Coproductive capacities: rethinking science-governance relations in a diverse world

In a highly diverse world, cultural literacy is an essential tool for living together in harmony, and dialogic teaching may be a way to promote and develop it among children and adolescents. We define cultural literacy as a set of attitudes (inclusion, tolerance, and empathy) and skills (dialogic argumentation) needed to understand others in our everyday lives. This paper focuses on the effect of a professional development programme to promote dialogue and argumentation to help children and adolescents overcome pre-existing stereotypes and prejudices and foster students’ participation in discussions that contrast divergent viewpoints. This was done through debates on social responsibility issues, living together, and belonging as presented in books and short films addressing the following topics: citizenship, the celebration of diversity, democracy, globalisation, human rights, cooperation, sustainable development, and climate change. After the professional development programme was implemented, we video-recorded two of the 15 student–teacher interaction sessions during the project’s implementation (session #3 and session #8). We analysed the data using a validated coding scheme across three educational levels (three preschool, four primary school, and four secondary school classrooms). We observed moderate gains in secondary education and preschool, but statistically significant gains in primary education.

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Toward a multifaith view of atonement

Review & Expositor ◽

10.1177/00346373211001965 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 118 (1) ◽

pp. 71-85

Author(s):

Robert P. Sellers

Keyword(s):

Eleventh Century ◽

First Century ◽

Quarter Century ◽

Objective Theory ◽

Death Of Jesus ◽

The Reformation ◽

Diverse World ◽

Evangelical Protestants ◽

The Cross ◽

The Many

The meaning of the death of Jesus on the cross has been interpreted differently from the first century until today. Of the many theories proposed throughout Christian history, the dominant understanding, especially among evangelical Protestants since the Reformation and perhaps dating from Anselm of Canterbury in the eleventh century, has been the penal-substitutionary view of atonement. Christ died to pay the penalty for human sin, so humanity can receive forgiveness by trusting in the efficacy of Jesus’s death on its behalf. This explanation is an objective theory that is “Godward focused,” understanding the work of Christ as a divine plan to satisfy what God requires: expiation for human sin. Other competing theories, however, reject this idea and propose more subjective views that are “humanward focused.” This article considers the reality of different, imperfect perspectives about matters as complex as the interpretation of God. It connects the writer’s affirmation of the plurality of religious experience with his having lived a quarter century in the multifaith milieu of Java. It touches on specific opposing theories of atonement, endorsing as more useful in our interreligious world the subjective approaches to understanding the cross. It advocates an intriguing argument for the plurality of end goals, or “salvations,” among the world’s religions. Finally, it uses the less dominant models of martyr motif and the moral example theory to investigate how the concept of atonement might be understood in the context of four major world religions other than Christianity, suggesting that acknowledgment of the legitimacy of different approaches to the Divine is a distinctly “Christian” way to live in a diverse world.

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A Look Back: Church, state, and Kappan

Phi Delta Kappan ◽

10.1177/0031721721992557 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 102 (5) ◽

pp. 5-7

Author(s):

Teresa Preston

Keyword(s):

Public Schools ◽

Supreme Court ◽

School Policy ◽

Policy And Practice ◽

Religious Instruction ◽

Look Back ◽

Diverse World ◽

Supreme Court Rulings ◽

Role Of Religion

In this monthly column, Kappan managing editor Teresa Preston looks back at how the magazine has covered questions related to the role of religion in public schools. Authors considered how Supreme Court rulings affected school policy and practice, whether religious instruction is necessary for promoting positive values, and how to encourage respect in a religiously diverse world.

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