Insight: Self Understanding Through Stories of Parallel Worlds

The purpose of this paper is to consider whether and how fantasy for children and young people contributes to the readers’ self-understanding. The fantasy is likely to contain an adventure with its own plot, characters and tensions. It will require a suspension of disbelief – the reader knows that the fantasy is not real, but reads as if it is. In the stories considered, the fantasy takes place in other worlds, through come kind of gateway (such as a wardrobe, window or door). The very famous parallel worlds are found in Tolkein’s The Hobbit and C.S. Lewis’s Narnia stories, the first a tale of moral duty in the face of danger, the second a crusade to combat evil both in the world and in ourselves, and to fight for the rule of good. The more recent stories considered in this paper are: • Urn Burial, by Robert Westall • The Abhorsen trilogy (Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen) by Garth Nix, • His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman

Review of “Who Will Lament Her?”: The Feminine and the Fantastic in the Book of Nahum by Laurel Lanner. (Book Review). Review of Sex Working and the Bible by Avaren Ipsen. (Book Review.)

Reviews of: LAUREL LANNER, “Who Will Lament Her?”: The Feminine and the Fantastic in the Book of Nahum (LHBOTS, 434; New York, T & T Clark, 2006), pp. X + 270. £80.00. ISBN 10: 0-567-02602-7. AVAREN IPSEN, Sex Working and the Bible (London: Equinox, 2009), pp.x + 237. £60.00/ £16.99. ISBN 13:978-1-84553-33-5

World Religions and Ecology Series, Cassell in association with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF UK): Hinduism and Ecology: Seeds of Truth; Buddhism and Ecology; Judaism and Ecology; Islam and Ecology ; and Christianity and Ecology (Book Review)

These are very welcome titles from WWF UK's expanding range of environmental materials with a focus on religious education. In general the books highlight both doctrine and action, providing a future agenda for further development. There are no books with Sikh or Bahá’í perspectives ...Overall, the series gives a positive impression of the contribution religion could make in future environmental protection. Religions may have in them the seeds of future hope - if only they reshape their agendas to allow principles to address new circumstances where their respective historic traditions do not offer solutions. Plus later postscript

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

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'..

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

Review of Therapeutic Education: Working Alongside Troubled and Troublesome Children (Book Review)

Therapeutic education requires a move from “a punitive, blame-based, unfairly competitive and deviant-defined culture” to “one that celebrates diversity and cultural differences” (p.11), from a deficit model of SEN and deviant model of challenging behaviour to “a more humane and therapeutic approach to education and learning generally (p.12). Therapeutic education is holistic and encourages agency and responsibility. How adults relate to learners is viewed as more important than what is taught. The authors invite this to be a model of whole school change, and indeed of a fundamental review of the values of the whole education system. “This book promotes a bio-psycho-social standpoint” (p.49)

Review of Islam and New Kinship: Reproductive Technology and the Shariah in Lebanon, Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality. (Book Review) Review of When God Comes to Town: Religious Traditions in Urban Contexts Editors: Rik Pinxten and Lisa Dikomitis (Book Review)

Reviews of: Islam and New Kinship: Reproductive Technology and the Shariah in Lebanon, Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality series vol. 16, New York & Oxford: Berghahn Books. 262 pages, bibliog., index ISBN 978-1-84545-432-6 Hb £50.00 When God Comes to Town: Religious Traditions in Urban Contexts Editors: Rik Pinxten and Lisa Dikomitis Culture and Politics, Politics and Culture, volume 4 New York and Oxford, Berghahn Books, 2009. 978-1-84545-554-

Creating the Old Testament: the Emergence of the Hebrew Bible. (Book Summary)

A summary of this book published 1989 and still in press (print on order). This material is created; the book itself is edited with three substantial chapters by the editor

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