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One challenge for cognitive, evolutionary and anthropological studies of religion is to offer descriptions and explanatory models of the morphology and functions of supernatural dreaming, and of the religiosity, use of experience, and cultural transmission that are associated with these representations. The anthropological and religious studies literature demonstrates that dreaming, dream experience and narrative are connected with religious ideas and practices in traditional societies. Scholars have even proposed that dreaming is a primary source of religious beliefs and practice (here labelled DPSR theory). Using Barrett’s coding system, we measured a high frequency of minimally counterintuitive dream content among Hindu Nepalese, and we aim to quantify (1) the relation between counterintuitive imagery and reported likelihood to communicate dreams in general and to religious experts, (2) the relation between counterintuitive imagery and reported religiosity, and (3) the proclivity to communicate SA dreams among those who are more or less religious. These aims will then be related to the broader topic of (4) possible explanatory value of DPSR theory, or versions thereof, by framing the issue at the level of cultural transmission, religiosity and credibility of religious dream representations in relation to MCI theory. The article mainly draws upon data from ethnographic research among Hindu Nepalese.

Competence-based approaches (CBAs) in education have become an internationally important educational policy concept in recent decades. However, a substantial body of research has suggested that in ...

In this article, we explore the processes of transfer and translation ofeducation policy in a study focusing on the relationship betweenthe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD) and Sweden. The purpose of the study is to investigatehow selective borrowing occurs both in terms of references todifferent types of knowledge sources underpinning the argumentsand shared discourse formations. The data were obtained fromtwo policy reports: an OECD review report of the Swedish schoolsystem and a Swedish follow-up report proposing actual schoolreforms. The method was twofold: first, mapping, categorizing,and counting all the textual references in the two documents;second, critically analyzing the discourses emerging in the twopolicy texts. The results show that international references play asignificant role in substantiating arguments for Swedish educationpolicy. Both policy texts share a policy discourse characterized bysuspiciousness toward the professionalism exercised by teachersand local education authorities. Bibliografiskt granskad

This chapter examines the use of evidence in legitimating national school reforms in a globalized context. Although international policy knowledge is becoming increasingly important in legitimating national school reforms, the national context still seems to affect whether and how it is used. This chapter draws attention to the selective use of international policy knowledge in domestic policy agendas and the increasingly important role of people and institutions acting as intermediaries in selecting, interpreting, and presenting useful policy knowledge to politicians. By taking the complexity of context seriously, this chapter provides valuable insights into the multidirectional policy process that filters the expert knowledge that is ultimately used by politicians as evidence in legitimating school reforms.

Discursively learning outcomes have been embedded within an education-policy context characterised by a shift from teaching to learning. In the dominant education policy discourse, learning outcome ...

The article aims to explore to what extent and in what ways discourseinstitutionalism can contribute to the understanding and analysis ofcurriculum change in a globalized context. By focusing specifically oncurriculum change, this article proposes how discourse institutionalismcan contribute to the so-called ‘crisis of curriculum theory’ by addressing(i) the non-linearity of change, (ii) the process of the translation of ideasand (iii) actor agency. The text is structured in three sections. In the firstsection, we elaborate on the notion of curriculum change as a vitalconcept for the field of curriculum theory in a globalized context, focusingon processes of recontextualization and the translation of curriculumcontent. In the second, we elaborate on discourse institutionalism as acontributing approach to the analysis of such processes of curriculumchange, constructing a conceptual framework. In the third and finalsection, we give some examples of how the conceptual framework canbe used in analysing curriculum change, using the 2011 Swedish curriculumreform (Lgr 11) as an empirical reference, and the result showsthat the conceptual framework offers a wide repertoire of possibleapproaches to analysing curriculum change, both vertically andhorizontally.

Since WWII, Sweden has had an international reputation for being modern and progressive, with schooling that provides equal opportunities for all children. Analysing local enactment of the national pursuit of modernisation in two contrasting municipalities, this paper offers new perspectives on Swedish education history beyond the image of schooling as a uniform national project. The concepts of technological development and internationalisation are applied to capture the ideas and visions inherent in this modernisation. The study demonstrates, through the example of the rural municipality of Tierp and the municipality of Stockholm, the complexity of the modernisation process and the interplay between divergent interpretations of national reforms and local enactment of modernisation. KEYWORDS: Modernisation, local school history, policy enactment, curriculum theory

The aim of this article is to show how the European Union (EU) and the Swedish government have recently become co-producers of education policy that increasingly emphasises compulsory education. The paper draws on the following two kinds of empirical material: 1) an analysis of central official policy documents produced by the EU and the Swedish government; and 2) documents related to the development, communication and implementation of country-specific recommendations within the EU, using Sweden as the national policy arena. Theoretically, the paper is inspired by discursive institutionalism and uses critical discourse analysis for the systematic analysis. The result shows that beginning around the mid-2000s, both the EU and the Swedish government have demonstrated an increased interest in compulsory education as a solution to a wide range of societal and individual problems. Initially, the coordination of policy concerned with compulsory education was communicated implicitly, discursively embedded into a variety of policy areas. From 2013 onwards, however, the result shows the emergence of a new and more explicit European policy discourse on compulsory education, which is discussed as an interesting area of research still in its infancy.

Concerns with reputation are found in relation to human notions about rank, honour, religious notions and sacred values. In cognitive and evolutionary approaches to religion, such as “adaptivist” and “by-product” theories, concepts of reputation are usually given only an indirect significance. From an “adaptivist” perspective, belief in supernatural punishment supports commitment enhancement and promotes intra-group competition, especially in the absence of concerns about reputational pressure. Alternative accounts, found in “by-product” and “standard model” – approaches, suggests that to attribute moral notions to supernatural agents derive from human cognitive systems devoted to social interaction and coordination entailing reputation monitoring. More profoundly, in altruist and mutualist models of human cooperation and morality, reputation implies different functions and, by consequence, reputation in “adaptivist” and “by-product” theories is awarded different degree of importance. The aim of this article is to analyse a predominant type of religious morality by focusing on conceptualisation of supernatural agents and the function of reputation monitoring. I shall compare altruist and mutualist accounts and adopt the latter to complement our understanding of the social cognitive machinery that underpins the relevance and attribution of moral notions to supernatural agents. I shall argue that concern about reputation is close at hand in the cognition of supernatural agents since: a) according to mutualistic theories, reputation holds a significant position in cooperation and morality and this has consequences for how religious morality ought to be modelled; b) supernatural agents are supposedly “full access agents” and aware of “strategic information” because they are omniscient agents that know everything of importance for a believer’s reputation and the dynamics of indirect reciprocity in which the believer takes part.

In the European neo-liberal policy context, there has been an increase in pressure on teachers to exercise a type of professional responsibility that contributes to the development of a competitive knowledge-based economy. From a communication theory perspective, this paper examines if it is at all possible to talk of professional responsibility in a policy context characterised by individualisation, standardisation and accountability. Methodologically, this text joins a critical tradition of educational policy research, which emphasises the need to combine critical examination with empirical analysis. Critical discourse analysis has been used for the systematic analysis portion of this text. Central official policy texts from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the European Union and the 2011 school reforms in Sweden have been analysed. The results show that while demands for increased professional responsibility among teachers have been made by policy actors at different levels, the neo-liberal policy context offers limited opportunities for teachers to actually exercise this type of professional responsibility, if seen as a communicative practice based on the idea of relative autonomy. The paper concludes with a prospective discussion in which teacher professionalism is linked to the creation and maintenance of ‘spaces of communication’, as well as a look at the challenges faced by policy makers at all levels if they are to facilitate such spaces.

In this paper we will address the impact of Europeanisation on national curriculum reforms with empirical reference to the Swedish compulsory school, and based on the concept of competence discuss the question of transnational curriculum convergence. The main interest is directed towards how the answers to the question of what counts as knowledge and skills are changing in national curricula. The analysis shows that the recent Swedish compulsory school reform converges to the broader European knowledge discourse on the underlying level of philosophical ideas, but also that several core concepts used in European policy texts are being reconceptualised and given a different meaning when recontextualised in the national arena.

Notions about honour and honour codes are culturally institutionalised and sacralised as well as important quasi-moral human concerns that relate to reputation monitoring. This article addresses honour concepts from the standpoint of the cognition of reputation management and indirect reciprocity. In view of the massive bulk of research on the evolution of moral dispositions for cooperation, it hypothesised that such proclivities for social life underpin and constrain the cultural formation of honour concepts, particularly through the function of reputation. However, there are two prominent theories that address evolved morality, and both consider reputation. Firstly, altruism and group selection theory holds that key moral dispositions are related to punishment and possibly honour, and it proposes that the altruists outcompete non-altruists in a group. By contrast, mutualist theory holds that it is mutually advantageous to cooperate and that an actor's reputation as a reliable exchange partner is at the core of concerns about honour. In this article it is asked whether altruism and mutualism are both of equal explanatory value in explaining honour and reputation. The overarching argument of this article is that mutualist models, prima facie, have explanatory higher ground when a model of the cultural transmission of honour concepts is advanced based on evolved human morality. This objective is highlighted by (a) suggesting a model of how reputation is a conceptual core of honour notions and (b) demonstrating how mutualist rather than altruist approaches offer the most cohesive account of reputation and consequently of honour notions.

In this article, we analyse key policy documents on teacher quality produced by the OECD and the EU during the period 2005 to 2017 using an educational connoisseurship and criticism approach. The purpose of this article is to explore how Eisner’s concepts of educational connoisseurship and educational criticism can be understood and used to analyse educational policy, especially how teacher quality is discursively constructed in transnational authoritative texts on education policy. Eisner’s three aspects of criticism, description, interpretation and evaluation can be utilised in a differentiated critical approach to the analysis of transnational policy documents on education. While the critical descriptive discourse can be viewed as ‘identifying a simple relationship’ between social development and educational needs, the interpretative critical discourse can be regarded as ‘recognising the complexity’ of teachers’ tasks in changing societies and the critical evaluative discourse as ‘recognising and problematising contradictory interests’ that affect teachers’ work. We argue that the philosophical concepts of connoisseurship and criticism contribute to policy research by demonstrating that a multifaceted concept of teacher quality is needed to capture the complex nature of education.

Diphenylphosphinic amides and diphenylphosphine oxides have been synthesized and tested as inhibitors of the Kv1.5 potassium ion channel as a possible treatment for atrial fibrillation. In vitro structure-activity relationships are discussed and several compounds with Kv1.5 IC(50) values of

In many cultures people value the importance of honour and related rules and behaviours. Honour can be seen as concepts and cultural items represented and processed according to evolved cognitive capacities and emotions supported by local social institutional arrangements. Indeed, this article holds that one reasonable way to analyze honour is to model how cognitive processes and transmission biases work in tandem with institutional support and environmental cues to exert selective pressures on the cultural distribution and formation of honour. The scope of this article is theoretical, aiming to address and explain culturally recurrent aspects of widespread honour concepts. What evolved cognitive systems and selection factors underpin the cultural transmission of honour concepts and institutions? It will be argued that the transmission of honour concepts draws upon cognitive systems referring to male formidability, management of reputation, coalitions, costly signals, shame and stigma, concern for protectiveness and parental investments, essentialist understanding and disgust and on the cognition of institutions.

In this article, we use the basic concepts of Dewey’s pedagogical philosophy on democracy and education as analytical tools for exploring the democratic potential of a transnational education policy within the contemporary European risk discourse. A Deweyan reading of main policy documents, starting with the 2000 Lisbon Strategy, allows for critical discussion of some of the basic assumptions and consequences of the EU-advocated transnational education policy. The data sources include 28 EU policy documents from 2000 to 2014. The analysis shows that in addition to a prevailing “human capital” discourse, there is potential for a communicative “democratic discourse” that promotes social cohesion. The democratic discourse underlines the full and free communication between different groups as the only way to promote and ensure the conditions for social cohesion. In this crisis of nearby wars, terror attacks and refugees in Europe, economy and competition are not viable concepts for seeking solutions. We argue that a shift to a language adapted to the real crisis and the fear of future crises in Europe is needed. We argue that a language that understands social efficiency, communication and a moral interest in the way Dewey outlined the concepts in Democracy and Education corresponds to the strong need to maintain and strengthen a democratic education and a democratic way of living for all.

Dreams are a universal human experience and they form cultural themes in folk traditions and religious rituals, such as pilgrimages and dream incubation. Dreams and dream beliefs are important since they contain representations of interacting supernatural agents that have full access to information of strategic importance to humans. The relevance of dreams often relates to the dreamers' concerns about the future and about health, and in this sense they show similarity with divination and oracles. This article suggests that religious dreaming is underpinned by an evolved system of threat simulation that is activated in dreaming processes; this is associated with a proclivity to evoke agent concepts and to use counterintuitive representations in cultural communication. It is argued that the use of a ‘hypersensitive agency detection device’ draws upon emotionally laden threat simulation in dreaming that makes reference to counterintuitive supernatural agents that are particularly relevant. This suggests that...

European educational policy on lifelong learning has undergone great changes during the last three decades to become a highly complex phenomenon with several internal and external actors involved. The discourse of lifelong learning has undergone great changes, from its initial engagement when it was a matter of social and humanitarian issues as outlined in the early documents of UNESCO, to emphasising lifelong learning as a moral and individual obligation in a more competitive and market-oriented language. In a European context this language of competition to a large extent derives from the vocabulary set out by the Lisbon strategy where competition is a key theme. A policy trajectory that has taken the discourse from an initial phase of great social visions to a second phase focusing on the need for self-regulated and morally responsible citizens. Recent research on the topic indicates that we are now standing at the threshold of a discursive shift where action instead of visions is at stake. Against this background I would like to ask if there is evidence enough to suggest that European policy on lifelong learning is now experiencing a discursive shift into what could be described as a new phase? And if so, how could such a shift be described and what are the implications at an individual level? I take my theoretical point of departure in Habermas`s theory of communicative action using as analytic tools his concept of system and life-world as representations of different rationalities. I use critical discourse analysis as a methodological framework in order to understand how the rationalities bound to the concepts of system and life-world become visible through different actors and actions in the policy discourse of lifelong learning. A number of research reports and policy documents on lifelong learning recently published within the European Union have been read and analysed. The analysis of the empirical material points to a direction where it is relevant to speak about a new "phase" of lifelong-learning discourse emerging in European policy, characterised by the urgent need for implementation. In this paper a tentative conceptual framework is presented as to how this new, action-oriented "phase" can be understood. The policy trajectory of lifelong learning is not to be understood here as a linear development where one phase follows another in a well-defined manner. Instead it is seen as an ongoing discursive struggle where different concepts over time replace each other as fundamental for the discourse and its actors in the new phase represented by concepts such as "crisis" and "implementation".

This article discusses experiences of hardship during Hindu pilgrimages in the Nepalese and Tibetan Himalayas. Pilgrims have to reach their goal by undertaking a journey. The pilgrimage exposes pilgrims to a variety of experiences. The journey’s religious experiences are of significance for the ritual arrangements of the pilgrimage. Cognitive theories and the selectionist approach of “cultural epidemiology” are adopted to offer explanations for the formation of religious beliefs and values associated with travelling experience, hardship and danger during pilgrimage. Specifically, it is argued that the experience of salient emotional events such as hardship are likely to draw upon evolved social exchange intuitions that impose a selective pressure in the cultural formation and recurrence of beliefs regarding religious merits in pilgrimage. It is further argued that social exchange intuitions are a likely source of beliefs in boons and merits, since pilgrimage is already conceptualised as an interaction with “supernatural agents.” These accounts modify and elaborate former suggestions regarding hardship and sacrificial notions in pilgrimage studies. Thus the presented arguments may be relevant to understanding some of the features of pilgrimage that also seem to recur cross-culturally.

This article discusses the notions of a good death associated with Hindu pilgrimages in the Nepalese and Tibetan Himalayas. Using theories and concepts from the cognitive anthropology of religion and from the cognitive science of religion—particularly the cultural epidemiological method—my objective is to explain why certain systems of thought and behaviour are favoured over others in cultural transmission. My thesis is that the apprehension of contagion and/or contamination, combined with prevailing cultural representations, exerts selective pressure on the formation of beliefs about good death. Pilgrimage sites are associated with intuitions about contagious and contaminating contact, avert the pollution of death, and provide links to supernatural agents.

Pilgrim journeys are popular religious phenomena that are based on ritual interaction with culturally postulated counterintuitive supernatural agents. This article uses results taken from an anthropological Ph. D. thesis on cognitive aspects of Hindu pilgrimage in Nepal and Tibet. Cognitive theories have been neglected in pilgrimage studies but they offer new perspectives on belief structures and ritual action and call into question some of the current assumptions in this research field. Pilgrim journeys often involve flows of substance of anthropomorphic character. Transferring substance in pilgrimage means leaving material at the pilgrimage site and then receiving other materials to take home. Pilgrim journeys imply ritual interaction, intuitions and ideas regarding the management of sin, impurity and evil. They also imply reception of blessings along with divine agency. This paper investigates how assumptions about agency, psychological essentialism and contagion connected to supernatural agents provides an important selective pressure in formation of beliefs related to pilgrimage. This paper shows that the transfer of substances is an operation on ritual instruments. It creates a supernatural immediacy effect in pilgrims, in the sense suggested by Lawson and McCauley.

Within the European Union the concept of lifelong learning is put forward as one of the main solutions for the member states to cope with globalisation and its effects. Against this background the ...

Ideas and practices about the transfer of substances believed to be charged with positive or negative properties are significant features of pilgrimages. Oftenneglected features of pilgrimages can be addressed by adopting concepts from the Cognitive Science of Religion. Religious pilgrimages are popular phenomena that are based on ritual interaction with culturally-postulated counterintuitive supernatural agents. This article partly refers to and analyses ethnographic data gathered during fieldwork among Hindu pilgrims in Nepal and Tibet. The pilgrims received items to take home from the pilgrimage site but they also left other items there. This constituted a transfer of contagious substances that carried blessings and supernatural agency/power and it enabled the discharging of defilement, sin or evil. The aim of this article is to show how the beliefs about substance transfer are shaped by cultural institutions and by cognitive selection pressures related to psychological essentialism and concepts of agency and contagion relating to counterintuitive agents.

In this article, we present a comparative research project on municipal school policy in Sweden 19502010 which in our view contributes to the research fields of education policy and curriculum theory. Our project which started in 2014 links to a line of international research on education policy concerned with the tensions between decentralisation and globalisation and comparative research investigating transnational transfers of education policy ideas. In this article, we provide some preliminary findings which display municipal school policy dealing with national and transnational school initiatives and affecting local school actions. Most of the findings in this article concern the time period 19501975, during which the present two Swedish school forms, Grundskolan (a 9-year comprehensive school) and Gymnasieskolan (upper secondary school), were introduced and established.We compare local policy, through six interrelated indicators, in two municipalities with different structures and origins. On the basis of our findings, we conclude that municipal school policy research in a comparative and historical perspective is an important field of research as it reveals the complexity of school governance. Historical studies of municipal school policy and practice are crucial for exploring different dimensions of curriculum theory, including the transnational dimension.Keywords: local school policy; local school history; education policy; curriculum theory; globalizationCitation: NordSTEP 2015, 1: 27009 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/nstep.v1.27009

International comparisons of educational achievements have come to play a crucial role in understanding the educational field today. This book provides an in-depth analysis of the development of in ...

Around the mid-2000s a crisis discourse emerged in educational policy-making in the EU and in Sweden. Using the EU and Sweden as empirical references, this article explores how this crisis discourse has been and is employed by politicians and NGOs. Discourse Institutionalism is used as an overall theoretical framework focusing on how the crisis discourse is coordinated among powerful policy actors and communicated to the public, while critical discourse analysis is used for the systematic analysis. The crisis discourse implies that action has to be taken immediately and that there is no option other than to act, and the result shows that this normative discourse is becoming an important and powerful instrument in the hands of both national and transnational actors seeking public legitimacy for extensive reforms. Keywords: educational reform, legitimation strategy, risk, crisis, discourse (Published: 7 March 2014) Citation: Education Inquiry (EDUI) 2014, 5 , 24047, http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/edui.v5.24047