Education Commons^™

Higher Education Professionals Are Not Prepared To Support Students' Growth And Exploration Of Religion And Worldviews, Matthew Gibson

Culminating Experience Projects

Religion and worldview development is often ignored within higher education. Whether inside of the classroom or in initiatives towards diversity, equity, and inclusion, religions and worldviews are kept out. This project looks at why this is the case and uses the Interfaith Triangle as a theoretical framework to provide a possible solution to this problem. This project was completed in three chapters. The first provides an introduction into why religion and worldview identity development are left out of higher education and how this project will address the issue. The second is a literature review that uses the Interfaith Triangle to …

Attitudes Toward Participation In Organized Religion: Its Impact On Mental Health And Life Satisfaction, Kayla M. Riley, Jonathan Riley

Journal of Graduate Education Research

This is a non-experimental study which is designed to discover potential relationships between an individual’s attitude towards participation in organized religion and their mental health, as well as their life satisfaction. The study contained 203 young adults taken from a convenience sample using social media, e-mail, and SMS messages. The research was conducted using a survey form composed of three instruments intended to measure attitude towards religion, general well-being, and life satisfaction. The results from the study indicated that there is a weak positive relationship between one’s attitude towards organized religion and mental health. Additionally, the results also indicated that …

A Guide To Secondary Scholarship For Pure Land Buddhism Using Japanese Periodicals, Rebecca A. Stover

Journal of East Asian Libraries

This paper presents the process of locating Japanese language periodicals relating to Pure Land Buddhism and compiles a bibliography of open-access Japanese language sources for students in the process of Japanese Language acquisition. The paper attempts to scaffold the research process for students in the process of language acquisition and function as a guide to finding information.

Finding The Middle Zone; Redefining Spirituality Through Contemporary American Literature, Mickey Mcpoland

Master's Theses

In this essay, I investigate the intersection of post-postmodern literature and postsecular thought. I examine Jonathan Franzen’s novel Crossroads (2022) as a means to examine a religious conception of goodness and how goodness becomes rooted in what we worship. I also look to Infinite Jest and “Good People” by David Foster Wallace. The latter illuminates the conflict between traditional forms of worship and contemporary calls to worship one’s own desires, which results in stagnation, frigidity, and indecisiveness. Characters follow their internal compass, which leads them only further away from a sense of stability. Franzen’s work shows what replaces traditional religious …

Collaborative Constructions: Designing High School History Curriculum With The Lost & Found Game Series, Owen Gottlieb, Shawn Clybor

Articles

This chapter addresses design research and iterative curriculum design for the Lost & Found games series. The Lost & Found card-to-mobile series is set in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the twelfth century and focuses on religious laws of the period. The first two games focus on Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, a key Jewish law code. A new expansion module which was in development at the time of the fieldwork described in this article that introduces Islamic laws of the period, and a mobile prototype of the initial strategy game has been developed with support National Endowment for the Humanities. The …

The Impact Of Political Beliefs On Ethical Framework In Adults

Journal of Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research

This study aimed to examine the differences between major political philosophies in the United States and whether these beliefs influence a person’s ethical views. This research was a non-experimental correlation design, using a survey methodology with adult participants. The participants were asked to complete the 39-item The Impact of Political Beliefs on Ethical Frameworks in Adults Survey. A Pearson’s r was conducted to determine the relationship between political beliefs and ethical frameworks. The results showed a slightly positive correlation that was statistically significant [r(166) = .28, p = .000]. Therefore, there was sufficient evidence to support the research hypothesis: there …

Higher Meanings: A Speaker Series Connecting Mathematics And Religion, Lawrence M. Lesser, Patricia S. Barrientos, Ben Zeidman

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

An innovative grant-funded general adult audiences international speaker series on connections between mathematics and religion yielded six 2021 (now archived) presentations. We share reflections and lessons learned, informed by two sets of surveys.

[Cldv 100] Diversity And Multicultural Studies, Oluremi "Remi" Alapo

Open Educational Resources

CLDV100 (Liberal Arts) Introduction to Multicultural Studies in the 21st Century: 3 hrs. 3 crs.

A study of what culture is; how it influences the choices we make; how to deal positively with conflicts that inevitably arise in working/living situations with people of diverse cultures. It is a course structured to raise multicultural awareness and fortify students' social skills in dealing with cultural differences. It includes an ethnographic study of cultural groups in the U.S.A. Through the study of cultural concepts, this course develops skills in critical thinking, writing, and scholarly documentation. Not open to students with credit in CLDV …

Sexual Complexity: A Comparison Between Men And Women In A Sexual Minority Sample Of Members Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, William S. Bradshaw, John P. Dehlin, Renee V. Galliher

Psychology Faculty Publications

We report here some of the results from an online survey of 1612 LGBTQ members and former members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (CJCLDS, Mormon). The data permitted an exploration of diversity—individual similarities and differences within and between the sexes. Men and women were compared with respect to sexual identity self-labeling and behavior (i.e., identity development, disclosure, activity), orientation change efforts, marital relationships, and psychosocial health—these variables in the context of their religious lives. More women than men self-identified in the bisexual range of the sexual attraction continuum. Both men and women had engaged in extensive …

Cultural Formation Of Place: Making Yourself At Home, Olivia Arratia

Art Theses and Dissertations

The environment you grow up in can become a pivotal part of your existence. The sights, smells, people, and places you experience every day can transform the way you see the world. Growing up in a Mexican-American household has brought its own set of experiences that have made me the artist I am today. I am one of many contemporary artists building on the foundations of their heritage and the Chicano movement. I am also a Mexican-American artist expanding the identity and extending the legacy in the 21st century. This paper will investigate how Mexican-American heritage has influenced my artistic …

Factors For Success Of International Female Doctoral Students In Science In The United States, Maria Patricia Cantu

Theses & Dissertations

Factors for Success of International Female Doctoral Students in Science in the United States

Many international doctoral female students in the sciences in the United States do not obtain a degree despite their large investment in time, effort, and financial resources. The loss of highly prepared and credentialed international female doctoral students, who have a genuine interest in science but who choose not to pursue their studies to graduation or switch careers due to real or perceived barriers, signifies such a loss not just for the women themselves and their families but for their countries of origin, their hosts universities, …

What Are We Teaching In Spirituality And Social Work Elective Courses? A Qualitative Content Analysis Of Bsw Syllabi, Hillary Cole

Scholar Week 2016 - present

Religion and spirituality (RS) are vital aspects of client identity and well-being, yet social work professionals are often ill-equipped to address these in practice due to a lack of specialized training. The National Association of Social Work (NASW) and Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) support spirituality integration, but existing research focuses on Master of Social Work (MSW)-level elective courses. This qualitative study addresses Bachelor of Social Work (BSW)-level integration by (a) exploring how many accredited BSW programs offer an elective course on RS and (b) analyzing syllabi from these courses to determine pedagogical best practices. BSW programs can use …

The Religious Lexicon Embedded In Public American Curricula, Daniel R. Jones

Student Publications

What is the relationship between one's own religious beliefs and their everyday colloquial diction choices? Moreover, why is the subfield that encompasses the intersection of sociolinguistics, education, and religious studies one that has gained little scholarly interest in recent years, where one could argue the importance of religious belief, and other socio-political beliefs in education have come center stage in the heart of American political debate? This article will tackle this broad range of topics through a case study focusing on my primary research question: How does a teacher’s own religious identity affect the religious language utilized in their classroom …

Life Beyond Bars: Nine Prisoners And Their Families, And Faith-Based Efforts To Recognize And Avoid-Cross-Generational Criminal Habits., Alfreda Reese

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

The aim of this study is to examine prisoners’ firsthand experiences and their underlying family issues to bring awareness and delete current cross-generational criminal habits. Through analyzing a series of individual experiences and exploring underlying family issues, the study intends to bring awareness and exposure to the implications of the criminal justice system on prisoners and their families. This study will analyze personal stories of prisoners and their families to identify, interact, and intervene in best practices to avoid criminal habits. The research gathered aims to empower prisoners and their families in suggested ways to delete repeated criminal patterns and …

Finding God On The Indian Road: Exploring The Intersectionality Between Native American And Christian Spiritual Living, Chad Johnson

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

Drawing on the long and arduous history between the Indigenous people of the United States and the Christian church that colonists brought to them, this project works to address the harmful relationship of the past to establish a foundation for moving forward in a spirit of respect and reverence for Native American spiritual practices that have much to offer the Christian world of spiritual living. For centuries these two deeply spiritual worlds were told that they could not and would not co-exist. This project then draws deep attention to ways Native American spiritual practices have been misappropriated and trivialized over …

A Journey To Finding Space In The Tension: Experience Of Instructors' Relationship With Religion And Spirituality In Doctoral Psychology Programs, Samantha Mcgee

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Religion and spirituality, when viewed through a holistic lens, can reflect important aspects of a person’s identity. It can be a source of well-being and also struggle. The fields of religion, spirituality and psychology have had a history of being polarized, with some efforts to integrate the two fields. Tensions exist at multiple ecological levels around the topic of religion and spirituality, which can make it easier to avoid discussing it in classrooms and therapy rooms. It is important to address and create room for discussion of experiences around religion and spirituality in classrooms that are training psychologists so they …

Seeking Truth About Muslims: Critical Media Literacies In An Era Of Islamophobia, Matthew Deroo

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Across various forms of media, Muslims are often portrayed as a homogenous group prone to violence, yet scholars have increasingly called upon schools and teachers to transcend stereotypes and prepare students to understand Muslims in more thoughtful and nuanced ways. This qualitative case study recounts how students and a teacher in a high school multicultural studies class investigated problematic media materials about Islam sent by an organization called the Christian Seniors Association. Drawing upon Mihailidis’s (2014) 5A’s of Media Literacy heuristic, I analyzed field notes from classroom observations, interviews, and student produced artifacts. Findings revealed how a teacher’s use of …

Risky Behavior And Religiosity In Students, Chaden Noriega

Journal of Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research

This study examined the relationship between religiosity and risky behavior in college students. A convenience sample of 31 students of at least 18 years of age from Southern Adventist University participated in this study. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire created by the researcher regarding gender, race, religious identification, and class standing in addition to the Risky Behavior Questionnaire (RBQ) (Weiss et al., 2018) and items from both the Duke Religion Index (DRI) (Koenig et al., 1997) and The Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS) (Huber & Huber, 2012). Results of the sample showed that when an individual’s level of religiosity increases, …

Heterosexual Parents Who Move Toward Acceptance Of Their Gay Sons, Brady Sullivan

Dissertations

Rejection of gay men by parents is a frequent occurrence. Rhoades et al. (2018) found 49% of a sample of 657 sexual minority children had experienced parental rejection due to their LGBTQ+ identity. However, the current body of literature does not discuss those heterosexual parents who initially reject their sexual minority children and then return to a place of acceptance. Within the framework of attachment theory, this dissertation used a basic qualitative approach, influenced by Grounded Theory methods, to investigate the experience of heterosexual parents who move toward acceptance of their gay son. Fifteen, white, heterosexual parents, ranging from ages …

Experiences With Ex Corde Ecclesiae In Faculty Teaching Practices At Southern Catholic Colleges, Maria R. Sarmiento, Pietro A. Sasso

Georgia Journal of College Student Affairs

As special-mission institutions, Catholic higher education institutions pursue similar goals of American higher education to develop graduates who are civically engaged and ready to address contemporary challenges. However, these institutions are often challenged to integrate their religious mission within the classroom through faculty pedagogy, which buttresses academic freedom and student consumerism issues. This descriptive phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of Catholic university faculty members as they described their pedagogical experiences and Catholic identity perspectives. Findings from this study suggested a connection with Catholic identity, but that their relationship with institutional mission related to teaching was ambiguous. Participants had little …

Fostering Ethical Engagement Across Religious Difference In The Context Of Rhetorical Education, Michael-John Depalma

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

At a moment in which religious diversity is ever-increasing in the United States and more than three-quarters of the world’s population identifies with a religious tradition, it is important for writing teachers to consider how to best cultivate writers who are equipped to build identifications across religious difference. This essay traces my efforts to engage this exigence in my advanced undergraduate writing course at Baylor University entitled Religious Rhetorics and Spiritual Writing (RRSW). In what follows, I outline my pedagogical goals, course design, and approach to teaching RRSW. I then share the results of a qualitative pilot study that used …

Sexual Prejudice, Sexism, And Religion, Chana Etengoff, G. Tyler Lefevor

Psychology Faculty Publications

Multi-national and meta-analytic studies suggest that the pathways between religiousness and sexism/sexual prejudice are partially mediated by sociopersonality factors such as conservatism. In this article, we describe the contributing factors to this relationship, such as authoritarianism and fundamentalism. These factors interact at the dynamic nexus of individual and social development. As such, religiously situated sexism and sexual prejudice are not viewed as inevitable outcomes to religious practice and faith. Individual differences (e.g. conservatism), congregational (e.g. doctrine/policies, limited contact), and cultural factors (e.g. power hierarchies) mutually contribute to this landscape, and individuals ultimately make choices regarding their behavior and views. Further …

Blaine Amendments And The Judiciary: An Analysis Of Government Aid To Religious Schools, Dustin A. Robinson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

First introduced in 1875, Blaine Amendments restrict private, parochial schools from utilizing publicly acquired funds. While the federally proposed Blaine Amendment died on the Senate floor, 37 states have adopted constitutional language that limits and/or bars religious schools from receiving public funds. Fraught with bigotry and labeled as discriminatory, such measures have not gone without challenge and the judicial system has delivered numerous decisions on funding public and private schools. However, jurisprudence reveals significant shifts in court decisions over time. Through analysis of Supreme Court cases from Everson v. Board of Education (1947) to Espinoza v. Montana (2020), this work …

Review Of Eighteenth-Century Women’S Writing And The Methodist Media Revolution, By Andrew O. Winckles, Rebecca Nesvet

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

No abstract provided.

Changes In Subjective Versus Objective Well-Being In India, Vani S. Kulkarni, Veena S. Kulkarni, Katsushi S. Imai, Raghav Gaiha

Population Center Working Papers (PSC/PARC)

Although there is abundant literature on subjective well-being (SWB), there is virtually none for India. Growing recognition of the validity and accuracy of measures of SWB of well-being underlies the rapid growth of literature on SWB in recent decades but it has mainly focused on developed countries. Ours is, to our knowledge, the first study of SWB at the all-India level, and one of the few on developing countries, with a rigorous validation of the results. Applying robust OLS and ordered probit models to the India Human Development Survey (IHDS) panel data in 2005 and 2012, we assess SWB changes …

Jr. And Sr. High At-Risk Students Within Poverty: Formation Of The Mentor-Mentee Program In Addressing Their Needs, John J. Noggle

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

In the Spring of 2015, I was driving toward Southwest Arkansas to my new appointment at Stamps First United Methodist Church. As I was driving further south on Highway 71, I began to notice how poverty-stricken South Arkansas was. Towns that were once the commercial service centers to their communities contained empty store buildings and little economic life. It was then that I knew that the majority of children in South Arkansas were At-Risk children in poverty. I felt a call in my Spirit to help those in need by developing a plan of action to help them in meeting …

Dismantling Hegemony Through Inclusive Sexual Health Education, Lauren Wright

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the process of developing a sexual health education curriculum that is not only tailored to the unique needs of foster-engaged young women, but also those who may experience further marginalization from other mainstream programs due to their race, sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or their religious beliefs. In conjunction with the Adolescent Sexual Health Education and Research (ASHER) Program, I helped develop a sexual health education curriculum, "Choosing Myself," targeted toward foster-engaged young women and young women (ages 13-24) in the state of Florida. "Choosing Myself" is intended to be an inclusive program that empowers participants, improves their …

Students' Evangelical Worldview In Public High School Content Areas: A Phenomenological Analysis, Russell Allen

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Although much research has been conducted regarding Christian worldview in private high schools and Christian colleges, very little information exists regarding Christian worldview at public high schools. The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study is to describe how 10 evangelical students in public high schools interpret content areas through their worldview. The study answered the following critical question: How do evangelical students in public high schools interpret content areas through their worldviews? Participants were found using criterion sampling in central Pennsylvania and document analysis, interviews, and focus groups were used to collect data. Moustakas’s (1994) approach was used for data …

Naming And Re(Claiming) Feminism In Orthodoxy: Voicing The Gender And Religious Identities Of Greek Orthodox Women, Anne Marie Adams

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a qualitative study of the effects of Greek Orthodoxy on the gender and religious identity meaning-making of five Greek-American women. The emergent themes from this study indicate that participants’ gender and religious identities were heavily influenced by the dueling tensions and contradictions between patriarchy and feminism, conservative traditionalism and modernity, and secular life and the religious community (i.e., family and church). Underpinning this study are Narrative Identity Theory and Feminist Standpoint Theory. Portraiture methodology was employed across three semi-structured interviews, as well as three written/video reflection journals to reveal how women, as articulated through their own perspectives, …

French Muslim Youth’S Perception Of Their Cultural Identity In A Post-Charlie Hebdo Reality In The 19th Arrondissement., Gaelle Flora Bernard

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

On January 7, 2015, the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper in France, was attacked by two armed men, Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, who shot and killed 12 staff members and injured another 11. The motive of the gunmen was the defense of their Muslim religion, in response to the newspaper’s history of publishing caricatures of the prophet Mohammed (AFP, 2015). This terrorist attack of January 7, 2015 continues to have a lasting impact on the lives of French people, most particularly French Muslims.

The purpose of this case study was to investigate the negotiation of Muslim youth identity …