Educating for hope, compassion and meaning in a divisive and intolerant world

Spirituality across Disciplines: Research and Practice:

“…This volume is welcome because its contributions take it in In the mid-1990s, when I first began to research perceptions and experiences of religious education programs for senior secondary students in Catholic schools in the State of Victoria, Australia, I came across a frequent response 'I'm spiritual not religious'. It was this response that stimulated my research in the field of young people's spirituality de Souza et al 2004) and it has spurred my subsequent research over the past 20 years into the spiritual dimension in education (for instance, de Souza 2004de Souza , 2005de Souza , 2006. The response also made me focus on a few additional aspects.…”

Evolution of education: From weak signals to rich imaginaries of educational futures

“…Social and emotional education [152]. Spirituality in education [153][154][155][156][157]. Transformative and contemplative education [36,158].…”

Educating for Evolving Consciousness: Voicing the Emergency for Love, Life and Wisdom

“…I propose that evolutionary spiritual approaches are supported by educational styles that emphasise care, contemplation, empathy love and reverence. Such approaches include the spirituality in education movement (de Souza, 2006;Erricker, Ota, & Erricker, 2001;Glazer, 1994;G. Woods, O'Neill, & Woods, 1997), holistic education, and transformative education that engages contemplative pedagogies (Altobello, 2007;Brady, 2007).…”

“…Other ways to enhance wisdom are to ensure children learn critically under-appreciated human values. Cultural pluralism and multilingualism need more educational space in a multicultural global world (de Souza, 2006;Inayatullah, 2002;Milojevic, 2005). Cosmopolitanism as a significant feature of planetary consciousness is discussed in Appendix B (Gidley, 2007b).…”

“…• They privilege one way of knowing (cognitive) over significant others, such as aesthetic, affective, contemplative, imaginative, intuitive, kinaesthetic, musical, inter-and intrapersonal and participatory (Egan, 1997;Gardner, 1996;Hart, 1998;Kessler, 2000a;Nava, 2001;Nielson, 2006;Noddings, 2003;Rose & Kincheloe, 2003;Zajonc, 2006); • They are grounded in binary logic, privileging the hegemonic side of any pair of binaries, eg science over literature, maths over art, intellect over emotion, materialistic over spiritual, order over creativity (Chater, 2006;de Souza, 2006;Finser, 2001;Glazer, 1994;Johnson, 2005;Pridmore, 2004;Subbiondo, 2005); • They privilege and encourage the transmission of deadening, stale concepts rather than evoking a process of awakening mobile, living thinking (Deleuze & Conley, 1992;St. Pierre, 2004;Whitehead, 1916Whitehead, /1967 • They support the current regression to scientistic, neo-fundamentalist, educational research styles, linked to positivist performativity and the audit culture-over complex, emergent, qualitative, creative inquiry (Denzin, 2005;Kincheloe & Berry, 2004;Lyotard, 2004;MacLure, 2006b;Montuori, 2006); • They privilege the economic rationalist business model of education as commodity over all other orientations (Giroux, 2001;Morin & Kern, 1999;Steinberg & Kincheloe, 2004); • They fragment and compartmentalise knowledge in ways that many young people find meaningless (Eckersley, Cahill, Wierenga, & Wyn, 2007;Gidley, 2005;Miller, 1993).…”