Religion in decline
BASED ON ANALYSIS of population censuses and surveys, a study of religious change in five advanced industrial nations – the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US – provides new evidence on religious decline. Professor David Voas explains: “Our findings are consistent with the view that defection from religious affiliation, practice and belief is part of a more general phenomenon of value change in post-industrial societies. That is to say, religion declines because values change, and values change as a result of a predictable process of human development linked to increased levels of prosperity and security.” The research provides evidence that society changes religiously as old people are replaced by younger people. “There is more life in the idea of secularisation than recently supposed,” Professor Voas argues. “For example, the same pattern of religious decline is now observed across the western world, even in the US. And, at least among people living in Europe and developed countries elsewhere, each generation is less religious than its predecessor. The theory of modernisation and value change provides a possible explanation for this process.” n
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Contact Professor David Voas, University of Manchester Email
voas@man.ac.uk Telephone 0161 275 4836 ESRC Grant Number RES-000-22-1410
Deaf children benefit from specialist schools
DESPITE THE RECENT trend towards educating deaf children in mainstream secondary schools, the value of specialist schools for the deaf should not be underestimated, conclude researchers from Oxford Brookes University. The project aimed to assess the reading and spelling ability of teenagers with severe hearing loss. To this end, 86 deaf children between the ages of 12 and 16 were recruited from a variety of educational settings. Approximately one third used hearing aids, one third had received a cochlear implant (an electronic device implanted surgically into the inner ear to provide a sense of sound) early in life, and one third had received such an implant at a later age. “These three sub-groups were selected to be of a similar age, and non-verbal intelligence and degree of hearing loss,” explains Professor Margaret Harris. “Based on a previous study we expected to find that children with a cochlear implant were reading at a level appropriate to their age. Instead, assessments revealed that the mean reading ages were several years below chronological age for all three groups.” Contrary to expectations,
participants with hearing aids actually performed better than those who had received a cochlear implant. “Our overarching aim was to
8 SOCIETY NOW AUTUMN 2010
examine the claim that cochlear implants (especially when carried out early) lead to higher levels of attainment in literacy than have been traditionally found in deaf children, but we actually found this not to be the case,” Professor Harris explains. Exploring this unexpected finding, researchers identified educational setting as one important difference between the three groups of teenagers. The great majority of children in the hearing aid group were being educated in a school for the deaf. Relatively more of the children with cochlear implants were being educated in a mainstream education. “The key message appears to be that relatively low levels of literacy, especially among children with cochlear implants, point to the need for continuing support for literacy throughout secondary school years,” she explains. “It is simply not the case that the cochlear implant solves all problems. The majority of deaf children will need continuing support for literacy and, for many of them, that support may best be provided in a specialist school.” n
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Contact Professor Margaret Harris, Oxford Brookes University Email
margaretharris@brookes.ac.uk Telephone 01865 483770 ESRC Grant Number RES-000-22-2947
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