Martin Ubani

Conceptual Definition and Empirical Validation of the Spiritual Sensitivity Scale

In this study, we extend the Multiple Intelligence Profile Questionnaire (Tirri and Komulainen, 2002) based on Gardners (1983) MI theory with spiritual intelligence (SQ). The operationalization of SQ was tested with an empirical sample of Finnish preadolescents, adolescents and adults (N = 496). First, we studied if 20 spiritual intelligence items reflect the categories of spiritual sensitivity (Hay, 1998; Bradford, 1995). The categories are: Awareness sensing, Mystery sensing, Value sensing, and Community sensing. Second, we optimized the number of items to create the eighth component to the MIPQ. The results of confirmatory factor analysis show good generalizability characteristics of the scales.

Education of Finnish student teachers for purposeful teaching

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the discussion concerning teacher knowledge in teacher education from the Finnish perspective. The article focuses on Finnish secondary school student teachers’ reflection on the educational purposefulness of their teaching at the beginning of their pedagogical studies. The empirical data include student teachers from all school subjects in the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Helsinki (N = 280) at the beginning of their one-year pedagogical programme, in 2010. According to the data, the student teachers emphasised some general purposes of teaching, regardless of the subject matter they taught. They all viewed themselves as responsible professionals whose task was to provide students with basic knowledge of their subject matter. Furthermore, they viewed themselves as responsible for the holistic education of the students, including their personal and ethical growth. We could also see some subject matter-specific purposes in the subject-specific teaching by student teachers of different subjects.

How do Finnish pre‐adolescents perceive religion and spirituality?

The purpose of this study is to investigate how Finnish pre‐adolescents perceive religion and spirituality. The participants of the study are 12‐ to 13‐year‐old Grade 6 pupils (N=102). The pupils were asked to give their meanings of religion and spirituality. The data includes over 700 written expressions on the two concepts. The qualitative content analysis of the data produced three dimensions. They were called the institutional dimension, the humanistic dimension, and the supernatural dimension. The students emphasized different dimensions in the data concerning religion compared to the data concerning spirituality. Most of the meanings given to religion belonged to the institutional dimension (68.2%). In the data concerning spirituality most of the meanings belonged to the humanistic dimension (66.2%).

What characterises the competent RE teacher? Finnish student teachers’ perceptions at the beginning of their pedagogical training

This study is part of a research project concerning perceptions of competence among RE student teachers at different stages of their pedagogical studies. This article focuses on the perceptions of RE teachers’ competence at the beginning of their training. According to the qualitative data the RE student teachers discerned various areas of competence. Both task competencies (content knowledge and good practice) and person competencies (experience, professional awareness, motivation and pro-social orientation) were identified. In addition, the student teachers placed more emphasis on theories of teaching than theories of learning. They also seemed to view RE teaching as a general educational profession.

Spiritual sensitivity in the classroom: a teaching experiment in Finnish upper secondary religious education

The interest to research spirituality in the classroom has been constant over the last decade. However, empirical research into classroom pedagogy and the lived experience of religious education has been scarce. This study describes a small-scale intervention that aimed to promote students’ spiritual reflection in Finnish upper secondary school RE classes by using stimulating tasks. One class (N = 23) of upper secondary school students (16–18 years of age) participated in the study. Analysis of students’ responses after the silent reflection moments suggested that the tasks were successful in eliciting some level of spiritual reflection for most of the students. In this article, we describe the experiment and the content and nature of this reflection, as well as discuss the advantages and challenges of spiritually sensitive teaching methods in a classroom of heterogeneous worldviews.

Threats and solutions: multiculturalism, religion and educational policy

The purpose of this article is to discuss how the interplay between multiculturalism, religion and education is described in Finnish national policy documents. The research question was as follows: How is the interplay between multiculturalism, religion and education portrayed in Finnish national policy? The data examined in this study included the national policy documents from 1998 to 2009. The qualitative analysis proposed five policy concerns with regards to multiculturalism, which were political radicalisation, ethnic relations, active citizenship, identity formation and human dignity. Religion seemed to be portrayed in a different manner in the different areas of concern. In the policy documents, religion is generally viewed both as a threat and as a solution in an increasingly multicultural society. In future, studies should be carried out concerning the intertwining of religion, power and nationality in school everyday practices.

What makes students feel authentic in an integrated RE classroom

Abstract The focus of this article is on 9th grade students’ (N = 9) perceptions on aspects that make them feel authentic in integrated religious education (RE) lessons among students of various faiths. All of the students had previously studied RE in segregated groups. The data was collected in a collaborative teaching experiment in Finland with student interviews. The students included young people between the ages of 15 and 16 from Lutheran RE, Orthodox RE and ethics instruction. The analysis identified five themes the students reported as having contributed to their sense of authenticity in RE: neutral pedagogical approach, approving social climate concerning diverse beliefs, space for different worldviews in instruction, group composition concerning beliefs and the position of the teacher regarding religion and his/her students.

Teaching religious education as a second choice. The case of three male student teachers in Finland

This article explores the professional reflection of three male religious education (RE) student teachers during their one-year pedagogical training. The participants (n = 3) interviewed in this article were chosen on the basis of their self-report in the questionnaire in which they claimed no previous teaching experience. The participants were interviewed three times: at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of their one-year teacher education. The interviews were analysed with qualitative content analysis. The study showed some patterns in the student teachers reflections concerning developmental aims, professionalism, and convictions during the year. The article concludes that in RE teacher education developing pedagogical thinking should be accompanied with becoming aware of the role of personal life history and contextual situation play in the process of becoming a sound professional in RE.

Evolving cultures of religious education: new perspectives on research, policies and practices

The theme of this special issue is: “Evolving cultures of religious education: new perspectives on research, policies and practices”. ‘Culture’ is in itself an ambiguous term that includes “all the characteristic activities and interests of a people” (Eliot 1979). The dictionary definitions of culture include: “The set of shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that characterises an institution or organisation” and the “set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic” (Merriam-Webster 2017). In simple terms, culture is shared by a certain group or society and is identifiable in the way things are supposed to and are being done in the social interaction of that certain group or its institutions. In the research today, ‘culture’ is less and less seen as a substantial and stagnant phenomenon with exclusive boundaries, but rather as something that is constantly evolving in interaction with other developments and cultures (Grillo 2003; Gropas and Triandafyllidou 2011). Jerome Bruner’s (1996) central thesis is that culture shapes minds so that it provides us with the toolkit by which we construct not only our worlds but our very conceptions of ourselves and our powers. Taking a cultural view of education requires, according to him, that one considers education and school learning in their situated, cultural context. While adhering to the views of Bruner, we employ his views further as we use ‘cultures’ here as an heuristic interpretative framework for mounting the challenges and changes in the different national and institutional contexts, for instance, that have relevance to religious education. Such current European wide changes include the diversification in religious-demography and secularisation, European policy initiatives to enhance tolerance and human rights in education (Everington 2007; Jackson and Fujiwara 2007; Jackson 2014), and the increased role of social media in the lives of people and the policy initiatives for ICT and digital learning in education (Conrads et al. 2017). The culture of religious education surrounds the practice of religious education: what goes on in religious education classrooms is a concrete representation of the respective culture of RE in a given country. The culture of religious education becomes manifest as the research, policies and practices of religious education. The practices of religious education can be termed classroom culture of RE (Ubani 2013). Today, ‘classroom’ is understood increasingly so that the learning environment crosses over the traditional physical boundaries of the classroom and blends informal and virtual settings with the formal educational enterprise (Kumpulainen, Mikkola, and Jaatinen 2014). Regardless of this, a classroom culture can be described to include the things that are considered valuable and good, what kind knowledge, language, concepts and practices are characteristic for religious education learning and instruction – what makes RE distinctive from other subjects or educational actions. The classroom culture in religious education can be viewed to be in interaction with different factors connected to research, policy and practice. Together with the classroom culture of RE, we consider these as integral markers of the culture of religious education. When discussing religious education in schools, such factors include the field tradition – how things have always been done and should be done that is upheld by the teachers and is being reproduced by non-reflective

Issues in spiritual formation in early lifespan contexts

Past decades have witnessed a strong expansion of research on spirituality and spiritual education. From examining the volumes from International Journal of Children’s Spirituality alone it can be ...