Cathedral engagement with young people

The Archbishops’ Commission on Cathedrals (1994) identified education as among the crucial purposes of cathedrals. This chapter analyzes the websites of fifteen cathedrals within the most urban dioceses of the Church of England and the Church in Wales in order to ascertain the variety of ways in which cathedrals are advancing the educational work of the Church in urban areas. The analysis distinguishes between four primary areas of activity, characterized as concerning school-related education, faith-related education, visitor-related education, and music-related education. Each of these four areas is illustrated by a case study profiling current practice

Evaluating the pilot Narnian Virtues Character Education English Curriculum Project: a study among 11- to 13-year-old students

In order to evaluate the impact of the pilot Narnian Virtues Character Education English Curriculum Project, a pilot sample of 86 year 7 and year 8 students (11 to 13 years of age) completed a battery of tests both before and after participating for six weeks in the programme. The battery of tests comprised 12 Narnian Character Virtue Scales (NCVS) (to assess the degree to which students saw themselves as behaving virtuously), the Knowledge Index of Narnian Character Virtues (KINCV) (to assess knowledge of virtues gained during the programme), and established measures of personality, happiness, self-esteem, empathy, and religious affect (as control variables). Mean scores were significantly higher at the end of the programme on the KINCV, but on none of the 12 NCVSs, and on none of the control variables. These data suggest that the Narnian Virtues Character Education English Curriculum Project was successful in enhancing knowledge of virtues but not in changing self-perceived behaviour. These findings are consistent both with the general educational principle that education informs understanding prior to affecting behaviour and also with the expectations of the project – that improving virtue literacy and understanding of virtues precedes the practice of virtues

Conceptualising and testing the Narnian Character Virtue Scales: a study among 12- to 13-year-old students

This paper sets out to examine and to operationalise 12 key character virtues identified within C. S. Lewis’ Narnian texts: courage, curiosity, forgiveness, fortitude, gratitude, hard work, humility, integrity, justice, love, self-control, and wisdom. A pilot study among 56 year eight students (12–13 years of age) generated nine five-item instruments displaying adequate internal consistency reliability, and suggested ways in which the other three measures (curiosity, integrity, and love) could be enhanced in future work. Construct validity was explored by examining the correlations between these 12 character virtues and sex, self-concept, and empathy, and by locating these 12 character virtues within the three-dimensional psychological space proposed by Eysenck’s model of personality