Search Results (14)

The implementation of new curricula presents significant challenges for teachers and necessitates the adaptation of their professional competencies. This study examines how the digital skills of Swiss teachers differ during and after the implementation of the Media and Information Literacy (MIL) modular curriculum. To achieve this, two independent samples totaling 617 teachers were surveyed at different stages of the reform. The analysis employed a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to identify differences in the four facets of MIL competence between the samples. The results indicate that MIL competencies did not improve uniformly. While no significant differences were found in the facets of ‘ICT knowledge and application’ and ‘media education knowledge and application’, significant differences were observed in the facets of ‘specialized didactics MIL’ and ‘interdisciplinary pedagogical and didactic knowledge’. The latter facet showed higher values after the reform, likely due to increased exposure to further training measures. These findings illustrate that teachers’ competencies can develop differently throughout a reform process, highlighting the importance of targeted professional development programs. The study provides valuable empirical findings for educational research and offers practical implications for the design of future reform processes. Full article

The very latest scholarship on the Swiss Reformation has urged us to resituate the conceptual origins and first articulations of a Reformed Covenant theology in the Zurich of Zwingli, Jud, Pellikan, and Bullinger, rather than in the Geneva of Calvin and Beza. Using insights from the recent literature of early modern memory, book history, and art history, this article provides a critical new reading of the preface, text, and paratext of the 1531 folio edition of the Zurich Bible. In doing so, it elucidates how, working with a humanist conception of historical memory, an early Reformed Covenant theology was articulated through its rhetorical juxtaposition of an imagined Israel and Rabbinic Judaism. In line with recent work on the role of historical models in early Reformed Bible culture, I contend that the language of historical memory holds the key to understanding this Reformed rearticulation of Covenant theology and its intended effect on readers of the Zurich Bible. Insights from this reading shed light on the Zurich origins of Reformed Christianity’s ambivalent history of defining itself vis-a-vis an imagined Israel and Rabbinic Judaism, with implications for understanding Protestant discourses on Israel, Judaism, idolatry, antijudaism, and antisemitism. Full article

Interpretations of the Book of Revelation were extremely popular in the 16th century, not least due to the precarious situation of Protestantism in Europe. In these contexts, the Revelation of John was of utmost importance to the issue of pastoral care in the early modern period, despite the intensive discussions about its canonicity. It contained the most detailed explanations of what awaited Christians after their death and how the events of the end times would unfold until the return of Christ. The perspective of what to expect after death was of great pastoral, and therefore, theological importance. One of the most important commentaries was the ‘Hundred Sermons on the Apocalypse’ by the Zurich-born reformer Heinrich Bullinger. This article examines the biblical concepts of the future that Bullinger identified, as well as the reformer’s own emphases and their practical implications. This article combines, therefore, the flourishing history of the reception of the Bible with the history of Christian conceptions of the future—and its pastoral implications—that have yet to be applied to the Swiss Reformation. Full article

Martyrdom in the sixteenth-century French and Swiss Reformations has long been an exciting area of research for scholars. However, the subject has almost exclusively been studied through large collections called the “martyrologies” or through Jean Calvin’s writings, at the expense of other sources. The article first examines these historiographical trends and then addresses some critical issues of a martyrology—or a Calvin-centered approach. It provides some methodological tools to overcome such issues and advocates for considering alternative source bases that have been neglected thus far. The introduction to an ongoing survey around the figure of the poet and reformer Théodore de Bèze illustrates the range of possibilities. Decentering Reformed martyrdom would allow scholarship to better acknowledge its complexity and its corrigibility. Full article

This article examines how Reformed pastors’ understanding and exercise of their office shaped their response to Anabaptists living in rural parishes of the Swiss Confederation in the seventeenth century. In the wake of Swiss reformations, illicit Anabaptist communities continued to represent a threat to territorial religious unity and the Reformed clergy’s spiritual leadership, but the precise contours of their activity and social influence at a village level remained obscure. In the absence of a clear picture of dissent, Reformed churchmen endeavored to make Anabaptism visible, employing tools of information management, into which their training had initiated them. A series of cases from rural jurisdictions (the counties (Landvogteien) of Kyburg and Grüningen) and a seat of ecclesiastical power (Zurich) illustrate how documentary production, organization, and activation consistently drove this project forward. These means rendered Anabaptist life perceptible, facilitating and justifying its elimination by Reformed governments. Full article

Among the many changing practices during the Reformation, Sabbath observance gained increasing importance as interpretations and practices evolved, leading to divisions among different traditions and disagreements within those traditions. Sabbath theology helped distinguish confessional identity. This study aims to delve deeper into Swiss Reformed interpretations of specific Scriptures that provide the basis for theological conclusions and practical applications regarding Sabbath. It focuses on four key passages in Isaiah (1:13–15, 56:2–8, 58:13–14, and 66:22–24) that contributed to the biblical basis for interpretations of Sabbath among the reformers. By comparing interpretations, we gain a more complete picture of the Swiss Reformed perspectives on Sabbath and observe a pattern of religious change as these religious ideas spread across different regions of the Swiss Confederation from the 1520s to the 1580s. The Swiss Reformed interpreters include Johannes Oecolampadius (1482–1531) in Basel, Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531) and Konrad Pellikan (1478–1556) in Zurich, Wolfgang Musculus (1497–1563) in Bern, and Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575) and Rudolf Gwalther (1519–1586) in Zurich again. The questions addressed in working through their interpretations include which meanings of Sabbath they emphasize, distinctions they make regarding the Sabbath commandment, aspects of Sabbath they think are perpetual, and the day of the week they argue Christians should observe Sabbath. This portrait of Sabbath interpretations among the Swiss Reformed depicts the gradual development toward stricter and more comprehensive views on Sabbath practice among Reformed Christians and gives voice to the unique understandings of these individual Swiss Reformed theologians in the sixteenth century. Full article

This article presents the first English translation of Heinrich Bullinger’s preface to Huldrych Zwingli’s Opus articulorum of 1535. This source, which has received little attention in previous scholarship; is placed in the context of efforts to bring Luther and the Swiss Reformed closer together after the death of the Zurich Reformed on the question of the Lord’s Supper. Bullinger’s preface is an apologetic manifesto in favor of Zwingli’s orthodoxy and continuity with the Church Fathers. It is argued that Bullinger’s strong commitment should be interpreted as a signal sent to Wittenberg that a rapprochement with Luther was not to be achieved at the expense of Zwingli’s theological legacy. Full article

Basel humanists shaped religious discourse beyond the Reformed sphere through their collections of exempla, short narratives designed to illustrate a moral or doctrinal message. Because scholars of early modern exempla typically focus on either Lutheran or Catholic exempla collections, the role of Reformed compilers as mediators between confessions has been obscured. This article uses methods from the field of digital humanities and corpus linguistics to examine the lasting influence of Theodor Zwinger (1533–1588), Conrad Lycosthenes (1518–1561), and Johannes Herold (1514–1567) on Lutheran and Catholic exempla collections in a newly quantitative way. Using the concordance software AntConc, this study identifies numerous citations that demonstrate that Zwinger and Lycosthenes facilitated confessional cross-pollination of exemplary narratives from the mid-sixteenth through the early eighteenth century. Although citations of Zwinger, Lycosthenes, and Herold are more frequent in Lutheran exempla collections, the existence of several Catholic editions of Zwinger’s Theatrum vitae humanae indicates that Catholic readers also valued Zwinger’s work. This examination showcases the vital role of Swiss humanists in cross-confessional networks of information exchange and religious discourse in early modern Europe. Full article

This article examines the life, theological career, exegetical development, and posthumous biographies of Johannes Oecolampadius as illustrative examples of the fact that the Swiss Reformation, with all its religious movements, was far from a uniform concept in terms of its origins, purposes, and methodologies. The article explains through Oecolampadius’s example an approach to reform that was ‘in progress’, traversing the nexuses of disparate methods and exegetical priorities. Oecolampadius’s experience occupied a position at the intersection between the authority of Patristics and the principle of sola scriptura, exemplifying a balance between the past and the present of Christian tradition. The path that led Oecolampadius to become a Protestant Reformer is characterised by a gradual transition, not abrupt, not radical. His example demonstrates the methodological and ideological diversity of the Reformation, which can be observed through the prism of a single life and its intellectual periods. His conversion offers insight into how these varied approaches shaped personal engagements with Scripture, and challenges the notion of an immediate or singular evangelical ‘calling’ or ‘conviction’. This article examines a specific phase within the broader and varied trajectory of the Swiss Reformation by analysing the transformation of Oecolampadius from a biblical scholar to a preacher, and eventually to a Reformer. This case study illustrates how disparate methodologies, whether rooted in humanism or Patristics, contributed to gradual and personal evolution, ultimately giving rise to distinctive individual stances on reform. This article presents a synthesis of three distinct perspectives on the question. The first part approaches the question through the lens of church history and intellectual history; the second one utilises the history of exegesis and New Testament scholarship; and the third draws upon the perspectives of Protestant historiography, from the standpoint of social history and the history of biographies in Early Modern times. Full article

We explored the outcomes and challenges encountered during a 12-year collaborative development endeavor in Tanzania, focused on enhancing the healthcare system. The Health Promotion and System Strengthening (HPSS) project, supported by the Swiss Government and implemented by the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) from 2011 to 2023, aimed to strengthen various aspects of Tanzania’s healthcare landscape. This included reforms in health insurance through the improved Community Health Fund (iCHF), the establishment of a public–private partnership to optimize the health commodity supply chain via a Prime Vendor System (Jazia PVS), the implementation of health technology management innovations, and the facilitation of participatory community and school health promotion initiatives. Operating in a multisectoral, interdisciplinary, and systemic manner, the HPSS project employed a variety of interconnected strategies, focusing on key entry points within the Tanzanian health system, starting from district level to national policies. These efforts followed a three-stages approach to reach a sustainable adoption of the innovations, going through the process of service and product innovation, integration into service delivery systems, and finally their adoption in the respective institutional policies. Each stage presented distinct frameworks and challenges, detailed in this article. The development of innovative concepts was complemented by capacity building through on-the-job training, establishment of new accredited training programs for pre-service trainings, and the development of new IT systems integrated into the governmental IT environment, as well as efforts to improve transparency, accountability, and governance. Activities in these fields were guided by operational research, following the translational approach of Swiss TPH to go from innovation and validation to application. The example of the HPSS project highlights the cycle of developing and testing innovations at the community and district level, followed by endeavoring national-level integration and policy adjustments, consequently resulting in improved service delivery at the district and community level. Full article

This study focused on the connection between organisational school culture and the success of curriculum reform. Utilizing a sample of 348 teachers in 25 Swiss schools, we investigated how different school culture types correlate with teachers’ perceived success of the current process of implementing the “Media and Information Literacy” curriculum. We found that the school culture type Clan is the most dominant across the schools and found a negative connection between the school culture type Hierarchy and teachers’ perceived reform success. An exploratory cluster analysis was used to identify further profiles of school culture that were not based on the dominant culture but were determined based on the distribution of mean values. Two other profiles were identified in a further procedure: Collegial Associates and Competitive Organisations. These results thus fill a gap in the previous research on school culture that had particularly set out to identify the dominant school culture. Based on the results, we cannot only confirm the validity of the Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument for Swiss schools but also give indications as to which characteristics of school culture types are hindering the perceived success of curriculum reforms from the teachers’ points of view. Full article

This paper proposes a Swiss-roll-type mini-reformer employing a copper–zinc catalyst for high-efficient SRM process. Although the commercially available copper–zinc catalysts commonly used in cylindrical-type reformers provide decent conversion rates in the short term, their long-term durability still requires improvement, mainly due to temperature variations in the reformer, catalyst loading, and thermal sintering issues. This Swiss-roll-shaped mini-reformer is designed to improve thermal energy preservation/temperature uniformity by using dual spiral channels to improve the long-term durability while maintaining methanol-reforming efficiency. It was fabricated on a copper plate that was 80 mm wide, 80 mm long, and 4 mm high with spiral channels that were 2 mm deep, 4 mm wide, and 350 mm long. To optimize the design and reformer operation, the catalyst porosity, gas hourly speed velocity (GHSV), operation temperature, and fuel feeding rate are investigated. Swiss-roll-type reformers may require higher driving pressures but can provide better thermal energy preservation and temperature uniformity, posing a higher conversion rate for the same amount of catalyst when compared with other geometries. By carefully adjusting the catalyst bed porosity, locations, and catalyst loading amount as well as other conditions, an optimized gas hourly space velocity (GHSV) can be obtained (14,580 mL/g·h) and lead to not only a high conversion rate (96%) and low carbon monoxide generation rate (0.98%) but also a better long-term durability (decay from 96% to 88.12% after 60 h operation time) for SRM processes. The decay rate, 0.13%/h, after 60 h of operation, is five-folds lower than that (0.67%/h, 0.134%/h) of a commercial cylindrical-type fixed-bed reactor with a commercial catalyst. Full article

To what extent can the Reformed heritage of the prophetic office sharpen the perception of the cultural witness of the church in secular Europe? The so-called munus propheticum as a heritage of the Swiss Reformation is the focus of this paper. In a first attempt, the Reformation origin of guardianship will be traced. A look at the debate on Swiss refugee policy during the war years shows how controversial church involvement was at that time. Using the example of the prophetic office, the sensitivity and fragility of the church’s witness in secular society can be better understood and used for the theological discussion on the function of the public church. In a concluding reflection, arguments for and against its use are examined. Full article

Swiss Vocational Education and Training (VET) is based on national legislation which was introduced in the 1930s and renewed in the 1960s (as well as in the 1970s and in 2002). At first, the goal of the national VET legislation was to further Vocational Education and Training in order to support small and medium enterprises; however, later, it also included industry and services and has more recently grown to support the learners themselves. The 1963 national legislation and the following implementation acts in the cantons were decisive in shaping the Swiss VET system from a historical and comparative perspective. We argue that still today we do not have a unified, national system of education, but rather e cantonal modes of education and also of VET. However, the cantonal actors—with a specific focus on Ticino, Geneva, and Zurich—argue with similar justifications, when it comes to the reform of VET. Nevertheless, within this national legal framework, the cantons adopt rather different solutions. The result is that different (language specific) regional pathways of VET were established, based on various education and training regimes. In this research paper, we aim to concentrate on the years from 1950 to 1970, a period that turns out to be particularly significant for the development of Swiss VET. We focus our research on the introduction of the Vocational Training Act in 1963 and look in detail at the extent to which the cantons developed their corresponding implementation acts from the perspectives of different motives and logics. Full article