That was my initial/provisional topic for my research project for my MA Applied Linguistics. I realized however that the sacred/secular is a false dichotomy, a social construct not actually identifiable using positivist means. What I ended up doing was more of a literature review about certain claims by some vocal fundamentalists that "secular" school books were harming their children's faith. On the contrary, I found a lot of solid research demonstrating that in fact school texts have very little influence on kids changing their worldview. I found instead a lot of evidence that in fact the most influential element in children's worldview change is the presence in their life of someone they admire who respects and loves them. Which reminds me of something Kuhn said about scientific revolutions being social phenomena, where young students are socialized into a scientific tradition/sub-culture/society and then once they are relationally secure, they take a leap of faith to commit to that groups' philosophy.
What principles might we extract from this and how might we apply them?
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