Innovative approaches aimed at helping students engage with diversity abound in higher education institutions, but an understanding of effective practice in the realm of religious and worldview diversity is limited. Based on data collected from 13,776 college students attending 52 institutions across the country, this study employs multilevel modeling to examine how informal interactions with peers of diverse worldviews and participation in interfaith activities relate to pluralism orientation. The analyses reveal that student characteristics, measures of campus climate, and both formal and informal interfaith engagement relate to pluralism orientation given controls for institution-level differences. Some relationships in the model are conditional on student religion/worldview.
The purpose of this article is to introduce the theory of interfaith learning and development to the scholarly community. Building on the work of others, the authors adopted an interdisciplinary, equity-oriented approach to developing the theory, which also serves as the basis for a framework intended to guide and inform interfaith practice. Development occurs through exposure to and participation in college experiences that help students achieve outcomes related to religious, spiritual, and worldview development. Outcomes specific to interfaith learning and development include pluralism, self-authored worldview commitment, appreciative knowledge of religious and non-religious traditions, and appreciative attitudes toward religious and non-religious narratives.As the public continues to scrutinize higher education for its societal value, student development theorists-and by extension their theories-must sustain their distinctive relevance, not only as both academic and pragmatic, but as responsible and timely. Indeed, "bridging theory and practice" continues as the mantra of the student development field, with foundational texts, curricula, and practices pivoting on the fundamental notion that knowledge of student and context loses meaning without pragmatic application to-if not deference toward-deeper understandings of students-in-context. Theory with practice genuflects to theory in practice.What does it mean for theory in practice to be responsible and timely? Responsible student development theory-building must account for the experiences of students with different identities and narratives and the practices that help them make developmental gains. Critical questions must continue to disrupt exclusive, hegemonic, and irresponsible theory building: Who benefits from this practice? How have institutions succeeded or failed to design inclusive practices that invite, welcome, and appropriately challenge and support all students? aMatthew J. Mayhew
Evangelical students pose a distinctive set of challenges to higher education professionals. These students, though advantaged to some degree because of their Christian identity, commonly report feeling marginalized and silenced on college campuses. In light of these tensions, the purpose of this study was to examine how non-evangelical students come to an appreciative understanding of evangelical Christianity. Specifically, the research focused on the specific campus conditions and experiences that influence non-evangelical students’ appreciative attitudes toward evangelicals. Findings reveal distinct demographic, institution type, and academic major differences in those students’ perspectives toward their evangelical peers. Additionally, the results suggest that appreciative attitudes toward evangelicals are associated with non-evangelical students’ interfaith experiences, albeit to differing degrees based on self-identified worldview. Recognizing that the work of helping non-evangelical students develop an appreciative understanding of evangelicals is as complicated as it is challenging, especially in the collegiate context, the authors conclude with a discussion of implications for research and practice.
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