Huizu Between Religious Control and Freedom in Communist China: A Study of Chinese Muslim Minority

The freedom of religion in communist China is an ambiguous notion as the communist party understands religion as a reminiscent of backwardness and simultaneously proclaims the freedom of religion in the country. Islam, religion practiced by Hui minority, is included among the recognized religions of China and its adherents are granted rights to follow it. This paper argues that the Communist party has employed a disguised policy of controlling religious belief through establishing state controlled religious organizations and imparting freedom to practice religion. The slow and steady mind-making through these institutions train Hui youth to withdraw from their religion and to facilitate this withdrawal, the previously extant correlation between Hui ethnicity and religion (Islam) has been eliminated by the state and Hui ethnicity has nothing to do with religious affiliation anymore. The data for this research has been collected through ethnographic research upon the Hui community of Xi’an, employing unobtrusive observation as well as intensive interviewing.

Understanding Inquiry Teaching in a Biology Classroom at the Secondary Level in a Private School in Karachi

The most common method of teaching genetics in Pakistani schools is through lecturing. This kind of teaching does not help students to gain in-depth understanding of the subject matter as a result students understand the subject matter at ‘knowledge’ level but not at ‘understanding’ and ‘application’ levels. The purpose of this action research was to improve students’ conceptual understanding of genetics by teaching it through inquiry method. Three cycles of action-research were carried out to teach five lessons over a six-week period. Each cycle consisted of two teaching lessons except the last one which consisted of one teaching lesson. A summative assessment was conducted at the end of the teaching to assess students’ learning in genetics. Data was collected at three stages of the study which included: pre-intervention, during intervention, and post intervention. In the pre-intervention (reconnaissance) stage, data was collected by using semi-structured interviews and classroom observations to explore the existing teaching learning process. During the intervention stage, the data was collected through observations and photography of teaching and aids used. In the post-intervention stage, data was collected by using the semi-structured interviews, both formal and informal talks with the research participants, and summative assessment of students. The findings from the study indicated that structured-inquiry based teaching helped students to conceptualize the genetic concepts at ‘knowledge’ level. However, they learn few genetic concepts at ‘understanding’ level. Summative test also shows that they did not demonstrate learning at the ‘application’ level. Initially, students showed difficulty in conducting and conceptualizing the inquiry activities but gradually they showed less difficulty when they become more acquainted with inquiry learning.