Abstracts - Earli

Science in the mind’s eye of girls – The bearing of motivational context conditions on self-conceptand interestSandra Winheller, Graduate Research Program, GermanyThe potential to learn science content is known to be complicated by a number of factors, amongthem gender, identity, and interest. The present study focuses on gender differences and sexspecificdevelopment in self-concept and interest of students who take introductory chemistryclasses in grade 7. The study utilizes data from the "Chemistry Project" which is part of theresearch initiative "Educational Quality of Schools" (BIQUA) sponsored by the German ScienceFoundation (DFG). Questionnaires and videotape data of approximately 109 students (51.2% girls,median age of 13 years) from two German High Schools who participated in a quasi-experimentalintervention study (2 x 2 design) were analyzed. Central variables for the analysis included: a) thedegree of student orientation (here: academic self-concept, self-efficacy and interest) and b) thesupport of autonomy and competence by the teacher as motivational context conditions.Secularization and religious education – a perspective from a Finnish rural contextTapani Innanen, University of Joensuu, FinlandThis study examines the contexts in which the children of a rural village in Eastern Finland haverelated to the learning of religion. Special interest is paid to the question of what waysecularization can be detected in the development since the foundation of the Finnish elementaryschool. The study is based on methods of historical, sociological and curriculum research.Lutheran parishes were the only countryside authorities until the 1860s when local municipalitieswere separated from the church. At the same time a law was enacted regarding municipalelementary schools. In the beginning of the 1920s the Freedom of Religion Act was made law,and, at the same time, Finland introduced compulsory education. The school had to arrangereligious teaching in accordance with the confession to which the majority of school pupilsbelonged. Although the bond between the state educational system and the church weakened, thelocal situation did not change. The confessional Religious Education continued also when it wasafter the World War II culturally and politically criticized. The Lutheran rites of passage –baptism, confirmation, marriage and funerals – maintained their importance in the localcommunity. The Freedom of Religion Act was renewed in 2003, and since then the school has nothad any confessional religious education but the pupils must receive "teaching in their ownreligion". Secularization can be seen in three dimensions:1) differentiation of social structures, 2)decline of religion, 3) privatization of religion. Concerning the first dimension, ReligiousEducation in schools has become totally secularized during last 150 years. The macro state level issecularized, but the positive freedom of religion emphasizes individual religious rights in microlevel. Religious Education is motivated individually but not marginalized into privacy.Religious adolescent sex education through the InternetZehavit Gross, Bar-Ilan university, IsraelThe aim of this article is to analyze the internet Israeli religious Shut (in Hebrew - questions andanswers) service concerning modern orthodox adolescents’ sexuality. This article will focusspecifically on one website of one of the most popular Rabbis serving among adolescents. Acontent analysis of 150 internet correspondence on this website will be conducted enabling us toportray the cultural and religious world of these modern orthodox adolescents as well as the natureof the conflicts and dilemmas which occupy their existentiality. Due to various reasons, thereligious school system avoids the issue of sexuality although it was meant to be part of the– 232 –