Mike Radford | Canterbury Christ Church University (original) (raw)
Papers by Mike Radford
A central task of religious education is to show how the puzzlements to human intelligence and th... more A central task of religious education is to show how the puzzlements to human intelligence and the experiences that are associated with spirituality, are compelling in relation to our development as human beings. There are always more theories than objects or events to be explained, and while the spiritual ‘data’ that gives rise to our puzzlements and experience is elusive and meagre, the supply of literature, teaching, ritual and other forms of articulation is torrential. To understand the nature of religious education we need firstly to ask about the nature of spiritual experience itself at its broadest level and then to identify and co-ordinate the kinds of material that will sensitise pupils to this experience and help them to articulate
it. This should provide a basis for evaluation of the material against
the context of their own life experiences. In this respect religious education is no different in structure to other areas of the curriculum.
This article explores the opportunities that the aesthetic experience of music offers pupils in ... more This article explores the opportunities that the aesthetic experience of music offers pupils
in their developing awareness of the subjective self and its relation to the objective
universe of which it is a part. How does creatively produced music, having challenged the
local frameworks or `conceptual spaces' within which it is de®ned, remain intelligible to its
audience? It is suggested that a principle of intelligibility that transcends this formally
de®ning framework rests on a direct and uni®ed perception of affective, subjective reality,
shared by human beings; a perception that embraces both composer, performer and
listener. This realisation is developed through the relationship that we have, as subjective
individuals, to the objective universe of which we are a part. Aesthetic experience gives
rise to a sense of transcendent reality, within which the subjective individual and objective
world are uni®ed, and which is identi®ed as a central element in our sense of the reality of
God.
British Journal of Religious Education, Jan 1, 1999
ABSTRACT Religious education is the process of exploring spiritual experience through the concept... more ABSTRACT Religious education is the process of exploring spiritual experience through the conceptual frameworks provided by religious texts, and of seeking to find meaning in those texts that is relevant to the development of the spiritual interests of pupils. Objective enquiry in relation to those texts does not require the assumption that there is a mind‐independent and separate reality, but can be based on understanding religious literature as part of a constructed world of theories, ideas and artefacts similar to those constructions that we find in the world of the arts. There are no ultimate meanings or truths in relation to this world but there is the possibility of rational and objective discussion based on information and shared experiences of its ideas and objects. The descriptions and explanations that are explored in this context have, to a greater or lesser degree, an incompleteness, or ‘conceptual spaces’, within them. The exploration of such spaces requires imagination and sensitivity to the issues around which they exist. Religious education is thus in part an education of the feelings and to this extent the task of the religious educator is more like that of the teacher of the arts than the theologian or philosopher
The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Jan 1, 2004
Creativity may be seen as a complex process of informational processing within a given framework,... more Creativity may be seen as a complex process of informational processing within a given framework, or, as Margaret Boden has termed it, "conceptual space." 1 It is in the context of such frameworks that the process of managing information makes sense. The framework offers ...
British educational research journal, Jan 1, 2006
This article presents a critical review of complexity theory in relation to educational research.... more This article presents a critical review of complexity theory in relation to educational research. The ‘analytical reductionist’ approach is one in which the educational researcher seeks to reduce complex wholes to particular factors and to identify correlations between them and desirable outcomes. Complexity theory shows how this approach in social research is both unreliable within its own terms of reference and misdirected. Complexity theory is characterised by a number of features. These include recognition that educational systems contain multiple variables. These connect in non-linear and dynamic ways, i.e. where factors are seen to interact in a causal
relationship the effects do not necessarily relate proportionally to the cause, and few factors may interact with many and many may interact with few. The crucial point of focus is on (a) the nature
of the connections that are products of previous interactions reaching into the particular history of the organisation, and (b) the constitutive nature of relationships between interacting factors. Three broad conclusions emerge. The first is that contrary to the promise of reductionist analytical methodologies, research cannot deliver the specific kinds of information that are expected to
inform policy and practice. The primary role of educational research becomes one of providing descriptions and explanations that provide a broader perspective on development in which decisions are primarily situation-specific. The second is to recognise that school improvement (a) rests on problematic assumptions about desirable outcomes and (b) is dependent on multiple
interacting variables and is thus likely to be local and temporary. The third conclusion is that, rather than seeking to understand schools in terms of factor analysis, research needs to look at the
nature of information flow and its constitutive impact on clusters of possible causes and effects.
Contemporary models of action research that are complementary to and in some cases promoted in UK... more Contemporary models of action research that are complementary to and in some cases promoted in UK Government policy tend to follow a loosely scientific methodology. They are reductionist in character and work on the assumption that linear processes of balanced interaction between causes and effects enables the practitioner to make controlled interventions and observe and record the effects. They are complementary to the school effectiveness paradigm and to the current climate of specific target setting and teacher accountability. Understanding educational situations and events in terms of complexity theory seriously challenges this view of how practitioners might research their work. Complexity theory leads us to view classroom events as subject to a multiplicity of variables that are non linear and dynamic in their interactions. This means that, to a substantial extent, educational events are much less predictable and far less under the control of particular elements, e.g. practitioners specific interventions, than this form of action research methodology leads one to expect. Teaching might have more in common with creative artistry and research taking something of the role of critique. This does not mean that practitioners cannot research their own practice but the elationship between the process of practice and research will need to be reviewed. The teacher researcher might take a roader and more holistic view of practice with a reduction in expectations with respect to planned outcomes.
The dominant discourse in research, management and teaching is one that may loosely be characteri... more The dominant discourse in research, management and teaching is one that may loosely be characterised as that of prediction and control. The objective of research is to identify causal correlations within policy, management, teaching strategies and educational outcomes that are sufficiently
robust as to be able to predict outcomes and make generalisations across practice. With the construction of a cumulative bank of evidence, given clearly specified educational outcomes, we might see research as supporting the improvement of schools towards ‘effective’ or ‘best’ practice. This discourse assumes that education, though complicated, nevertheless takes place within a bounded system of relatively stable, linear and balanced causal interactions. This perspective on schooling may be understood as the ‘prediction/control’ paradigm.
This paper explores the possibility of an alternative perspective, one that is based on principles derived from complexity theory and which may be referred to as the ‘complexity’ paradigm. Under this paradigm schools are seen as open systems, subject to non-linear and dynamic interactions among the multiple factors of which they are constituted, and often unpredictable. This paradigm, it is argued, is subversive of our ambitions to prediction and control. Researchers need to look to formal enquiry methods adopted in relation to other sites of complexity. In the meantime practitioners and researchers may benefit from various conceptualisations to which complexity theory gives
rise, i.e. those of recursive symmetries, attractor states, sensitivity at bifurcation points and the phenomenon of ‘lock in’.
David Carr argues that the intelligibility of spiritual development as an educational activity i... more David Carr argues that the intelligibility of spiritual
development as an educational activity is dependent upon there being a framework of propositions that relates to spiritual experience and that there is a methodology for establishing their truth. These propositions and the accompanying methodology need to be constructed along the lines of a traditional but re-worked form of religious education. Michael
Hand argues to the contrary that there can be no methodology for the evaluation of the truth claims in relation to ‘spiritual’ propositions since they invariably psychologically, if not logically, involve reference to a transcendental being and are therefore seen as substantially matters of faith. Since the presentation of faith-based propositional knowledge is
inappropriate to the secular school, the only route for spiritual education is in terms of those emotional qualities that we identify with the human ‘spirit’, that is, generosity, magnanimity, good heartedness, etc. In this paper it is argued that neither position is satisfactory in addressing the existential anxieties and tensions that underlie the construction of religious and other spiritually relevant forms of articulation. We do not need Carr’s ‘true’ spiritual propositions. Analysis of spiritual discourses can take the same epistemological form as enquiry in arts criticism, one
that recognises the elasticity of its propositions in terms of meaning and a fluidity in terms of its boundaries. The ‘truth’ of such propositions depends upon how they answer to the existential tensions felt by the pupil.
Insofar as Hand’s analysis is concerned, to reduce spiritual education to a form of emotional and social development neglects the clear intelligibility of spiritual discourse to the religious and non-religious minded alike. The unifying element in spiritual discourse is those existential questions that lie at its foundations. Spiritual education seeks to address
these questions as ones of both passion and intelligibility, helping pupils to make choices in light of their own experience of the tensions and anxieties that are embedded within them.
This paper considers the impact of complexity theory on the way in which we see propositions corr... more This paper considers the impact of complexity theory on the way in which we see propositions corresponding to the reality that they describe, and our concept of truth in that context.
A contingently associated idea is the atomistic expectation that we can reduce language to primitive units of meaning, and tie those in with agreed units of experience. If we see both
language and the reality that it describes and explains as complex, this position becomes difficult to maintain. Complexity theory, with its emphasis on non-linear and dynamic interactions between multiple variables, within indeterminate and transient systems, supports the case for a connectionist and holistic analysis. Theories are more likely to be under-determined by evidence and open to interpretation, with the potential for ‘certainties’ weakened. If educational situations are complex, then the drive towards specific and focused research findings that will support policy and practice, and the associated notion of control, is illusory. Rather than providing evidence for prescription, research is thus understood as descriptive and explanatory, within a range of interpretative possibilities. Action takes place
within a necessarily incomplete and constantly changing situation, more appropriately understood in terms of survival than control.
A central task of religious education is to show how the puzzlements to human intelligence and th... more A central task of religious education is to show how the puzzlements to human intelligence and the experiences that are associated with spirituality, are compelling in relation to our development as human beings. There are always more theories than objects or events to be explained, and while the spiritual ‘data’ that gives rise to our puzzlements and experience is elusive and meagre, the supply of literature, teaching, ritual and other forms of articulation is torrential. To understand the nature of religious education we need firstly to ask about the nature of spiritual experience itself at its broadest level and then to identify and co-ordinate the kinds of material that will sensitise pupils to this experience and help them to articulate
it. This should provide a basis for evaluation of the material against
the context of their own life experiences. In this respect religious education is no different in structure to other areas of the curriculum.
This article explores the opportunities that the aesthetic experience of music offers pupils in ... more This article explores the opportunities that the aesthetic experience of music offers pupils
in their developing awareness of the subjective self and its relation to the objective
universe of which it is a part. How does creatively produced music, having challenged the
local frameworks or `conceptual spaces' within which it is de®ned, remain intelligible to its
audience? It is suggested that a principle of intelligibility that transcends this formally
de®ning framework rests on a direct and uni®ed perception of affective, subjective reality,
shared by human beings; a perception that embraces both composer, performer and
listener. This realisation is developed through the relationship that we have, as subjective
individuals, to the objective universe of which we are a part. Aesthetic experience gives
rise to a sense of transcendent reality, within which the subjective individual and objective
world are uni®ed, and which is identi®ed as a central element in our sense of the reality of
God.
British Journal of Religious Education, Jan 1, 1999
ABSTRACT Religious education is the process of exploring spiritual experience through the concept... more ABSTRACT Religious education is the process of exploring spiritual experience through the conceptual frameworks provided by religious texts, and of seeking to find meaning in those texts that is relevant to the development of the spiritual interests of pupils. Objective enquiry in relation to those texts does not require the assumption that there is a mind‐independent and separate reality, but can be based on understanding religious literature as part of a constructed world of theories, ideas and artefacts similar to those constructions that we find in the world of the arts. There are no ultimate meanings or truths in relation to this world but there is the possibility of rational and objective discussion based on information and shared experiences of its ideas and objects. The descriptions and explanations that are explored in this context have, to a greater or lesser degree, an incompleteness, or ‘conceptual spaces’, within them. The exploration of such spaces requires imagination and sensitivity to the issues around which they exist. Religious education is thus in part an education of the feelings and to this extent the task of the religious educator is more like that of the teacher of the arts than the theologian or philosopher
The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Jan 1, 2004
Creativity may be seen as a complex process of informational processing within a given framework,... more Creativity may be seen as a complex process of informational processing within a given framework, or, as Margaret Boden has termed it, "conceptual space." 1 It is in the context of such frameworks that the process of managing information makes sense. The framework offers ...
British educational research journal, Jan 1, 2006
This article presents a critical review of complexity theory in relation to educational research.... more This article presents a critical review of complexity theory in relation to educational research. The ‘analytical reductionist’ approach is one in which the educational researcher seeks to reduce complex wholes to particular factors and to identify correlations between them and desirable outcomes. Complexity theory shows how this approach in social research is both unreliable within its own terms of reference and misdirected. Complexity theory is characterised by a number of features. These include recognition that educational systems contain multiple variables. These connect in non-linear and dynamic ways, i.e. where factors are seen to interact in a causal
relationship the effects do not necessarily relate proportionally to the cause, and few factors may interact with many and many may interact with few. The crucial point of focus is on (a) the nature
of the connections that are products of previous interactions reaching into the particular history of the organisation, and (b) the constitutive nature of relationships between interacting factors. Three broad conclusions emerge. The first is that contrary to the promise of reductionist analytical methodologies, research cannot deliver the specific kinds of information that are expected to
inform policy and practice. The primary role of educational research becomes one of providing descriptions and explanations that provide a broader perspective on development in which decisions are primarily situation-specific. The second is to recognise that school improvement (a) rests on problematic assumptions about desirable outcomes and (b) is dependent on multiple
interacting variables and is thus likely to be local and temporary. The third conclusion is that, rather than seeking to understand schools in terms of factor analysis, research needs to look at the
nature of information flow and its constitutive impact on clusters of possible causes and effects.
Contemporary models of action research that are complementary to and in some cases promoted in UK... more Contemporary models of action research that are complementary to and in some cases promoted in UK Government policy tend to follow a loosely scientific methodology. They are reductionist in character and work on the assumption that linear processes of balanced interaction between causes and effects enables the practitioner to make controlled interventions and observe and record the effects. They are complementary to the school effectiveness paradigm and to the current climate of specific target setting and teacher accountability. Understanding educational situations and events in terms of complexity theory seriously challenges this view of how practitioners might research their work. Complexity theory leads us to view classroom events as subject to a multiplicity of variables that are non linear and dynamic in their interactions. This means that, to a substantial extent, educational events are much less predictable and far less under the control of particular elements, e.g. practitioners specific interventions, than this form of action research methodology leads one to expect. Teaching might have more in common with creative artistry and research taking something of the role of critique. This does not mean that practitioners cannot research their own practice but the elationship between the process of practice and research will need to be reviewed. The teacher researcher might take a roader and more holistic view of practice with a reduction in expectations with respect to planned outcomes.
The dominant discourse in research, management and teaching is one that may loosely be characteri... more The dominant discourse in research, management and teaching is one that may loosely be characterised as that of prediction and control. The objective of research is to identify causal correlations within policy, management, teaching strategies and educational outcomes that are sufficiently
robust as to be able to predict outcomes and make generalisations across practice. With the construction of a cumulative bank of evidence, given clearly specified educational outcomes, we might see research as supporting the improvement of schools towards ‘effective’ or ‘best’ practice. This discourse assumes that education, though complicated, nevertheless takes place within a bounded system of relatively stable, linear and balanced causal interactions. This perspective on schooling may be understood as the ‘prediction/control’ paradigm.
This paper explores the possibility of an alternative perspective, one that is based on principles derived from complexity theory and which may be referred to as the ‘complexity’ paradigm. Under this paradigm schools are seen as open systems, subject to non-linear and dynamic interactions among the multiple factors of which they are constituted, and often unpredictable. This paradigm, it is argued, is subversive of our ambitions to prediction and control. Researchers need to look to formal enquiry methods adopted in relation to other sites of complexity. In the meantime practitioners and researchers may benefit from various conceptualisations to which complexity theory gives
rise, i.e. those of recursive symmetries, attractor states, sensitivity at bifurcation points and the phenomenon of ‘lock in’.
David Carr argues that the intelligibility of spiritual development as an educational activity i... more David Carr argues that the intelligibility of spiritual
development as an educational activity is dependent upon there being a framework of propositions that relates to spiritual experience and that there is a methodology for establishing their truth. These propositions and the accompanying methodology need to be constructed along the lines of a traditional but re-worked form of religious education. Michael
Hand argues to the contrary that there can be no methodology for the evaluation of the truth claims in relation to ‘spiritual’ propositions since they invariably psychologically, if not logically, involve reference to a transcendental being and are therefore seen as substantially matters of faith. Since the presentation of faith-based propositional knowledge is
inappropriate to the secular school, the only route for spiritual education is in terms of those emotional qualities that we identify with the human ‘spirit’, that is, generosity, magnanimity, good heartedness, etc. In this paper it is argued that neither position is satisfactory in addressing the existential anxieties and tensions that underlie the construction of religious and other spiritually relevant forms of articulation. We do not need Carr’s ‘true’ spiritual propositions. Analysis of spiritual discourses can take the same epistemological form as enquiry in arts criticism, one
that recognises the elasticity of its propositions in terms of meaning and a fluidity in terms of its boundaries. The ‘truth’ of such propositions depends upon how they answer to the existential tensions felt by the pupil.
Insofar as Hand’s analysis is concerned, to reduce spiritual education to a form of emotional and social development neglects the clear intelligibility of spiritual discourse to the religious and non-religious minded alike. The unifying element in spiritual discourse is those existential questions that lie at its foundations. Spiritual education seeks to address
these questions as ones of both passion and intelligibility, helping pupils to make choices in light of their own experience of the tensions and anxieties that are embedded within them.
This paper considers the impact of complexity theory on the way in which we see propositions corr... more This paper considers the impact of complexity theory on the way in which we see propositions corresponding to the reality that they describe, and our concept of truth in that context.
A contingently associated idea is the atomistic expectation that we can reduce language to primitive units of meaning, and tie those in with agreed units of experience. If we see both
language and the reality that it describes and explains as complex, this position becomes difficult to maintain. Complexity theory, with its emphasis on non-linear and dynamic interactions between multiple variables, within indeterminate and transient systems, supports the case for a connectionist and holistic analysis. Theories are more likely to be under-determined by evidence and open to interpretation, with the potential for ‘certainties’ weakened. If educational situations are complex, then the drive towards specific and focused research findings that will support policy and practice, and the associated notion of control, is illusory. Rather than providing evidence for prescription, research is thus understood as descriptive and explanatory, within a range of interpretative possibilities. Action takes place
within a necessarily incomplete and constantly changing situation, more appropriately understood in terms of survival than control.