Culture teaching in EFL classes: Teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, and classroom practices

It is inevitably believed that culture teaching is the pivotal feeling of integrating culture into the teaching of a language, including in the EFL setting. This study aims to explore the English teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, and the reflection of their beliefs and attitudes on the teaching syllabi. The sequential explanatory mix-methods design was applied in junior high schools in Ngawi. The data were obtained from 144 English teachers’ answers to a questionnaire and interviews with six teachers. Then, the data were analysed by using descriptive statistics, the independent sample T-test, and the Mann-Whitney test. The results indicated that the majority of junior high school English teachers believed in the importance of incorporating culture into their teaching of the language taught and students’ learning process. Moreover, both state and private junior high school English teachers showed similar beliefs and attitudes related to culture teaching. When they taught English, the culture associated with that language had also been taught so that the misconception of learning the language can be minimized. The result of teachers’ practices strongly indicates that the English teachers in Ngawi had implemented the teaching of culture and inserted various cultural elements in the process of their teaching and learning in the EFL classes.

Burundian Teachers’ Conceptualisations of Philosophy-Based Language Teaching Approach in Developing EFL Students’ Speaking Skill

This study investigated the EFL teachers’ conceptualisations of the use of PBLT in EFL instruction. Thirteen EFL teachers selected from two higher education institutions in Burundi participated in the inquiry. The inquiry set out to assess participants’ beliefs and attitudes towards three constructs, namely the use of philosophical questions in the EFL classroom, the use of the EFL classroom as a community of inquiry, and the impact of PBLT in developing the EFL students’ speaking skill. A background information questionnaire, a Likert scale questionnaire, and an online structured interview were used to collect data from participants. The findings revealed participants’ positive views and attitudes towards the role of PBLT in EFL instruction. The use of philosophical questions in the EFL classroom as well as the use of the EFL classroom as a community of inquiry in enhancing EFL students’ productive and receptive skills was found to be highly favoured among participants. Furthermore, it was found that participants believe in the high potential of PBLT in developing the five components of speaking, namely fluency, accuracy, range, coherence, and content. Participants, however, showed a relatively diminished trust in PBLT when it comes to its role in enhancing the accuracy component, and this diminished trust may be attributed to the fact that accuracy relates much more to the linguistic form while PBLT puts greater focus on meaning.

Social Workers’ Causal Attributions for Poverty: Does the Level of Spatial Concentration of Disadvantages Matter?

Social workers may play an important role in the implementation of welfare policies targeted at the poor. Their norms, beliefs, and attitudes form local anti-poverty programmes and affect discretionary practices with their clients. Despite this, we know little about how social workers’ exposure to poverty shapes their attitudes towards poverty and their causal attributions for poverty. This study investigates social workers’ poverty explanations and the extent to which they depend on the level of local poverty. Data from a survey conducted among Hungarian social workers were analysed using multilevel linear regression models. To measure local poverty, we used a composite index of poverty, as well as a subjective measure of exposure to poverty. Our analysis revealed that most social workers explained poverty with structural causes, but individual blame was also frequent. Contrary to our hypothesis, the level of local poverty did not significantly increase the adoption of structural explanations but did raise the occurrence of individualistic ones. However, the effect of local poverty was non-linear: social workers tended to blame the poor for their poverty in the poorest municipalities, where multiple disadvantages are concentrated, while moderate poverty did not lead to such opinions. Our results suggest that efforts should be made to improve the poverty indicator framework to better understand the phenomenon of spatial concentration of multiple disadvantages and its consequences for the poor.

Pension Participants’ Attitudes, Beliefs, and Emotional Responses to the New Dutch Pension System

As of 2022, the Dutch pension system will be overhauled. The success of this as well as other pension reforms also depends on how participants react to and accept such changes. We therefore studied participants’ attitudes, beliefs, and emotions toward the new pension system. We composed a text to inform them about the new system and qualitatively analyzed their responses. We investigated which beliefs and attitudes prevail among different age groups. The results show that many participants base their comments on previous experiences, misconceptions and (sometimes false) interpretations of the information in the text. Moreover, we find that young people are more optimistic, whilst older participants tend to feel victimized. Since the new Dutch pension rules have yet to be introduced, the results of our study contain valuable information for policymakers and pension funds who should acknowledge and address the oftentimes intense emotions, beliefs, and attitudes that influence the way that intentionally neutral information is perceived and accepted. A diversified communication strategy, mindful of different beliefs, emotions and attitudes among participants should help to empower citizens to get insight in their financial situation after retirement and to make informed choices.

Fighting Violent Extremism With Narrative Intervention: Evidence From a Field Experiment in West Africa

Violent extremism is one of the major challenges of our time. A cluster-randomized controlled trial with two arms (treatment vs. control) conducted in 132 villages in the Sahel region of Burkina Faso ( N = 2,904 participants) examined whether a narrative intervention in the format of a radio drama can shift behavioral intentions, beliefs, and attitudes in contexts of violent extremism. Individuals in intervention villages participated in weekly listening sessions to the radio drama (6 months’ content) over 12 weeks. Compared with the control condition, the narrative intervention reduced justification of violence, increased behavioral intentions to collaborate with the police, and increased prioritization of addressing violent extremism. The intervention did not influence beliefs about or attitudes toward the police (e.g., trust, fairness) or beliefs about police–community collaboration. Content analysis of the narrative intervention and participants’ reception and discussion of the intervention provide insights on the processes driving the intervention’s influence.

Students’ Beliefs and Attitudes in Exploring Critical Literacy Comprehension towards Online Media Information into their Writing Practices

Addressing critical literacy exploration into students’ language learning is perpetuated in this digital media- dependent environment. Reading and writing competencies have also pertained the critical enactment in order to present the beyond textual values. Through class discussions and class observations among 12 tertiary English major students in a private university in Indonesia, this study explores students’ beliefs and attitudes towards their critical literacy comprehension on online media information through writing practices. This exploratory case study collect the data covering the recordings of class discussions and class observations from student lesson implementation during their writing course. The results of this study reveal that most of the students are aware of the critical understanding of particular information conveyed from certain messages in their written works. Their beliefs on critical literacy agency has raised several attitudes of how they construct the social perspectives based on selections of what to include and exclude in their written texts. The article is also present recommendation to enlighten the learning in a critical stance.

Contemporary Theoretical Understandings About Education

Education is one of the basic phenomena of human existence. Looking through the history of civilization, man has always worked, discovering new knowledge and thus enriching the fund of knowledge and skills, understandings, beliefs, and attitudes passed on to younger generations. In this way, the continuous development and constant progress of humanity, science, technology, philosophy and art, human society, and man himself has been made possible. Education is the best form of prevention of sociopathological manifestations in all educational environments, intentional and functional. Positive educational influences in any educational environment depend on what each individual member of the community and society as a whole will be like. Quality, proper, and good upbringing is the best prevention of all aspects of sociopathological manifestations. The masculine gender in this chapter implies both male and female genders.

Sustainable Development and Religion. A European Perspective

Religion is an important factor associated with sustainable development. Based on the data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) – Religion IV, we analysed religiosity in 20 European countries, taking into account declarations of religiosity, frequency of religious practices, religious beliefs, and attitudes towards members of other religious groups and non-believers. We have also examined how declarations of religiosity have changed since 1991 and compared the results with the ones from the European Social Survey.