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The standard account of Quaker dispositions to visual culture is a story of initial proscription and subsequent relaxation. It implies a view of art as a constant state and of Quakerly attitudes shifting around it. This paper offers an alternative interpretation: Christian art is recognized as an inherently contemplative activity. However, with the Renaissance it comes to be regarded more for its outward effect than for its capacity for interior experience. Attention is drawn to the virtuosity of the artist and to surfaces more than to meanings. Until the twentieth century Quaker values were largely preserved by the regulation of behaviour. The recovery of the spiritual capacity of art in Quaker faith and practice is evident in, and owes much to, a number of practising artists including Edward Hicks in Philadelphia and Joseph Edward Southall in Birmingham.

Ethical codes have been widely put in place by professional associations, universities and other organizations. They observe common standards and procedures which are applied and adapted to local or specialist needs. The early codes such as that of Nuremberg exclusively addressed the rights of participants. This article detects a shift in emphasis. The argument relies on a distinction between morality and ethics and it is contended that ethical codes legitimize kinds of practice that are morally unprincipled. In modern formulations of research ethics there is a tendency to abdicate responsibility for the protection of rights and interests and to pass it from researchers to participants or subjects. The concern is rather more for the security of investigators than for that of participants. It is recognized that codes are here to stay but suggestions are made to recover the spirit of Nuremberg.

The target for the year 2004 is that 70% of all 14-year-olds should achieve Level 5 English. This figure rises to 85% for 2007. ‘Schools that are beginning to work on literacy across subjects … are asked to prioritise objectives from the Framework for teaching English: years 7–9’ (Department for Education and Employment, 2001, p. 3). When Literacy Across the Curriculum (LAC) is introduced in these terms, the implication is that all teachers should assist English in improving its standards. Even in the model lessons that appear in official documents, there are signs that religious education is expected to yield its learning objectives to English. This paper, however, is about LAC not for the sake of English but for the sake of religious education. It proposes an approach to literacy beyond the narrow conceptions of some LAC strategists, such as the collection and classification of subject-specific vocabulary.

The obligation to inform and obtain the consent of human subjects is axiomatic in social and medical research. Yet educational researchers are often reluctant to inform their subjects: class teachers and headteachers, for example, are often used as gatekeepers, and investigators sometimes do not so much seek consent as assume it. This chapter discusses the principle of informed consent, in particular that of children. It proposes guidelines for gatekeepers who may be called upon to authorise research and to grant to investigators access to children in their care.

This paper takes a critical view of the use of ‘artefacts’ in the teaching of religious education. In particular, it suggests that the plundering of religious faiths and the physical access to sacred objects afforded to pupils have the effects of supplanting the numinous with the external and of demystifying the apparatuses of devotion. To the extent that mystery is in many traditions conveyed and understood by taboos upon touching and seeing, direct access and close inspection in classroom settings are consistent not with learning but with unlearning. The professional etiquette which is expressed in the title of this paper addresses the need to show ‘respect’: we suggest here that respect is a diversion from reverence. The argument rests on at least two contentious assumptions. The first is that religious education must provide not only an acquaintance with the externals of religious faith but also an understanding of the numinous. The contention of this article, then, is that the effect of using ‘artefa...

> The burgeoning of codes, criteria and guidelines in recent years results from a number of factors, including the client's right to know, preoccupations with notions of consistency and fairness and the fear of litigation. These are explored and interpreted with regard to codes in three kinds of context. First, a survey of the assessment of higher degrees and dissertations in 12 British universities is evidence of the displacement of academic judgement and experience by objective schemes that have largely to do with format and procedure rather than traditional notions of quality. Second, an examination of two groups of guidelines for teachers and university lecturers indicates an instinct for professional self‐interest and exposes ways in which guidelines shift responsibility to individuals without assuming responsibility in professional direction. Third, an examination of current codes for researchers in the social sciences illustrates the tendency of codes to be prescriptive in the letter but no...

The reluctance to participate in enquiries about religious belief and practice takes a variety of forms and has a number of bases. This paper draws upon enquiries of belief and behaviour conducted with samples of 692 Quakers and 238 clergy in the Church of England: in both cases a postal questionnaire was followed by selective interviewing. The paper explores the hazards of operating standard designs across a variety of religious tendencies. Resistance to generalised questions commonly took the form of non‐response at. the questionnaire stage and of negotiation of terms in the interview. It particularly besets enquiries conducted among constituencies which attach special significance to correct wording or acceptable assumptions and have negative dispositions toward the enterprise of social research, its habits of enquiry and its conceptual language. Attention is drawn to the precision with which respondents represent their religious beliefs and practices and the implications of losing this precis...

This paper reports and interprets the findings of four small‐scale and exploratory research projects conducted in response to charges that multi‐faith religious education is confusing, that it corrupts, dilutes and trivialises the faiths and that it compromises the inheritance of mainstream culture. Our enquiries were prompted by the Lords debates preceding the 1988 Act and by contemporary discussion in which the multi‐faith approach in religious education was viewed with some disfavour and even rejected as ‘mishmash’. Several speculative criticisms have been made which concern the effects of multi‐faith religious education upon children but little empirical evidence is available. The results of our enquiry are reported within their limits and suggestions are made for further research.

Until recently teachers tended to welcome the advent of Hallowe'en as the stimulus for a variety of creative activity. The only drawback, it seemed, was the proximity of Hallowe'en to Bonfire Night: for teaching purposes the two events would ideally have been better spaced, giving the stock‐cupboard a chance to replenish its supply of black card and allowing an interval between thrusts of expressive work. In the last two or three years, however, considerable unease has surrounded the observation of Hallowe'en in schools. This paper is an attempt to identify and explore the sources of that unease. We take stock of the appeal of Hallowe'en and of available resources, both for creative work and for the treatment of Hallowe'en as a festival on the agenda of religious education. An enquiry in thirty primary schools is reported in order to assess current trends in school policy and we observe the energies of religious lobbies in bringing pressures to bear upon the advisory service and upon headteachers.

* Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the British Educational Research Association at the University of East Anglia as part of a symposium entitled ‘Sponsor Control of Educational Research’, 31 August 1988.

Opposition to the state provision of schooling is commonly seen as coming from middle-class parents who expect their chiren to be ‘achievers’ Roger Homan, Principal Lecturer in Education of Brighton Polytechnic, reveals how this offifude patronises workers and ethnic minorities alike, and examines their spontaneous efforts to provide independent independent education for their children

This paper is an analysis of functionary skills and prerogatives deployed in the process of framing, negotiating and establishing conditions for action in pentecostal assemblies. It is based upon overt non-participant observation and interviewing in 66 pentecostal institutions in England and Wales, Canada and the United States. Its focus is upon the crises that arise either when the prerogative of definition is contested by two or more `special definers' or when there is a compelling resemblance of phenomena in the sacred domain to realities familiar in the profane. The skills which enable the professional functionary to sustain sacred definitions during such conflicts include competence in the sacred language, the management of laughter and the sacred gift of `discernment'.

The religious principles of Jehovah's Witnesses affect several aspects of their children's participation in school life. These have implications for the ethos of the school and for approaches to the teaching of several curriculum subjects. An investigation is made of conflicts of value between teachers and Witness parents and of the special provisions which some schools make for Witness children.

The rise of the Charismatic Movement has been one of the most startling developments in the Church in recent years. Accounts of miraculous cures, speaking with tongues, dramatic answers to prayer, have caught the imagination of many. Yet opinion is deeply divided. Is the revival breathing new life into a moribund Church? Or is it encouraging a sinister and psychologically damaging cult of the irrational? Strange Gifts? brings together in one volume supporters and critics of the movement.