Intercultural competence is a crucial element of foreign language education. It is argued that the multi-faceted nature of intercultural competence implies that assessment of its construct is a... Show moreIntercultural competence is a crucial element of foreign language education. It is argued that the multi-faceted nature of intercultural competence implies that assessment of its construct is a complex process; as a consequence, its progress is difficult to measure. Although several tools for evaluating intercultural competence currently exist, research on their use in secondary school settings is scarce. This study reports on the development and validation of an instrument intended specifically for use in foreign language literature education. To this end, tangible learning objectives for intercultural literary competence were developed based on five dimensions of intercultural communicative competence (Byram, 1997) and six categories of literary competence (Witte, 2008). These objectives were re-formulated for implementation in a student questionnaire. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, the construct validity of the instrument was investigated among a sample of 164 secondary school students in the upper forms of pre-university education in the Netherlands. Although the results supported the hypothesized wo second-order factor structure, the model fit indices were less favourable compared to the fit indices of an alternative five first-order factor model. Subsequently, correlation and summability analyses were performed to test the reliability of the instrument. Future research and implications are discussed. Show less
Volgens Expertisecentrum Lervo is er dringend behoefte aan een leerplan voor het vak levensbeschouwing en religie op middelbare scholen. ‘De school moet kinderen klaarmaken voor de superdiverse... Show moreVolgens Expertisecentrum Lervo is er dringend behoefte aan een leerplan voor het vak levensbeschouwing en religie op middelbare scholen. ‘De school moet kinderen klaarmaken voor de superdiverse samenleving.’ Show less
In dit artikel volgt een tekst die geschreven is door vier personen die sinds 21 juni 2016 een task force vormen, die de opdracht kreeg om een voorstel te schrijven voor een rationale voor een... Show moreIn dit artikel volgt een tekst die geschreven is door vier personen die sinds 21 juni 2016 een task force vormen, die de opdracht kreeg om een voorstel te schrijven voor een rationale voor een kerncurriculum voor het vakgebied religie en levensbeschouwing in het voortgezet onderwijs. De huidige tekst is de vierde conceptversie van dat voorstel. De afgelopen maanden zijn feedbackronden met docenten godsdienst/levensbeschouwing geweest en die feedback is in deze versie verwerkt. Ook voor dit nummer van Narthex zijn docenten gevraagd om in ongeveer zeshonderd woorden feedback te geven op de rationale. Hieronder staat de huidige tekst van de rationale, inclusief een pleidooi voor een zelfstandig vak religie en levensbeschouwing in het voortgezet onderwijs. De feedback van negen docenten staat tussen de diverse andere thema-artikelen van dit nummer. Show less
This study investigates the effects of subject and track level on the definitions of knowledge used by teachers in secondary education. Responding to 20 scales of an inventory, 202 teachers... Show moreThis study investigates the effects of subject and track level on the definitions of knowledge used by teachers in secondary education. Responding to 20 scales of an inventory, 202 teachers provided 313 judgements of the characteristics of their own subject as they actually taught it to students of one or more track levels. The first dimension of a principal components solution was interpreted as a contrast between everyday knowledge and academic knowledge. The second dimension involved a contrast between general and specialized knowledge. As far as individual teachers responded to more than one track level, they, generally speaking, maintained a single definition of their subject for all track levels. Subject identity explained most of the differences, but teacher variables were also relevant. If it is allowed to order teacher hierarchally, based on their teacher training and their experience with track levels, then in the group of teachers with the highest track level, only the science subjects were judged as extremely hard and specialized. In the group of teachers ranking lower, some other subjects such as the foreign languages were judged as relatively hard and specialized, whereas the science subjects weere judged as less hard and less specialized. The theoretical an practical implications of these findings are discussed. Show less
