Self-Responsible Self-Determination:The Educational Theory of Martinus Jan Langeveld (1905–1989), Its Origins and Sources

Martinus Jan Langeveld (1905–1989) was a key figure in Dutch academic educational studies after the Second World War. This article investigates the origins and sources of Langeveld’s theory by examining his prior publications and the main references in conjunction with the intellectual movements of his time. This research shows, first, that Langeveld built his educational theory upon a variety of sources: the German-American psychologist William Stern (1871–1938), the Dutch educationalist Philipp Abraham Kohnstamm (1875–1951), the German philosopher Theodor Litt (1880–1962), and Edmund Husserl’s (1859–1938) philosophy of phenomenology. Further, Langeveld borrowed a phrase from the medieval theology of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) as the key idea of his theory. Last, Langeveld’s theory incorporates the important topics of the first decades of the twentieth century. In particular, the coinciding philosophies of personalism and phenomenology in the context of anti-positivist movements shed new light on Langeveld’s theory.</p

Munus triplex: A pedagogical application of a theological concept

The authors considered the identity of Christian teachers to be an urgent matter because of rapid changes in society, and assumed that such a consideration could help to envision education in an authentic way. They recognised that the current understanding of Christian identity emphasises unity with Christ and, therefore, set out to demonstrate that this unity is not only a matter of private spiritual life, but must also be carefully considered in professional practice. This article is not a research paper per se, but rather an exploratory, constructive essay. The authors examined and elaborated on unity with Christ with the help of the so-called three offices of Christ: prophet, priest, and king. After interpreting the Heidelberg Catechism and bringing it into critical dialogue with contemporary voices, they identified the implications of the three offices for educational practice. The office of prophet was reflected in both the implicit and explicit messages of the teacher. The office of priest was observable in a teacher’s compassionate behaviour, while the office of king was seen in the teacher’s humble citizenship and struggle against evil, as well as in the ethical views that a teacher promotes in class. Three offices were found helpful in rethinking Christian teachers’ role. The implications of this research included the potential for counterbalancing dualistic practices (role of the prophet), placing an emphasis on care instead of neoliberal pressures (role of the priest), and envisioning subject content within the coming of the kingdom (role of the king). Contribution: Through its consideration of the teaching profession in terms of the three offices of Christ, this article’s research seeks to enhance the professional identity of faithful Christian teachers. While the focus is primarily on those employed in Christian schools and also intends to influence the identity of those working in secular settings. The authors argue that teachers are prophets in the messages they impart, priests when they act compassionately, and kings when they encourage dedicated and exemplary citizenship

The role of the ideal of coherence between school and family in valuing cooperative practices of religious education

Children’s religious education is vital for the formation of pupils in Dutch Orthodox Protestant schools. Therefore, it seems self-evident that parents and teachers cooperate. This article presents research on parents’ and teachers’ opinions about the helpfulness of cooperative practices in religious education. A total of 1346 parents and teachers completed questionnaires developed from a previous study. This article finds that parents and teachers cherish the ideal of ‘coherence between school and family’ although differences between the respondent groups and school types occurred. Moreover, the research shows that this ideal influences the valuing of cooperative practices of religious education.publishedVersio

Het vaststellen van de mate van religieuze tolerantie bij leraren in opleiding

In recent years, schools and education authorities worldwide have been paying increased attention to issues surrounding diversity and religious tolerance. Tolerance constitutes one of the most important preconditions for social justice, fairness and peaceful coexistence. Hence, the authors of this article decided to develop an instrument measuring the degree and nature of religious tolerance among student teachers. It is not this article’s purpose to enter into a discussion about how to actually resolve religious, cultural and political conflict, but merely to embark on the process of developing an instrument to measure the degree of religious tolerance among teachers and student teachers.Religious intolerance is increasingly viewed as problematic, and it appears that education has been assigned the role of inculcating religious tolerance in young people. Teachers are expected to be able to inculcate in their students the respect, empathy, critical thinking and acceptance of differences among people associated with the notion of tolerance. To be able to do this, teachers have to possess the traits of a tolerant person.Whether teachers are indeed tolerant in practice depends on the extent to which they have mastered the capacity to be tolerant. This article reports on a study that culminated in the construction of a questionnaire for measuring the degree to which students on the threshold of entering the teaching profession displayed a tolerant attitude.The construction of the questionnaire was based on a theoretical study of tolerance and intolerance. The questionnaire was then applied in three different countries (South Africa, the Netherlands and India). Factor analyses were performed on the data to establish the validity of the instrument. The first round of application revealed a number of shortcomings in the questionnaire. The study therefore recommends a revision of the questionnaire. Among other things, the factoral structure and the reliability of some of the sub-scales require further attention. The study ascribes the lower than expected explanation of variance in the data set to the cultural differences existing among the different groups of respondents in the three countries.The article closes by drawing a conclusion regarding the degree of religious tolerance among the respondents who participated in this first round of application of the questionnaire

A Dutch example of New Education: Philipp Abraham Kohnstamm (1875-1951) and his ideas about the New School

Philipp Abraham Kohnstamm (1875–1951) was one of the founders of Dutch educational science and a key figure in the New Education movement in the Netherlands. This article has three aims: first, to depict Kohnstamm as an insightful example in the process of sharing and adopting ideas around New Education and the implementation of these ideas in the Dutch context. Second, to demonstrate that the New School ideas Kohnstamm embraced − such as the Dalton Plan (of Helen Parkhurst, 1887−1952) and the Gary Plan (of William Wirt, 1874–1938) − fitted in with his philosophy of personalism; this philosophy also explains why he did not choose Montessori education, which was very popular in the Netherlands during his time. Third, that this philosophy at the same time partly explains the initial limited impact Kohnstamm had on Dutch education

"Educating children to follow the voice of their conscience" - a comparative study of the Dutch educationalists Philipp Abraham Kohnstamm (1875-1951) and Martinus Jan Langeveld (1905-1989) within the context of early twentieth-century Europe

Two of the greatest Dutch educationalists of the twentieth century, Philipp Abraham Kohnstamm (1875–1951) and Martinus Jan Langeveld (1905–1989), believed that education meant, above all, the formation of a conscience. They developed their ideas in a time full of developments within Europe: the rise of fascism, two world wars, and pioneering theories on human development by Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), among others. Kohnstamm’s and Langeveld’s educational theories were also influenced, to a greater or lesser extent, by optimistic ideas about the spontaneous development of the child and the unique personality of humankind, as expressed in movements such as New Education, New Psychology, and the philosophy of Henri Bergson (1859–1941). This article aims to compare these two Dutch educationalists on conscience formation to contextualise their differences and similarities and subsequently understand them within European developments, such as New Psychology, and specifically the Dutch context of the twentieth century

An evaluation of the potential of linear and nonlinear skin permeation models for the prediction of experimentally measured percutaneous drug absorption

Objectives: The developments in combinatorial chemistry have led to a rapid increase in drug design and discovery and, ultimately, the production of many potential molecules that require evaluation. Hence, there has been much interest in the use of mathematical models to predict dermal absorption. Therefore, the aim of this study was to test the performance of both linear and nonlinear models to predict the skin permeation of a series of 11 compounds. Methods: The modelling in this study was carried out by the application of both quantitative structure permeability relationships and Gaussian process-based machine learning methods to predict the flux and permeability coefficient of the 11 compounds. The actual permeation of these compounds across human skin was measured using Franz cells and a standard protocol with high performance liquid chromatography analysis. Statistical comparison between the predicted and experimentally-derived values was performed using mean squared error and the Pearson sample correlation coefficient. Key findings: The findings of this study would suggest that the models failed to accurately predict permeation and in some cases were not within two-or threeorders of magnitude of the experimentally-derived values. However, with this set of compounds the models were able to effectively rank the permeants. Conclusions: Although not suitable for accurately predicting permeation the models may be suitable for determining a rank order of permeation, which may help to select candidate molecules for in-vitro screening. However, it is important to note that such predictions need to take into account actual relative drug candidate potencies.Peer reviewe