Motivating and Empowering Adults Returning to Study.

This is a qualitative study of students in FE who have attended ten cohorts of Return to Study courses over the past five years, using questionnaires and interviews. This involves people who have done a varying amount of prior study, and includes asylum seekers, ESOL students as well as those aiming for HE. It examines the development of their confidence and motivation through their experience of FE. It evaluates the provision they have been given and draws out examples of effective practice from their views. The study examines the obstacles that these students feel that society, relationships and the education service places in their path. The title reflects the degree of disadvantage that many have to overcome. The research should FE institutions develop the culture to support these students effectively in order to underpin widening participation

Spirituality as a Process within the School Curriculum.

Spiritual education concerns the quality of our thinking about ourselves, our relationships, our sense of worth and identity, and our sense of well-being. All curriculum subjects can contribute to this search for meaning. Religious education and the act of worship can contribute but are in practice very problematic if dogma inhibits open reflection. No one tradition of spirituality should be promoted since spirituality is a process. The world faiths provide starting points, but life provides more. The human spirit may be finite or eternal; but we are concerned with the here and now and education should promote open qualitative questioning. * First published in 2003 in Prospero: A Journal of New Thinking for Education vol 9, no 1, pp.12-18. This version has been revised

'Exclusive' Brethren: an Educational Dilemma.

An article from 1990 on the Exclusive Brethren and Education, particularly focusing on the ICT National Curriculum regulations that came out at that time, since Exclusive Brethren parents wished to withdraw their children from ICT on conscientious grounds. The paper follows their arguments. An update from 2007 has been added

Religious and Spiritual Education: the Way Forward.

An updating of an article formerly published as "Religious Education for the 1990". A postscript assesses how much was done and what the author believes the new agenda will be. The 1989 text is reproduced with permission

Review of Education as Social Action: Knowledge, Identity and Power (Book Review)

Review of a collaboration between United Nations Research Institute for Social development (UNRISD) and the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University Sweden. Ashok Swain discusses ‘Knowledge, Identity and Power’. He links education and power through the control of knowledge. Knowledge he argues can be used despotically through a ‘master discourse’ designed to impose national identity; or knowledge is owned by people whose critical skills have been sharpened

Difference and Diversity. (Review Article)

Review of Piper, H and Stronach I (eds) 2004 Educational Research: Difference and Diversity (Cardiff Papers in Qualitative Research) Aldershot: Ashgate Publishers. £45.00. IBSN 0754633551 This collection of papers on educational methodology are drawn from two conferences, ‘Realism, Relativism or Post-Modernism’ (1997) and ‘Feminism and Educational Research Methodologies’ (1999), suitably updated and with additional material. The overview and introduction are given in the final chapter, with separate text from each editor side by side in two columns. This overview is critical, even ‘rude’ (Piper’s word) so as not to seem to be 'sycophantic'..

CLEAR D: Evaluation of a Primary School (KS2) Drugs Education Programme

CLEAR D is a partnership between police, health, and social services which delivers a drugs education programme to 10 year olds. This evaluation sought to test its effectiveness and suggest improvements that may help future operation and funding. The evaluation reports (based on data covering three years of pupil opinion, and on comparative data from a school elsewhere not involved with a similar programme) that it has a positive effect over time. However, transition to secondary school is a key danger point which requires a continuation of drugs eduation

Encyclopedia of Religious and Spiritual Development (Review Article)

This is a large volume with around 300 entries and 130 contributors, mostly from the USA. The editors are child developmental psychologists. ‘Spiritual development’ is taken to be ‘aboutbecoming a whole person, someone who stands for something that defines and gives meaning to being human…There is religion without spirituality and spirituality without religion’ (p. xxiii). Religion is viewed as one route to spirituality, but not the only route. This article reviews the Encyclopedia entries, complains about many of the selection decisions (especially to promote belly dancing and crop circles and ignore Sikhism and the Bahai faith). It concludes that the combination of psychology and study of religions has not worked. It contains many worthwhile articles of broad interest on applied psychology, but extreme caution is needed regarding its entries on religion

Literature For Learning: Can Stories Enhance Children’s Education?

This article asks how children might benefit from story in their general education. It distinguishes between story for entertainment and stories for learning. Stories not only can be memorable, but can stimulate a child reader to think intellectually, socially, morally and spiritually if they are encouraged and taught how to do this. It argues that the reading of stories is part of critical education and introduces the idea of embodied learning. We conclude by asking whether stories are valuable as just stories, or whether there needs also to be some pedagogical purpose

A Critique of Emotional Intelligence (Book Review)

A review of: A Critique of Emotional Intelligence. What Are the Problems and How Can They Be Fixed? edited by Kevin R Murphy, 2006. This book written by psychologists describes the development of EI in the 1990s, and regards Goleman's work as a populist bandwagon. Chapters focus on the non-measurability of emotional intelligence, concluding that since it cannot be securely measured, it ought not to be described as an intelligence. It regards general intelligence (g) as the best predicter of potential, against Goleman's subtitle. Nevertheless, emotional maturity remains a not insignificant aspect of general personality