Retaining young Catholics in the church: assessing the importance of parental example

Drawing on data from a survey conducted among 9,810 young people in England, Scotland, and Wales, this study examines parental and peer influence on church attendance among 2146 13- to 15-year-old students who identified themselves as Catholics. The data suggested that young Catholics who practise their Catholic identity by attending church do so largely because their parents are Catholic churchgoers. Moreover, young Catholic churchgoers are most likely to keep going if both mother and father are Catholic churchgoers. Among this age group of young Catholics both peer support and attending a church school are also significant, but account for little additional variance after taking parental church-going into account. The implication from these findings for a Catholic Church strategy for ministry among children and young people within England, Scotland and Wales is that it may be wise to invest in the education and formation of Catholic parents

Concordance of Bing doubles and boundary genus

Cha and Kim proved that if a knot K is not algebraically slice, then no iterated Bing double of K is concordant to the unlink. We prove that if K has nontrivial signature $\sigma$, then the n-iterated Bing double of K is not concordant to any boundary link with boundary surfaces of genus less than $2^{n-1}\sigma$. The same result holds with $\sigma$ replaced by $2\tau$, twice the Ozsvath-Szabo knot concordance invariant.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure

Known by name: A chaplain's role

A resource pack to support chaplains as they welcome new students into the school community. This resource pack emerges from findings unfolding from NICER's Research Project, ' Consolation and hope in a time of crisis: bringing chaplains together to cultivate human flourishing and spiritual resilience in response to COVID-related losses for year 7 pupils', funded by Sir Halley Stewart Trust

Islamic finance in Kuwait

Islamic banking is an experiment in finding innovative ways to regulate a financial system under Islamic law. In Kuwait the Kuwait Finance House has been operating for ten years as an Islamic financial institution surrounded by other institutions based on the western model. Kuwait is a particularly interesting centre for Islamic finance, as the Kuwait Finance House (Kuwait's only Islamic bank) has been one of the more profitable Islamic banks in recent years. Kuwait has benefitted greatly from the high oil revenues of the past twenty years, and its tiny size and population mean that most indigenous Kuwaitis now lead affluent lives. The Kuwait Finance House desires to help form a healthy economic climate, by using the acquired wealth wisely according to Islamic law. This study takes the reader through the principles of Islamic finance and compares its ideals to those of the western venture capitalists, who seek to improve the economic climate in the same way that an Islamic bank does. Chapters 3 and 4 deal with the Kuwaiti economy and financial system, introducing the reader to the country within which the Kuwait Finance House operates. The activities of the House are reviewed in chapters 5,6 and 7, while chapter 8 evaluates how successful the House has been since its inception in 1979. Finally the concluding chapter looks to what lies ahead for the future of Islamic banking in general and the Kuwait Finance House in particular, with special emphasis on the development of a fully-fledged venture capital industry operating within Islamic law

Christian ethos secondary schools in England and Wales: a common voice or wide diversity?

This study argues that it is the collective worldview of the students which is crucial in reflecting and shaping the ethos of schools. In order to understand the potential distinctiveness of Christian ethos schools two analyses were undertaken. The collective worldview of 2,942 students attending ten Christian ethos schools was compared with the collective worldview of 13,861 students attending 71 schools without a religious character. Then the collective worldview of 194 students attending an Anglican school that prioritised the Church’s ‘domestic’ function in education was compared with the collective worldview of 302 students attending an Anglican school that prioritised the Church’s ‘general’ function in education. The major difference occurs not between Christian ethos schools and schools without a religious character, but between Anglican schools that voice their interpretation of the Church’s mission in education differently

Effect of turbulence on electron cyclotron current drive and heating in ITER

Non-linear local electromagnetic gyrokinetic turbulence simulations of the ITER standard scenario H-mode are presented for the q=3/2 and q=2 surfaces. The turbulent transport is examined in regions of velocity space characteristic of electrons heated by electron cyclotron waves. Electromagnetic fluctuations and sub-dominant micro-tearing modes are found to contribute significantly to the transport of the accelerated electrons, even though they have only a small impact on the transport of the bulk species. The particle diffusivity for resonant passing electrons is found to be less than 0.15 m^2/s, and their heat conductivity is found to be less than 2 m^2/s. Implications for the broadening of the current drive and energy deposition in ITER are discussed.Comment: Letter, 5 pages, 5 figures, for submission to Nuclear Fusio

What really matters about teacher education at Cathedrals Group Universities: volume 1 final report

An investigation into [perceptions of] the features of Christian foundation universities’ Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes that are particular to the university’s Christian foundation. We are grateful to the Cathedrals Group of Universities and Colleges, for funding the first stage of this project and the Church of England University and College Fund for funding the second stage, through grant funding. This report contains the outcomes of the research which took place between November 2016 and January 2018. A separate document, What really matters about teacher education at Cathedrals Group universities and college? Volume 2: The Case Studies, provides profiles of the findings from the five different institutions. This is the substantive report. The aims: 1. To investigate why ITE trainees choose Christian foundation university teacher training programmes 2. To investigate why schools choose Christian foundation universities as training programme partners 3. To investigate what Christian foundation universities claim is particular to their Christian foundation, what is particularly or deeply Christian about their ITE provision with a focus on: • the underpinning values • the content and methodology of ITE training • how trainees are supported and challenged in the partnership aspects 4. To investigate what Christian foundation universities, ITE trainees and partnership schools claim about ITE trainees at the point of qualification, that is particular to the institutions’ Christian foundation

Spiritual flourishing in the words of the child: A Faith in the Nexus study 2023

Since the pandemic, there has been widespread increased concern about children's spiritual well-being. [The pandemic] is a once in a generation opportunity to transform the wider education system around the child so that wellbeing is truly at the heart of the learning environment in schools. (Barnardo’s, 2020) [A] challenge faced by the child Jesus set in our midst is one of health and safety and especially mental, emotional, and spiritual health...COVID has revealed a tidal wave of mental health pressures on the young which has been building for decades. (Bishop Steven, Oxford Diocese) We know from previous NICER research , conducted before the pandemic that there is a need to pay attention to and nurture the spirituality of children for them to flourish. We also know that many adults have limited awareness of the importance of this nurture and do not fully appreciate what children need to flourish spiritually. Research has shown that Faith communities have the potential to be a vital source of a sense of belonging and support for the spiritual nurture of children and adults. We identified a need to research children's understanding of what contributes to their spiritual well-being within the church school community context