Chastity, Foreign Theories, and National Heritage Reorganization: Hu Shi (1892-1962) Addresses ‘The Woman Problem’

This article examines Hu Shi’s view of “The Woman Problem” (funü wenti) through his tripartite approach for achieving a Chinese Renaissance as enunciated in his 1919 article “The Significance of the New Tide” (Xinsichao de yiyi). Our reading of the 1919 article reveals that Hu conceived of the twentieth-century Chinese Renaissance as a meticulously planned reform project based on a tripartite approach that involved: (1) researching concrete problems (yanjiu wenti), (2) importing foreign theories (shuru xueli), and (3) reorganizing national heritage (zhengli guogu). The article aims to demonstrate how Hu applied each of these interconnected methods to “The Woman Problem.” Previous scholarship on Hu’s views on women has failed to notice that it was methodologically integrated into his overarching Chinese Renaissance project and simultaneously underpinned by his academic program to reorganize national heritage. This essay also probes the quality of Hu Shi’s ‘feminism’ by expounding how his analysis of “The Woman Problem” was integrated into his overarching program to achieve a Chinese Renaissance.

THE BEHAVIORAL EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT OF ABD AL-HAMID IBN BADIS AND ITS CIVILIZATIONAL DIMENSION

Sheikh Abdul Hamid bin Badis is considered one of the pioneers of renaissance and reform who had a prominent impact in the movement of renewal and social change to advance the nation change its deteriorating reality through an educational system and intellectual educational program within his comprehensive civilizational reform project, where he attached great importance to the consideration of education as the basis of any civilizational building. He has all his time and effort. His biggest bet was on changing man to change his reality and to pay attention to his reconstruction mission according to the Quranic civilizational cosmic vision. Keywords: Educational Thought, Education, The Civilizational Dimension, Abdul Hamid Bin Badis.

Mathematics Teachers and Curriculum: Authors or Actors?

Background: Among the plurality of themes addressed by curricular studies, the nature of decision-making processes involving education professionals has guided some research agendas. Delineated by one of those agendas, this text starts by asking what the participation of teachers in processes involving curriculum is. Objective: To analyse the rationality underlying the involvement of mathematics teachers in the context of curriculum reforms in Brazil and Portugal, presenting a theoretical basis inspired by Jürgen Habermas and its suitability to discuss teachers’ participation as authors or actors of curricula reforms. Design: Reconstructive analysis of rationality according to the Habermasian discursive ethics. Settings and participants: The context of a comparative study that surveys documents and interviews with two managers of a curricular reform project in Portugal and Brazil, respectively. Data collection and analysis: Analysis of the rationality that underlies the discourse present in curriculum documents of the countries involved and interviews. Results: Centralising elements of national curriculum policies do not mean by themselves the homogenisation of curricula, the rationality that underlies how projects predict the participation of teachers express an illusory discursive varnish about “teachers actively participating,” there are spaces of micropolicies with controlled margin of changes that advocate mathematics teachers as builders of policies, but the mechanisms of external regulation contradict this. Conclusions: Historically, in both countries, the educational systems, even expressing a rhetorical discourse on autonomy and flexibility, have remained hostages to the regulation of centralist global policies.

IVAN PROKHANOV'S IDEAS OF SPIRITUAL REFORMATION AND THE POTENTIAL OF THEIR APPLICATION IN POSTMODERN CONDITIONS

The Reformation movement, led by Prokhanov, swept across Russia and even went beyond its borders. The wave of religious reformation rose most strongly against the background of great social upheavals. The main reasons for the emergence and origin of the evangelical movement described in the article testify to the inevitability of the changes that awaited society. It can be unequivocally stated that the evangelical movement influenced all spheres of life of the people of that period. Despite the fact that for obvious reasons Ivan Prokhanov failed to complete his grand reform project, the appeal to his theological heritage provides an opportunity not only to draw from it valuable information for building a modern Ukrainian state on Christian principles, but also gives us an instructive example of how in order to implement evangelical principles, he used all his natural gifts – theologian, preacher, poet, writer and translator, human rights activist, religious and public figure, evangelical reformer. His experience as a theologian-practitioner can be used to provide a clearly practical orientation to Ukrainian theology, which has confidently embarked on the path of reform and development.

From Constitution to Law: Implementing the 2020 Russian Constitutional Changes

Although 4 July 2020 saw the coming into force of constitutional changes in Russia, this was far from the end of the story. Most clearly, these changes to the 1993 constitution required implementation, including through amendments to, and the writing of new pieces of, federal legislation. In part, this process was the mundane work of legal bureaucrats, tweaking and creating many pieces of legislation to reflect the new constitutional text. But the implementation process also reveals much more about the broader constitutional reform project. This article reviews the implementation process, discussing its complexity, the improvisation shown when fleshing out certain new constitutional details, its relationship with other political developments, and the chasm laid bare between Putin’s promise of the rebalancing of power in his 15 January 2020 Address to the Federal Assembly versus the reality of reform in practice.

Uthman (Osman) dan Fodio (1754–1817): Life and Religious Philosophy

Uthman dan Fodio (1754–1817), an emblematic figure of Islamic history in West Africa, was born in 1754 in Maratta in the Tahoua region (present-day Niger) and died in 1817 in Sokoto (present-day Nigeria). The role of Sheikh Uthman (Osman) dan Fodio is well known to all who are familiar with West Africa’s Muslim culture. Sometimes referred to in West Africa as “Nûru-l-zamân” (the Light of Time) and in Western literature as the “Great Pulaar Jihadist Sheik,” Uthman dan Fodio was one of the greatest Muslim theologians and thinkers in West Africa and is regarded as the founder of the last Muslim Empire. He studied under the Fodiawa family as well as with the great scholar Sheikh Jibril. As a successful teacher himself, he attracted attention from the royal palace. As a preacher, Uthman dan Fodio was listened to and followed by the religious devout, which led to him being persecuted by the successors of Bawa Jan Gorzo, consequence the jihad of 1804 and the foundation of the Islamic Empire of Sokoto. Despite this, in the tradition of prominent spiritual masters of Islam (Al-Ghazali, Al-Muhâssibi, Azzaruk, As-Suyûtî, Abdel Wahab, etc.), Uthman dan Fodio’s legacy remained strong in the Muslim world between the end of the 18th century and the end of the 19th century. The sheikh described his contributions in terms of moral and religious rebuilding; he felt as if he was invested in a messianic mission to save his community from perils. In other words, his tasks included promoting widespread change as it pertained to societal norms, morals, and education. Uthman dan Fodio’s reform project is part of the reformist heritage movement, which is also known as “the wave of the reformist current of the 18th century.”

The role of storylines in penal policy change

Bringing policy reform to fruition is an enterprise fraught with difficulty; penal policy is no different. This paper argues that the concept of ‘storylines’, developed within policy studies, is capable of generating valuable insights into the internal dynamics of penal policy change and particularly the ‘commmunicative miracle’ whereby policy participants sufficiently align to achieve reform. I utilize the part-privatization and part-marketization of probation services in England and Wales (‘Transforming Rehabilitation’) as a pertinent case study: a policy disaster foretold, but nonetheless inaugurated at breakneck speed. Drawing on interviews with policy makers, I demonstrate the means by which the ‘rehabilitation revolution’ storyline resolved (at least temporarily) the tensions and problems inherent in the reform project; without which it would have struggled to succeed. We see that storylines play at least three important roles for policy makers: they enable specific policies to ‘make sense’, to ‘fit’ in line with their pre-existing beliefs. They provide a sense of meaning, moral mission and self-legitimacy. And they deflect contestation. In closing, I consider the implications for scholars of penal policy change.