Education Commons^™

Feminist Catholic Organizational Identity: A Phenomenological Study Of Charism In The Lay Educator Of A Notre Dame De Namur Learning Community, Kathleen Barrera Quiazon

Doctoral Dissertations

The Catholic schools of women’s religious congregations in the United States possess a distinctive Catholic identity, owed in great part to the charism of their founders and the feminist worldview that emerged in the sisters’ mission, communal narratives, and ministries. With the decline of women religious across the country, schools and congregations ask questions for the future of that identity in the hands of lay educators. As with many religiously sponsored schools, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur and their lay partners in education are engaged in these critical questions for their own learning communities across the country.

This …

Towards Charism Identity: A Catholic Identity Case Study Through The Lens Of Laudato Si’, Kristofer Ross Koller

Doctoral Dissertations

This case study evaluates the current relevance of how Catholic identity is conceived as an evaluative tool in accreditation processes. Catholic identity, though a concept inconsistently defined among various international contexts, is nevertheless utilized reductively as criteria for K-12 Catholic school accreditation in the United States, primarily through the framework of the National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Schools (NSBECS). Using the example of a secondary school with an explicit Catholic charism-based commitment to environmental sustainability, this dissertation collects qualitative data in an exploratory manner to evidence how schools that may seem insufficiently Catholic according to currently utilized frameworks …

Teachers' Perceptions Of The Nine Defining Characteristics Of Catholic Identity In Ursuline Secondary Schools Of The Usa, Barbara Ann Middendorf

Doctoral Dissertations

Catholic schools are integral to the Catholic Church’s mission of evangelization. A Catholic educational institution is a place to encounter the living God who is Jesus Christ. Education is the concern and task of the Church, called to serve humankind from the heart of God. This study examined the perceptions of teachers working in Roman Union, Ursuline secondary schools of the Central Province of the United States regarding the extent to which the nine defining characteristics of Catholic identity were present in their respective schools and classrooms. For this research, Catholic identity was operationally defined using the seminal Catholic education …

A Descriptive Study Of Religious Engagement And The Internalization Of Religious Beliefs Of 12th-Grade High-School Students Who Attended Kairos Retreats And Fourth-Day Follow-Up Activities As Juniors In Five U.S. Jesuit All-Male High Schools, Chris Miller

Doctoral Dissertations

The Kairos retreat is popular among upperclassmen at Jesuit high schools across the nation. Kairos, or “God’s Time,” is a religious retreat grounded in Christian incarnational theology and the overall theology of the retreat is love in action, and its participants are challenged to “live the fourth” day, which becomes the never-ending day. Even though there has been a trend across the nation in the first decade of the 21st century within Jesuit high schools to move the retreat to the junior level, there is no empirical research examining the spiritual effects on the individual student of moving the Kairos …

Promoting Tolerance Through Learning About Human Evolution And Creation Myths, Afsoon Alishahi

Doctoral Dissertations

The role that religion plays in the lives of humans is complex, contradictory, and deeply impactful. According to Allport (1979), religion has a paradoxical function in that it can either combat or contribute to prejudice. A meta-analysis by Hall, Matz, and Wood (2010) found a significant correlation between being deeply religious and having racial prejudice. Similarly, many social scientific studies since 1940 have concluded that religious individuals are more prejudiced than less religious individuals (Hunsberger & Jackson, 2005).

Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine whether gaining knowledge about human evolution, creation myths, and their relationship to religious …

A Quantitative Analysis Of A Critical Pedagogy In Catholic Secondary School Religious Studies Teachers In The San Francisco Bay Area, Alex Porter Macmillan

Doctoral Dissertations

Scholarship has indicated that Catholic, secondary school religion teachers in the United States are often not adequately prepared pedagogically and theologically (Aldana, 2015; Ramey, 2014; Schroeder, 2013; Cook and Hudson, 2006; Cook, 2001, 2000; Lund 1997). Rossiter (2011, 2010, 2007) and Crawford and Rossiter (2006) described aspects of a pedagogy that can be summarized as “Critical Interpretation and Evaluation of Culture” (Rossiter, 2011), where a number of different criteria and examples are described that can serve as a relevant pedagogy for religious education.

In a researcher designed, online, cross-sectional survey, 18 questions from relevant literature using both binary “yes / …

Peace Under Pressure: Portraits Of Christian Leadership In College Basketball Coaches, Charles Henry Wilson Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations

NCAA Division I college basketball coaching is a high-stakes, high-reward profession. This study is based on three premises: (a) there is increasing pressure on college basketball coaches to win immediately and win consistently; (b) coaches are expected to maintain their integrity; (c) the pressure to win immediately and win consistently can influence some coaches to compromise their integrity. Given that context, the purpose of this study was to investigate and illuminate the lived experience of Christian head men’s and women’s basketball coaches at public, NCAA Division I institutions. This study was guided by two guiding research questions: (a) What is …

An Exploration Of Catholic High School Religious Studies Teachers' Perceptions And Experiences Of Their Role And Practice, Laura Witter Ramey

Doctoral Dissertations

Research literature has demonstrated that Catholic high school religion teachers face a number of possible challenges or tensions as they go about the preparation and practice of teaching religion. One challenge that emanates from the literature is that religious studies teachers are expected to be as professional as their counterparts in other disciplines, yet they lack the structural resources for developing that teaching professionalism (Cook, 2001; Cook & Hudson, 2006; Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, SCCE, 1988; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, USCCB, 2005). A second challenge is the expectation that religious studies teachers must meet the needs of …

Ownership, Control, Sponsorship, And Trusteeship: Governance Relationships Within Private Catholic Religious-Sponsored Secondary Schools In The United States, David Louis Caretti

Doctoral Dissertations

The governance of private Catholic religious-sponsored secondary institutions in the United States is wholly unique, for many different influences distinguish these institutions from not only their public counterparts but also other Catholic schools operated by a diocese or parish. In the face of the changes of the post-Vatican II era, including the diminishing numbers of religious brothers, sisters, and priests available to minister within their respective apostolates, religious congregations have employed one particular governance construct, the board of limited-jurisdiction, originally created within the Catholic university and healthcare realms. Thus, while such boards hold the chief role in directing the progress …

The Theological Literacy, Beliefs, And Practices Of Lay Administrators Of Marianist-Sponsored Seconday Schools In The United States, John F. Thompson

Doctoral Dissertations

Over the past 45 years, there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of religious and priests working in Catholic schools in the United States. Currently, 96% of all elementary and secondary faculties are comprised of lay men and women (McDonald, 2010). This same phenomenon can be found in Marianist-sponsored secondary schools in the United States. Prior to accepting a leadership position in a high school, Marianist brothers and priests were formed in a comprehensive theological and spiritual framework which incorporated the study of scripture, Church history, magisterial documents, liturgical prayer, moral theology, and other spiritual practices. Lay men …