Cultural Appropriation of Concepts of Democracy

2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 410-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Kontogiannopoulou-Polydorides ◽  
G. Fragoulis ◽  
A. Zanni ◽  
M. Ntelikou

This article investigates how 14 year-old students seem to conceptualise democracy in four countries, namely, Italy, Germany, Hungary and Greece. In particular, it will be examined whether adolescents living in different cultural milieus develop different conceptions and different practices regarding democracy. The article indirectly questions the way in which teaching of social and political education in school is related to students' concepts and attitudes. Students' responses in the second phase questionnaires of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) research are the focus of the analysis in this article. A crucial question is whether similarities or homogenisation of students' conceptions regarding democracy are viewed as the result of equal participation in the processes of constructing meaning through education, for example, or as the result of (oppressive?) homogenisation in school and society. However, it will be argued that there is always varying meaning construction and a definite (re)formulation of practices in any conception, and in any practice, a particular cultural appropriation of concepts and practices. From this perspective, the important issue explored in this article is the ways in which independent-contextual construction of meaning for democracy as well as in relation to the dominant in the West model emerges across the four countries reviewed.

2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel Menezes

The articles assembled in this issue of EERJ represent a considerable amount of consistent knowledge on civic education across Europe. They were produced as a variety of particular studies developed by some of the 20 countries that participated in the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) International Civic Education Project, initiated in 1994. This set of studies followed, re-examined or expanded the results of the second phase of the general study, looking at particular dimensions, combining or expanding aspects worked within the study, now focused on more restricted universes, or confined to more specific dimensions


2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 396-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera Husfeldt ◽  
Roumiana Nikolova

In addition to assessing the civic knowledge and skills of adolescents, examining students' concepts of democracy was an important aspect of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Civic Education Study. Based on theories and previous research with adults and youth in this area, a set of survey items was developed to cover several models of democracy. In the 1999 IEA Civic Education Study of 14 year olds, the confirmatory factor analysis showed one factor with items relating to the generic or rule of law model. A second factor, participatory democracy, did not meet IEA scaling standards. In contrast, confirmatory factor analysis of upper secondary school students' data revealed a three-factor solution for the democracy items, suggesting that they have more differentiated concepts of democracy than 14 year olds.


Author(s):  
Steve Bruce

Understanding why Islam has contributed little to contemporary religious and spiritual innovations allows us to see the principles underlying cultural borrowing. With its creator God, authoritative text, religious dogmas, and defined ways of life, Islam is too much like Christianity for cultural appropriation, and there is a considerable Muslim presence in the West that constrains borrowing. Such appropriation is easiest when ideas are not embedded in a large faith community (feng shui is an example), when they are retrieved from an ancient and undocumented past (as with Celtic Christianity), or when they are entirely fictional (as with the supposed characteristics of Atlantis).


2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 446-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heinrich Mintrop

Using the representative database of the Second International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Civic Education Study, this article takes a look at civic education through the lens of expert scholars, teachers, and students. The data reveals that, as some of the experts reported, political interest is not pervasive among students and classrooms are not places where a culture of debate, controversy, and critical thinking flourishes for students. But things have changed if civic education was primarily an imparting of facts about national history and the workings of the political system. As for teachers, now the discourse of rights and the social movements associated with it top the list of curricular concerns. Large majorities of teachers share with national scholars a conceptualization of civic education as critical thinking and value education, repudiating knowledge transformation as ideal, and they recognize the wide gulf that exists between these ideals and reality. As for many students, political disinterest notwithstanding, forms of participation born out of social movements and community organizing are the preferred channels of political activity. And yet, it seems the experts have a point: the field is not where it should be.


1979 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 477-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Finn ◽  
Loretta Dulberg ◽  
Janet Reis

Throughout the world, schools perpetuate the sexual inequalities of their cultural and economic environments. Jeremy Finn, Loretta Dulberg, and Janet Reis review crossnational studies of educational attainment, such as those sponsored by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement and the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and conclude that, regardless of the type of educational system or extent of opportunity, women are universally disadvantaged educationally.


Author(s):  
M. V. Kazmina ◽  
V. N. Kazmin

The article considers the main stages of the historiography of the ideological and political life of Russia in 1971 – 1991, the authors distinguish two stages of the  historiography  problems:  1971  –  late  1980s  -  the  beginning  of  1990s; end 1980s - the beginning of 1990s - beginning of XXI century. The first stage is characterized by methodological monism. The main attention of researchers was paid to the problems of propaganda of Marxist-Leninist ideology, ideological and political education of Soviet citizens. The second phase of historiography was methodological revolution when there a critical re-evaluation of the historical way the Soviet State had passed took place. The main focus of historical research during Perestroika was on such problems as: dissidence, protest movement, the activities of informal organizations. The article analyzes the historiography of dissidence and concludes that researchers created a scientific base that can serve as a basis for further study of this topic. 


Author(s):  
A. Wess Mitchell

This chapter examines the competition with the Ottoman Empire and Russia, from the reconquest of Hungary to Joseph II’s final Turkish war. On its southern and eastern frontiers, the Habsburg Monarchy contended with two large land empires: a decaying Ottoman Empire, and a rising Russia determined to extend its influence on the Black Sea littorals and Balkan Peninsula. In balancing these forces, Austria faced two interrelated dangers: the possibility of Russia filling Ottoman power vacuums that Austria itself could not fill, and the potential for crises here, if improperly managed, to fetter Austria’s options for handling graver threats in the west. In dealing with these challenges, Austria deployed a range of tools over the course of the eighteenth century. In the first phase (1690s–1730s), it deployed mobile field armies to alleviate Turkish pressure on the Habsburg heartland before the arrival of significant Russian influence. In the second phase (1740s–70s), Austria used appeasement and militarized borders to ensure quiet in the south while focusing on the life-or-death struggles with Frederick the Great. In the third phase (1770s–90s), it used alliances of restraint to check and keep pace with Russian expansion, and recruit its help in comanaging problems to the north. Together, these techniques provided for a slow but largely effective recessional, in which the House of Austria used cost-effective methods to manage Turkish decline and avoid collisions that would have complicated its more important western struggles.


The chapter covers the notions of illiteracy, literacy, and their development to the current moment. The authors present the notion of functional literacy specified by the UNESCO experts. A more detailed definition of functional literacy is to be found in the study Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). It is possible to perceive the reader's literacy based on age or different planes. The chapter contains information about research focused on the age: PIRLS handled by IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) and the PISA research organized by The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Both kinds of research focus on the reader's literacy and their authors provide their own definitions that differ based on age. There are various different approaches to increase the attractiveness of reading. The authors introduce at least some of them as an inspiration. One part is dedicated to the development of reader literacy in individuals with dyslexia.


2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-167
Author(s):  
Pum Za Mang

Buddhist nationalists in Burma have characterised Christianity as a Western religion and accused Christians in the country of being more loyal to the West than to the motherland. This essay, however, argues that Christianity is not Western, but global, and that Christians in Burma are not followers of the West, but Burmese who remain as loyal to their homeland as do their fellow Burmese. It is stressed in this article that the indigenous form of Christianity after the exodus of the missionaries from Burma in 1966 has proved that Burmese Christianity should be seen not as a Western religion, but as a part of world Christianity. This article also contends that a combination of social change, political milieu, tribal religion and the cross-cultural appropriation of the gospel has contributed to religious conversion among the ethnic Chin, Kachin and Karen from tribal religion to Christianity.


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