This book documents the structure of religious diversity in Australia and examines this diversity in the context of the law, migration, education, policing, the media and interfaith communities.Focusing on Melbourne and Tasmania, it articulates the benefits and opportunities of diversity, alongside the challenges that confront religious and ethnic minorities, including discrimination and structural inequalities generated by Christi...

Offering a detailed introduction to the practice of data analysis, this book is both user-friendly and theoretically grounded. Drawing on his extensive experience of qualitative research, Douglas Ezzy reviews approaches to data analysis in established research traditions including ethnography, phenomenology and symbolic interactionism, alongside the newer approaches informed by cultural studies and feminism. He explains the difference between inductive, deductive and abductive theory build...

Faunalia is a controversial Pagan festival with a reputation for being wild and emotionally intense. It lasts five days, 80 people attend, and the two main rituals run most of the night. In the tantalisingly erotic Baphomet rite, participants encounter a hermaphroditic deity, enter a state of trance and dance naked around a bonfire. In the Underworld rite participants role play their own death, confronting grief and suffering. These rituals are understood as "shadow work" - a Jungian term ...

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Christians details the processes through which LGBT Christians resolve the fraught tensions between their religious, sexual and gendered identities, and examines the associated changes to their religious practice in the pursuit of “authenticity.” The book moves between richly described first-person accounts and clear theoretical analysis, contextualising the disucssion within contemporary theories of religion and same-sex attraction. Through ...

Drawing on the emerging field of narrative theory in sociology and psychology, this book argues that an individual’s response to job loss is a product of the shape of the story a person tells about their experience. This, in turn, is a product of both individual creativity and the structuring effects of their social location. Based on a qualitative study of the experience of unemployment in Australia, three main types of job loss narratives are identified. First, romantic narratives descri...

Reflections on Language Teacher Identity Research is the first book to present understandings of language teacher identity (LTI) from a broad range of research fields. Drawing on their personal research experience, 41 contributors locate LTI within their area of expertise by considering their conceptual understanding of LTI and the methodological approaches used to investigate it. The chapters are narrative in nature and take the form of guided reflections within a common chapter ...

How important is it to be a reflective practitioner in education today? This book examines the reflective practitioner role and the scope of reflective activities in professional practice, revealing that critical thinking is rooted in a philosophical debate about notions of truth linked to differing learning approaches.

`This is a thoughtful, honest and accessible text which I would certainly recommend to students. The chapter ordering is excellent and should take the student through a logical progression from the more established to the more contemporary approaches in social psychology′ - Ian Hodges, Westminster University`It is written in a beautifully clear, engaging and conversational style which will make the book accessible and appealing to those encountering critical ideas for the first tim...

How is adult learning used to produce personal, organisational and social change? This interesting examination of adult learning for change illustrates through diverse case studies and theoretical perspectives that personal change is inextricably linked to broader organisational and social change. The authors explore how theorising education as a vehicle for self-change is relevant to the practices of educators, learning specialists and others concerned with promoting learning for change. ...

How can Christians live faithfully at the crossroads of the story of Scripture and postmodern culture? In Living at the Crossroads, authors Michael Goheen and Craig Bartholomew explore this question as they provide a general introduction to Christian worldview.Ideal for both students and lay readers, Living at the Crossroads lays out a brief summary of the biblical story and the most fundamental beliefs of Scripture. The book tells the story of Western culture fro...

In the past, changes in behavior and in belief have been leading indicators for missionaries that Christian conversion had occurred. But these alone--or even together--are insufficient for a gospel understanding of conversion. For effective biblical mission, Paul G. Hiebert argues, we must add a third element: a change in worldview. Here he offers a comprehensive study of worldview--its philosophy, its history, its characteristics, and the means for understanding it. He then provides a det...

Sexual identity has become an idol in both the culture at large and in the Christian subculture. And yet concepts like "gay" or "straight" are relatively recent developments in human history. We let ourselves be defined by socially constructed notions of sexual identity and sexual orientation--even though these may not be the only or best ways to think about sexuality.Anthropologist Jenell Williams Paris offers a Christian framework for sexual holiness that accounts for complex postmodern ...