SPIRITUALITY AND EDUCATION
                                

Compiled by: W. Huitt, 1994

Return to: | Readings in Educational Psychology | Educational Psychology Interactive |

BASIC ISSUES

Collins, J., & Others. (1987). The Blind Spot Extended: Spirituality. Journal of College Student Personnel, 28(3), 274-276.
Advocates students being afforded the same privilege and extended the same opportunity to attain spiritual development as they are given in other areas related to
student development in college. Suggests offering prayers by persons in their own traditions at major college events. Claims risk of offending worth benefit of
celebrating a spiritual event of meaning. (ABL).

Groome, T., & Others. (1988). The Spirituality of the Religious Educator. Religious Education, 83(1), 9-44.
Reflecting upon his own spirituality, Groome states that religious educators must have a passion for people, the gift of hospitality, a love for tradition, and a commitment to
educate for God's reign. Following the article are 13 religious educators responses to the author's questions and reflections. (GEA).

Leean, C. (1988). Spiritual and Psychosocial Life Cycle Tapestry. Religious Education, 83(1), 45-52.
Proposes three understandings of spirituality and examines how they challenge religious educators. Stating that spirituality can be understood as a common human
yearning and experience, as a developmental reality, and as a discipline involving the whole person, the author concludes that people cannot ignore their relationship to
nature and to the creative and healing gifts of the spirit. (GEA).

Mitchell, C. (1988). Paralleling Cognitive and Moral Development with Spiritual Development and Denominational Choice. Psychology: A Journal of Human Behavior,
25(1), 1-9.
Extends parallel of cognitive and moral development to levels of spiritual development and denominational choice. Suggests with an awareness of the client's level of spiritual
development, the therapist can be of greater assistance to clients asking for assistance in clarification of spiritual dilemmas. (Author/ABL).

Moore, J. (1988). Adolescent Spiritual Development: Stages and Strategies.Religious Education, 83(1), 83-100.
Discusses adolescent spiritual development using the three traditional stages in Catholic spiritual heritage (the purgative, illuminative, and unitive). Suggests specific
strategies for helping young people ""progress"" or move to higher levels in their spirituality. (GEA).

Shapiro, S., & Fitzgerald, L. (1989). The development of an objective scale to measure a transpersonal orientation to learning. Educational and Psychological
Measurement, 49(2), 375-384.
A 40-item Likert scale, Transpersonal Orientation to Learning, was developed to investigate transpersonal (spiritual or mystical) orientation.  The scale was validated
via administration to 166 graduate students in education to determine their beliefs about the development of spiritual potential in learning environments.  Satisfactory
reliability and promising validity were established. (SLD).

Sinnott, J.(1992). Development and Yearning: Cognitive Aspects of Spiritual Development. ERIC_NO: ED348586
People are beings that seem to have, and to think about, spiritual, transcendent experiences. But some are psychologists who have historically found it very difficult
to integrate their spiritual, yearning selves, or the spiritual selves of those they see. Psychologists may want to understand the processes involved in complex transcendent,
spiritual, new-paradigm understanding, and how such thinking becomes part of the skills and experience of the normal, non-pathological developing human. Four sample
hypotheses could test some relations between postformal cognition and high-level spiritual development: (1) individuals who report a unitative state of consciousness
show postformal operations; those not reporting unitative states may or may not show postformal operations; (2) those reporting unitative states have highly efficient styles
of processing large amounts of conflicting information and function better in the face of overload than those not reporting such states; (3) middle-aged and older persons are
more likely to describe spiritual searches which link them with others and which operate to give a unity and meaning to their lives than younger persons; and (4) choice
of exposure to life events or workshops or psychotherapy where one challenges the meaning of one's life or the grounds of one's life or the grounds of one's "self" are
likely to allow the person to transition to both postformal thought and spiritual development. (ABL).

CURRICULUM

Brown, M. (1989). Transpersonal psychology: Facilitating transformation in outdoor experiential education. Journal of Experiential Education, 12(3), 47-56.
Explores how outdoor experiential education can facilitate personal growth and transformation by balancing adventure-based activities with inner-directed processes. 
Discusses transpersonal psychology and research on consciousness and brain functions relevant to the process of transformation. Describes a specific technique to access
deeper levels of awareness. Contains 37 references. (SV).

Simon, A. (1987).  The Meaning of Meaning: The Life-Worlds of Some Unity School Truth Drama Participants. ERIC_NO: ED296421.
Religious symbol systems have the capacity to bring into place superordinate constructions of reality. One interesting construction of reality has been developed by
the Unity School of Christianity, organized in the second half of the nineteenth century and perhaps the most successful of organized groups within the American
New Thought/Metaphysical movement. Interviews were completed with ten movement participants, members of a Unity satellite organization in a midwest American city, as
a follow-up to rhetorical analysis of Unity's premiere publication, "Daily Word Magazine." Data showed that (1) participants' responses indicate rational
understanding of the manifest thematic content of the "Daily World" discourse; (2) respondents, in accordance with the ultimate framework of Unity, appear to accept the
responsibility that to give expression to spiritual heritage, one must recognize Truth as principle and law of the universe; (3) respondents embrace a new spiritual identity as
"Truth Students," which means to achieve redemption as they transcend the frustrations, contradictions, and conflicts of social life; (4) respondents understand
they are using attention-shifting as a rhetorical strategy to progress in the ability to know and perceive in a spiritual way; and (5) respondents see themselves as Truth
Students participating actively in a rhetorical drama. (Twenty-one notes are included.) (MS).

Vladislavlev, A. (1987). A Conceptual Framework for the Development of Lifelong Education in the USSR. Fundamentals of Educational Planning 35. Paris, France:
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization). International Inst. for Educational Planning. ERIC_NO: ED293007.
This document presents a conceptual framework for lifelong education in the USSR that is based on interfacing education on the one hand and the scientific and
technological revolution on the other to create a system of lifelong education encompassing basic in-school and other less structured, nonformal programs. The
impact of the increasing intellectualization of workers' tasks and the increased knowledge and skill demands that scientific advances have placed on workers are
discussed. The development of the Soviet recognition of the need for lifelong education is traced from the USSR's early postrevolutionary period to the present. The
principles of purposefulness in education and training, individualization in education, lifelongness, and a systems approach are examined from the Soviet perspective. The
role of lifelong education in facilitating workers' physical and spiritual development, raising their sociopolitical awareness, and increasing their vocational qualifications is
discussed. A two-tiered model for lifelong education in the Soviet Union, consisting of basic (elementary, secondary, and postsecondary) and supplementary education
programs is proposed. The supplemental education portion of the model would feature flexible, nonformal programs that would simultaneously fulfill
information-consultation, teaching, and organization-supervision functions. (MN).

COUNSELING

Chandler, C., & Others. (1992). Counseling for Spiritual Wellness: Theory and Practice. Journal of Counseling and Development, 71(2), 168-75.
Notes that, although spiritual wellness is an emerging area of interest in counseling, it still lacks clarity in definition and application. Attempts to define more clearly the
concept of spiritual health and to describe ways to use techniques for the enhancement of spiritual wellness and the advancement of spiritual development. (Author/NB)

Weckowicz, T. (1988). Kazimierz Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration and the American Humanistic Psychology. Counseling and Values, 32(2), 124-134.
Discusses the differences and similarities between Dabrowski's theory of positive disintegration and the theories of the American humanistic psychologists. Stresses the
suffering associated with attaining higher levels of spiritual development. Suggests that Dabrowski and humanists followed different theodicies. (Author/ABL).

VIEWPOINTS

Chandler, D. (1992). The "New" Age: A Bibliographic Essay. ERIC_NO: ED349585.
This bibliographic essay describes and discusses important books in a variety of thematic areas associated with the New Age Movement, which is a distinctive
communicative phenomenon characterized by unconventional beliefs and activities. The essay argues that the single subject pervading the peculiar phenomena and
puzzling thoughtful critics is the mind, its enormous potential and unknown parameters. The essay's introduction describes the new age movement and its
development, discussing several related books. The individual thematic sections of the bibliography, each of which discusses a number of texts in some detail, include:
(1) Mythology; (2) The "Spiritualization" of Knowledge; (3) Heightened Sensory Perception; (4) New Insights in Health and Medicine; (5) Spiritual "Ecology"; (6) The
Shaman and Shamanic Experience; (7) The "Vision Quest"; (8) Astral Projection; (9) Crystals; (10) Reincarnation; (11) Channeling; (12) Unidentified Flying
Objects; (13) The Men's Movement; (14) The "New" Religions; and (15) an Epilogue, in which some contemporary magazines offering sophisticated treatment of
these and other issues associated with the New Age Movement are addressed. (HB)

Emge, D. (1988).  Base Christian Communities: A Challenge to the Status Quo.ERIC_NO: ED301683.
Base Christian communities (also know as base-level ecclesial communities or CEBs) are small groups of Christians, mainly Catholics and mainly in Latin America, that
come together for scripture study, prayer, and fellowship. They frequently turn their attention toward social ills and address problems existing within society. The origin of
CEBs can be traced to religious developments within the Brazilian Catholic Church in the late 1960s, when a shortage of Brazilian clergy and alls from the Vatican for
greater spiritual development among the people led to the development of prayer and education groups led by laypersons. Twenty years later there are over 100,000 CEBs
in Brazil alone. Although CEBs have been looked upon favorably by the church hierarchy from their inception, there is some concern that they might become an
alternative to institutional Catholicism. CEBs have also been linked to liberation theology, a view of theology that has developed primarily in Latin America over the
past 20 years and that rejects the abstract and theoretical nature of theology. The pedagogy of Paulo Freire has also had an important effect on the shaping of CEBs,
particularly with his concept of conscientization. CEBs also pose a challenge to adult education in the United States. (MN).

Shepard, M. (1988). Spirituality and the Jewish School: Models and Meanings. Religious Education, 83(1), 101-115.
States that, although religion is taught in Jewish schools, the sense of spirituality that motivates and provides meaning for learning is absent. Arguing that society bears
some of the blame, the author contends that spirituality can best be fostered in programs that stress integration, synthesis, the mystery of things, and transcendence.
(GEA).

Zappone, K. (1988). Liberating Spirituality. Religious Education, 83(1), 67-82.
Argues that spirituality is often poorly handled in religious education because traditional descriptions of it fail to touch all people. Examines the nature of Christian
spirituality found among feminists and Latin Americas' poor. Discusses how these views of spirituality can be used to encourage the integration of critical reflection,
emancipatory action, and world harmony. (GEA).

MISCELLANEOUS

Myers, K., & Bailey, C. (1989). Member involvement in a student religious organization: A qualitative analysis. ERIC_NO: ED315819.
This study investigated college student involvement in campus religious organizations to determine the functioning of organizational and interpersonal communication.  Data
were elicited trhough open-ended interviews with 16 members of a catholic student center at a state university in the midwest.  Interviews were also conducted with the
director, assistant director, and secretary to obtain background information about the center and its purpose.  Results revealed two layers of relationships within the
organization.  A member identity cluster and a member authority cluster.  The first consiste of the social/emotional relationships that made up the community and allowed
it to achieve its goal of emotional and spiritual development of community members.  These relationships revolved around individual member identity which was influenced
by a number of factors, and, in turn, influenced a number of others.  The second concerned the task structure and functioning of the organization.  The key appeared to
be the use of member authority in the delegation of tasks and establishment of task role expectations. Task role expectations differed a great deal among members, which
led to differeing emphases on effective completion of tasks.  Findings suggest practical applications for college student personnel concerned with new student retention and
for individuals involved in campus ministry. Additiolnal research into student dissatisfaction appears to be called for. (Two figures depicting the member identity
and member authority clusters are included.) (KEH).

Shea, W. (1992). On John Dewey's Spiritual Life [Book Review]. American Journal of Education, 101(1), 71-81.
This combination of intellectual, spiritual, cultural, and social biography reveals connections between the religious life, theory of religion, and intellect of J. Dewey, a
major figure in educational history. In his rejection of traditional religion, Dewey turned to public human good and human service. (SLD).