<p> Over the past several decades, science advocacy organizations have increasingly participated in discussions of the relationship between science and religion to the public, mainly to counteract the resurgence of anti-evolution activities across the country, to address misconceptions and misunderstandings about science and religion, and to help make science more palatable and less threatening to religious believers. These engagements with religion have primarily involved four organizations: the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (SNMNH). In their engagements with religion, each of these organizations has simultaneously employed two distinct lines of operation: (1) defending science against anti-science religions and movements and (2) engaging science-friendly religions and the religious public. These lines of operation are driven by key objectives and supported by specific strategies and tactics to achieve those objectives, which this paper seeks to explore and analyze. Key findings and recommendations for science advocacy organizations' ongoing and future engagements with religion are provided.</p>

In this thesis I employ a constructivist epistemological stance (principally influenced by that due to George Kelly) to critically examine the curricular response to contemporary notions of truth, objectivity and knowledge. I take science education (at both Secondary and Tertiary levels) as ray special reference within the education system. An important part of my work explores students' and teachers' personal meanings of science and scientific method, i. e. alternative conceptions of science, and I see it as contributing to the growing body of research concerned with alternative conceptions in science: the 'Alternative Conceptions Movement' (ACM) in educational research. To help articulate ray views on these matters I use an augmented version of a framework or model, developed by my immediate colleagues, for conceptualising cognitive aspects of science education and the transformation of scientific knowledge. My version of this framework features components under the following main headings: 'Scientists'-Science', 'Philosophers'-Science', 'Curricular-Science', 'Teachers'-Science', 'Students'-Science', and 'Childrens'-Science'. I argue that, suitably augmented and interpreted, Kelly's theory is capable of rationally integrating existing ACM research, together with my own. My classroom research uses a number of complementary investigative methods, some of them novel. These may be grouped under the following three headings: - interviews - lesson observations - written exercises I present an outline of a theory of teaching which is compatible with ACM research and make recommendations for future science teaching and research. N. B. To avoid an insidious (male) sexism and 'his/her' formulations which I find tedious, I shall use plural forms throughout this thesis, e.g. their, themself.

<p> The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological study was to explore the lived-experiences of students participating in interfaith dialogue at the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) Interfaith Leadership Institute (ILI) in Atlanta. The lived-experiences of the participants were explored though the following research questions: (1) How do participants define interfaith dialogue in their own words? (2) How do participants experience interfaith dialogue? (3) What do participants perceive that they learn or gain through participation in interfaith dialogue? A purposive sample of eleven participants who self-selected to attend the ILI were recruited through the assistance of the IFYC staff. The researcher conducted a brief face-to-face screening in Atlanta with each participant, followed by a semi-structured interview via Skype or phone. Data was analyzed using an interpretive phenomenological approach, inductively looking for themes to emerge. Results demonstrated that the lived-experience of interfaith dialogue was characterized by: (1) the role of the environment, (2) the value of individual relationships through sharing and storytelling, (3) holding an ecumenical worldview, which led to the (4) strengthening of the individual's faith or non-faith tradition. The results of this study support past research on curricular intergroup dialogue and serves as a vehicle to translate similar outcomes to a co-curricular format. Recommendations include: intentionally creating environments to foster interfaith dialogue, expanding formats of interfaith dialogue to include co-curricular options and experiential opportunities, and increasing religious literacy through education and training. In addition, expanding the faith discussion to include the secular and others that do not fit with the current paradigm of religion must be explored. </p>

<p> This study explores the factors that affect the conversion trajectories of post-immersion missionaries. The data has been culled from focus group interviews and subjected to analysis from the perspectives of social philosophy, sociology, religious conversion theory, and Catholic Social Teaching. It follows the practical theological method known as &ldquo;shared Christian praxis.&rdquo; </p><p> It details the impediments to the subsequent deepening of conversion in the societal, ecclesial, interpersonal, familial, and intrapersonal spheres, namely, post-immersion depression, culture shock, feelings of guilt regarding one&rsquo;s own relatively luxurious living conditions, blaming God for the obstinate pervasiveness of extreme poverty and political injustices, and communication difficulties between the missionaries and their non-missionary family members and friends.</p><p> It concludes that the aforementioned discouraging factors can be effectively countered via attention, during the post-immersion stage, to the missionaries&rsquo; expressed needs to continue to meet regularly with their respective missionary communities, to deprivatize their visions of spiritual conversion, to live a less opulent lifestyle, to participate in hands-on community service projects in conjunction with local poor people, to continue attempting to contribute to the reign of God locally, and to speak publically about their missionary experiences. It also finds that guided prayer methods, communal liturgies, mentorship, debriefing retreats for the missionaries and their families, ongoing study of the Bible and Catholic Social Doctrine, and long-term commitment to the missions, can be efficacious tools in the promotion of the consolidation and deepening of conversion and the prevention of backsliding.</p>

What is the role of philosophy in education? This timeless question may best be answered by examining Plato's earliest dialogues in which he makes a case for philosophy as the centerpiece of education. I call this effort Plato's project for education and interpret the Apology, Crito, Charmides, Laches, Ion, Hippias Minor, Euthyphro, and Lysis as an integrated attempt to promote philosophy as education in ancient Athens. Plato accepted arete (excellence, virtue) as the proper goal of education, but his interpretation of arete as a distinctly moral quality required a new approach to education. Plato recognized that the quality in a doctor that makes her aim at what is good for her patient is distinct from the skill that enables her to choose the most effective treatment. Against traditional education, which emphasized social standing, professional skill, and the accumulation of information, Plato focused on the moral dimension of human beings and prescribed philosophy as a means for developing it. Memorization of information and tuition in practical skills may help us in our particular crafts, but it does little to improve us morally. This task must be undertaken separately through examination and reflection. Success will be judged not by one's peers, or even by one's government, but by the gods themselves who adhere to a universal idea of goodness. Plato's conception of arete as the health of the soul precipitates a new approach to education that focuses on philosophy and presents Socrates as its hero and martyr. Health of the soul, like health of the body, is something that requires constant labor and attention, and yet may never be perfected. In Plato's project, the ignorant Socrates and the dialogues themselves become indirect teachers by exhorting students to care for their souls and to appreciate the task. The promise that arete can be achieved through the pursuit of moral wisdom is given in the words and actions of Socrates. Like his ancient friends, the reader struggles to understand Socrates and from this struggle emerges philosophy: the love and pursuit of wisdom; the proper education for arete.

Relationships among education, oppression and class have been presented and explained in distinct and different ways by different social theories, namely, neo-classical and orthodox Marxist determinist, conflationist, and Marxian overdeterminist theories. Human practice, following these different social theories has had, and may continue to produce, different social structures, some of them disastrous, irrespective of whether the disasters are intended or not. Others carry in them seeds of freedom and justice. Determinist theories have contributed to disastrous human practice by being exclusionary in approach, picking either education or oppression as their entry points to which they assigned the privileged position of causality, independent of all other processes. The class process is one of those omitted processes because determinist theories had thought it would be wiped out following changes in education or oppression processes. Conflationist theory has formulated its logic differently, gliding education into oppression, presenting and explaining them to mean the class process. Result: changes have occurred in human practice which are nothing other than continual reformulations of the cultural process of education whose guiding threads are those determinist and conflationist theories. Politics, too, has been reformulated to mean competition for power--a process that tends toward oppression even if unintended. The class process itself has either been denied existence in contemporary society or inessentialized vis-a-vis education and oppression, leaving it untouched in the process of changes in education and oppression. This study rests on an alternative methodological standpoint with respect to how education, oppression and class are related, and how they might be removed. Using alternative Marxian theory, whose logic is overdetermination, I present and explain these three distinct and different processes and their relationships. The method of overdetermination understands the processes of education, oppression, and class to be mutually and contradictorily related. Its political implications, which this thesis tries to accentuate as having a promise in achieving freedom and justice, are that changes must simultaneously occur in education, oppression, and class processes. Following this viewpoint, overdetermination believes a different set of processes will constitute a free and just society. Those processes are politics, classlessness, and non-indoctrinational education.

There is a significant body of research on children's preconceptions concerning scientific concepts and the impact this can have upon their science education. One active issue concerns the extent to which young children's explanations for the existence of natural kinds rely on teleological explanations. These explanations either propose a purpose (e.g., muddy puddles are for jumping in) or suggest goal-driven behaviour (e.g., tigers decided to grow stripes for better camouflage). It has been argued that this teleological tendency is a major barrier to children's understanding of causality in the natural world, particularly when learning about evolution. This thesis details four studies which explore and seek to limit children's use of teleological explanations for natural kinds. Study 1 investigated two factors (question wording and questioned topic) that may have led to an overestimation of children's use of teleological explanations for natural phenomena (i.e., time-constrained, natural events or processes such as snow, clouds or night). The findings indicated that children's (aged 5- to 8-years-old, n = 66) responses to open questions involved significantly fewer teleological answers than to the typical leading form used in prior research. Furthermore, the concept of teleology is more nuanced than often suggested, as levels of teleological explanation varied considerably within the category of natural phenomena. Consequently, young children may be more able to learn about causal explanations than the literature implies. Study 1b used methods from corpus linguistics to explore the naturally occurring discourse surrounding the examples of natural phenomena investigated in Study 1. Teleological and scientific patterns of discussion were identified in a specially created corpus of children's discourse. The results of this analysis indicate that the patterns of language that children experience can influence their use and the form of teleological explanations. Studies 2 and 3 consisted of efficacy tests of an intervention designed to limit children's endorsement of teleological explanations to account for the existence of a) natural phenomena (e.g., snow or rainbows) and b) organisms' traits (e.g., giraffes' necks or zebras' stripes). The interventions consisted of short discussion-based activities which sought to develop children's understanding of why teleological explanations are inappropriate to use in scientific contexts. (Study 2, 5- to 7-year-olds, n = 54; Study 3, 9- to 10-year-olds, n = 24). These studies suggest teleology need not be a major barrier to teaching and learning about causality in Early Years education. After only limited discussion about styles of explanation in science, the results revealed that children's teleological preconceptions were malleable to change, a finding which runs counter to current thinking on children and teleology. In terms of a contribution to knowledge, it is proposed that children's use of teleological explanations is more nuanced than currently suggested by the literature. Furthermore, children's use of these explanations can be limited with a series of simple, short discursive lessons. Lessons that do not require additional pedagogical knowledge on the part of primary school teachers.

This Field Study Report represents a preliminary inquiry or prolegomenon to a Philosophy of Music Education in Australia. My concern here is with the nature and function of music in Australian education, especially of young people. I am not concerned with the technical details of education and training in the musical art itself: my aim is rather to distinguish and account for public and professional attitudes towards music in Australian education, by identifying their philosophical sources and social determinants. The Introduction begins with a general historical background, including detailed references to the important developments of the past decade that have dramatically altered the role and raised public awareness of music in Australia. Chapter I, 'The Politics of Music in School and Society' argues that the philosophy of music education derives from two classical sources: Plato, the inspiration for music educators in totalitarian societies; and Aristotle, for education in the liberal democracies. A recent review (Sparshott 1980) indicates that these two philosophies are still key positions in the field. Chapter II, 'The Tradition of Music in Australian Education' shows how the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, with Locke's utilitarianism, have influenced music education since colonial times, and how British pedagogical traditions have been modified by adaption to a new society and ethos. Chapter III, 'Music in Contemporary Australian Education' reviews recent empirical studies of the subject, showing, the persistence of traditional attitudes and basic problems. Chapter IV, 'The Right to Music: Aims and Methods' reports the empirical part of this Field Study - recorded interviews and discussions with adults and children involved in Australian music education and associated activities. These were the subject of a series of eight radio programs, first broadcast nationally by the Australian Broadcasting Commission, November 1979 to February 1980, subsequently rebroadcast twice, and now published on cassette (1981) Chapter V, 'The Right to Music : the Broadcast Series' consists of cassette recordings of the broadcast discussions, together with minimally edited transcriptions of the text. In my Conclusion, 'Philosophy of Music Education in Australia: the Three Traditions', I offer a preliminary analysis of contemporary Australian attitudes towards music in education as revealed by the broadcast discussion. I conclude that, while Australian music educators have been untrained philosophically, their attitudes (like those of society at large) towards music in education derive, in the main, from Plato, Aristotle and Locke.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of Psychology, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-06, Section: A, page: 2092. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 241-253).