Keeping the tradition alive: An analysis of contemporary Jain religious education for children in India and North America

<p>How do Jains, adherents of one of the oldest minority religions in India, maintain their identity and protect their way of life when surrounded by non-Jain religions? Even more striking, how do Jains in the United States, where they constitute a minority within the Indian minority, maintain their traditions amidst a multi-cultural American society? Seeking upward mobility, Jains in post-independence India, have migrated locally, regionally, and internationally and these migrations have disrupted their social, religious, and cultural practices. My thesis looks at the ways in which Jains have addressed these disruptions. I analyse how they have restructured their traditional religious education, transforming it in a variety of ways, producing a range of contemporary Jain religious schools for children, both in India and the United States. I argue that these new religious schools serve an important function in maintaining ancient Jain traditions, but have, at the same time, initiated significant structural as well as curricular changes that have transformed some of those traditions: widening the gap between Jain children and Jain mendicants, and reallocating authority within the Jain community by enabling laywomen to shape the curriculum and to teach in part-time religious schools, to name a few. The thesis pays attention to these changes, the reasons for the changes, and their consequences. Using in-depth curriculum analysis and formal interviews, I examine contemporary Jain religious schools for children in the image-worshipping Digambar tradition and the non-image worshipping Shvetambar Terapanth tradition in India, and in mixed traditions in the United States. These Jain schools are growing exponentially in number and popularity within India and America, but have largely remained unexamined. This study aims to fill an important gap by closely analysing the rituals, leadership, and curricula of these new religious schools and their role in shaping modern Jain traditions.</p>

Keeping the tradition alive: An analysis of contemporary Jain religious education for children in India and North America

<p>How do Jains, adherents of one of the oldest minority religions in India, maintain their identity and protect their way of life when surrounded by non-Jain religions? Even more striking, how do Jains in the United States, where they constitute a minority within the Indian minority, maintain their traditions amidst a multi-cultural American society? Seeking upward mobility, Jains in post-independence India, have migrated locally, regionally, and internationally and these migrations have disrupted their social, religious, and cultural practices. My thesis looks at the ways in which Jains have addressed these disruptions. I analyse how they have restructured their traditional religious education, transforming it in a variety of ways, producing a range of contemporary Jain religious schools for children, both in India and the United States. I argue that these new religious schools serve an important function in maintaining ancient Jain traditions, but have, at the same time, initiated significant structural as well as curricular changes that have transformed some of those traditions: widening the gap between Jain children and Jain mendicants, and reallocating authority within the Jain community by enabling laywomen to shape the curriculum and to teach in part-time religious schools, to name a few. The thesis pays attention to these changes, the reasons for the changes, and their consequences. Using in-depth curriculum analysis and formal interviews, I examine contemporary Jain religious schools for children in the image-worshipping Digambar tradition and the non-image worshipping Shvetambar Terapanth tradition in India, and in mixed traditions in the United States. These Jain schools are growing exponentially in number and popularity within India and America, but have largely remained unexamined. This study aims to fill an important gap by closely analysing the rituals, leadership, and curricula of these new religious schools and their role in shaping modern Jain traditions.</p>

The influence of transformational leadership and teachers’ trust in principals on teachers’ working commitment

The responsibilities of teachers and principals in Government Funded Religious Schools (GFRS) in Malaysia have become more demanding as the enrolment rates have risen over time. The principals’ transformational leadership (TL) potentially affects teachers’ trust (TT), which directly influences their work commitment (WC) in school. However, limited evidence is available to support this assertion. Thus, this study seeks to investigate: (a) the level of TL, TT, and WC and (b) the influence of TT as a mediator between TL and WC from the teachers’ perspective in the Government Funded Religious Schools (GFRS) in Selangor. This study employed a survey research design. A survey questionnaire was administered to 297 GFRS teachers in Selangor. These teachers were selected using a stratified random sampling technique. Descriptive (means, standard deviation, frequency, and percentage) and inferential statistics (analysis of regression and predictive accuracy) were employed to analyse the data. The findings suggested that the overall level TL (M = 4.077, SD = 0.533), TT (M = 4.070, SD = 0.521) and WC (M = 4.188, SD = 0.413) in GFRS in Selangor were ‘high’. It was also found that TL was a significant predictor of TT (B = 0.867, SE = 0.026, p < 0.05) and WC (B = 0.361, SE = 0.083, p < 0.05), with approximately 29% of the variance in WC accounted for by TL (R2 = 0.290). However, TT was not a significant predictor of WC (B = 0.064, SE = 0.085, p > 0.05), suggesting that TT did not mediate the relationship between TL and WC. Even though this study exemplified that the level of TL, TT and WC was at a high level, TT was found to have an insignificant effect on WC. This provides a new insight in understanding this complex relationship. The dynamic of relationships—among teachers, between teachers and staff, and with outside parties, might have an impact on developing TT and WC among these teachers.

The Annihilation of Tradition?

When it came to founding new Napolas, the NPEA authorities often used the strategy of laying claim to educational institutions with venerable traditions, Nazifying and ‘Napolising’ them. This could include the appropriation of well-known humanistic boarding schools with a Protestant ethos such as Schulpforta (alma mater of Nietzsche, Ranke, and Fichte), or the Klosterschule in Ilfeld, which were both taken over as going concerns. However, the National Socialist regime’s deep hostility towards Catholic foundations also led to the forcible expropriation of former monastic schools such as the Ursuline convent school in Haselünne, or the Missionary School of the Society of the Divine Word (Steyler Orden) in St. Wendel, which were transformed into NPEA Emsland and NPEA Saarland respectively. Expropriation could also be used to punish oppositional non-religious schools such as the aristocratic Landschulheim in Neubeuern, Bavaria. Although most of these schools still retained the curriculum of a ‘humanistic Gymnasium’, teaching both Latin and ancient Greek, by the end of World War II, their existing traditions had been almost completely expunged. We can therefore see these forms of expropriation and Napolisation as part of a more general movement towards the de-Christianization of education during the Third Reich, with the NPEA in the vanguard. This chapter treats the schools at Schulpforta, Ilfeld, Haselünne, St. Wendel, and Neubeuern as case studies, concluding with a brief treatment of NPEA Weierhof am Donnersberg, a former Mennonite school which had collaborated with the Nazi authorities even prior to its transformation into a Napola.

School types in adolescence and subsequent health and well-being in young adulthood: An outcome-wide analysis

While past empirical studies have explored associations between types of primary and secondary schools and student academic achievement, outcomes beyond academic performance remain less well-understood. Using longitudinal data from a cohort of children (N = 12,288, mean age = 14.56 years) of nurses, this study examined associations between the types of schools participants attended in adolescence and a wide range of subsequent psychological well-being, social engagement, character strengths, mental health, health behavior and physical health outcomes. Results in this sample suggested little difference between attending private independent schools and public schools across outcomes in young adulthood. There were, however, notable differences in subsequent outcomes comparing homeschooling and public schools, and possibly some evidence comparing religious schools and public schools. Specifically, there was some evidence that attending religious schools versus public schools was associated with a higher likelihood of frequent religious service attendance and becoming registered voters, a lower risk of overweight/obese, fewer lifetime sexual partners, and a higher risk of subsequently being binge drinkers; however, these associations were not robust to correction for multiple testing. Homeschooling compared with public schooling was associated with subsequently more frequent volunteering (ß = 0.33, 95% CI = 0.15, 0.52), greater forgiveness (ß = 0.31, 95% CI = 0.16, 0.46), and more frequent religious service attendance (Risk Ratio [RR] = 1.51, 95% CI: 1.27, 1.80), and possibly also with greater purpose in life, less marijuana use, and fewer lifetime sexual partners, but negatively associated with college degree attainment (RR = 0.77, 95% CI: 0.67, 0.88) and possibly with greater risk of posttraumatic stress disorder. These results may encourage education stakeholders to consider a wider range of outcomes beyond academic performance in decision-making.

Ties That Bind

Many assume that atheists and atheist scientists rarely interact with religious individuals. Yet, a large subset of atheist scientists—29 percent in the U.S. and 21 percent in the U.K.—have sustained patterns of interaction with religious individuals and organizations, making them the most unlike the New Atheists. This group includes scientists raised within religious traditions such as Judaism, Catholicism, and Islam who now belong without believing, an orientation that often involves secular participation in religious services and practices. Others participate in services or send their children to religious schools as a way to cultivate cultural capital and social standing. Another dimension of culturally religious atheism involves partnering with or marrying someone who is religious.

Methodology Framework for Syaheeza’s Daylight Rule of Thumb for Islamic Religious Schools

Daylight efficiency correlates to window design. Guidelines recommend a 20 per cent window-to-floor ratio (WFR) at 900mm windowsill height, where acceptable 300 lx to 500 lx measured at 900mm working plane height. However, Islamic religious schools use a 300mm height table known as ‘rehal’. Studies neglect the difference in required working plane height that effect window design and the illuminance level. A study was established to propose Syaheeza’s Daylight Rule of Thumb (DRT) for Islamic religious schools. This paper aims to highlight the reliability of the methodology framework used in Syaheeza’s DRT, such as surveys, Arabic handwriting performance assessment and computer simulations. Keywords: Daylighting; Islamic religious school; methodology framework eISSN: 2398-4287© 2021. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI:

SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND EDUCATIONAL LEVEL OF TEACHERS OF THE UZBEKISTAN SSR

The article highlights the problems and needs of the population for education as a result of the concentration of the Soviet government on the formation of a public education system in the spirit of its socialist ideas by creating new Soviet schools and increasing their number.In November 1918,the Soviet government of Turkestan decided to separate church from state and school from church. Although the existing private old religious schools were not completely banned by this decision, the creation of new Soviet schools and the increase in their number became more and more important. It is clear that this is a sign that the system is completely politicized. The schools were divided into two levels: the first level educational institutions included the first three classes, and the second level consisted of four classes. There was also a high school with three classes. Under the conditions of that time, more primary schools were opened in the country.This article discusses the current problem in the Soviet-era public education system under the Soviet government from 1994 to 1991, as well as the impact of this problem on today's education system

TERRORISM AND JIHAD ACCORDING TO WAHBAH AZ-ZUHAILI

This research is motivated by the existence of an interesting phenomenon that occurs in society today. Such as acts of terrorism that often occur in society, one of which is by carrying out suicide bombings as an implementation of jihad. The series of actions by the western media was manipulated and disseminated that the actions of the Muslims were an act of resistance by Muslims against non-Muslims. As a result, the meaning of jihad experiences a narrowing. Wahbah Az-Zuhaili in his book wants to explain that jihad does not have a narrow meaning like the understanding of most people, especially terrorist perpetrators. The understanding that has led to terrorism includes Fundamentalism, which is a view that is upheld on beliefs, religious, political, and cultural. Also, religious schools of thought tend to interpret religious texts rigidly and literally (textually). Other views such as radicalism, extremism, and separatism also tend towards terrorism. This has led to many deviations from the true meaning of jihad. According to Wahbah Az-Zuhaili, acts of terrorism are very contrary to the teachings of Islam, such as causing damage everywhere, creating panic, and spreading fear among the people. He explained that jihad and terrorism are different things because terrorism has the connotation of all attacks, intimidation, destruction, or violations of the interests of the state without any rights, without ceasefire or declaration of war. Whereas jihad is carried out based on rights, jihad has consequences for the existence of rights, while terrorism will have consequences for the absence of rights. According to him, the greatest jihad in Islam and the greatest is with ideas and dialogue, not by violence and acts of war. And there are many other meanings of jihad.