of a white, Christian nation, versus Australia's diverse worldview reality. This article presents an analysis and evaluation of content on worldview diversity - spiritual, religious and secular - in the Humanities and Social Science (HASS) Learning Area of the two latest Australian Curricula (AC), versions 8 and 9. This study reveals that the current HASS content does not adequately reflect either the historical facts or the contemporary demographics of the worldview diversity of this continent, and particularly that of young Australians. Moreover, Australian and international research has demonstrated that worldview education can play a critical and positive role in advancing intercultural understanding and social inclusion. However, the AC still lags behind other nations in this capacity, beholden instead to the interests of post-truth Christian lobbyists' narrow nationalism. This article concludes, by contrast, with a call to rectify the AC's privileging of Christianity through a truer account, which foregrounds First Nations knowledges and better reflects the worldview diversity and complexity of Australia.
Against the backdrop of falling volunteer numbers in churches, our research examines perceptions of organisational support by UK ministry workers (paid and voluntary) in the sector of youth and children's ministry. Analysis of data collected through an online survey from paid workers (n = 326) and volunteers (n = 312) revealed that support could be in the form of tangible aspects and approaches, but these actions are either upheld or undermined by the general ethos and feeling as to whether the ministry sector is valued and prioritised. Support is complex and varied but needs attention in order to retain existing volunteers involved in this ministry sector.
The lands now commonly known as Australia are religiously and spiritually diverse. Australians have long engaged in spiritual practices which are Indigenous, religious and/or holistic, with significant overlaps among these categories. In this article we focus on Common Grace, a nondenominational Christian group, as an example of spiritual diversity in contemporary Australia. We draw on interviews with Common Grace staff, and textual analysis of available material about Common Grace. Without minimising the distinctiveness of various Indigenous, Christian and holistic practices, or the tensions which arise between them due to historic and ongoing colonial violence, we argue that a connection with nature - or 'creation care' in Christian parlance - informs member's desire for self and planetary wellbeing and world repairing, weaving together aspects of Indigenous, religious and holistic spiritualities at Common Grace. We contend that this is illustrative of spiritual complexity and practices of 'truth-telling' and decolonising religion in Australia.
Catholicism has historically been an active producer of diverse and contrasting imaginaries, emphasising radically transformative utopias or accentuating the return to well-ordered and idyllic pasts. This article analyzes traditionalist sensibilities in Argentinean Catholicism, which describe a Golden Age of the Church when hierarchical, religious order was thought to have kept the world's threats at bay. It focuses on three conservative Catholic sensibilities of: the Church; the family; and the environment. This article argues that in Argentinean traditional Catholicism the circulation of ideas about the risks faced by modern society is associated with attacks on traditional Catholic values, and the destruction of the traditional family and nature. In these scenarios, fears are focused particularly on women and their bodies. These social representations, often linked to conspiracy theories, fuel conservative Catholic imaginaries of wellbeing and risks in Argentina and other Latin American and Catholic conservative communities globally.
