Spirituality in Higher Education: Autoethnographies

by Heewon Chang (Editor), Drick Boyd (Editor)

Overview

This collection of articles explores how a wide range of academics— diverse in location, rank and discipline— understand and express how they deal with spirituality in their professional lives and how they integrate spirituality in teaching, research, administration, and advising. The contributors also analyze the culture of academia and its challenges to the spiritual development of those involved. Twenty chapter authors—from a variety of faith traditions—discuss the ways in which their own beliefs have affected their journeys through higher education. By using an autoethnographic, self-analytical lens, this collection shows how various spiritualities have influenced how higher education is understood, taught and performed. The book will stimulate debate and conversations on a topic traditionally ignored in academia

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781598746259
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/15/2011
Pages:	266
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Heewon Chang is Associate Professor of Education at Eastern University. Trained as an educational anthropologist, she has conducted ethnographic studies of adolescents in the United States and Korea, one of which was published in Adolescent Life and Ethos: An Ethnography of a US High School. Her other research interests include multicultural education, cultural identity, gender issues, and autoethnography, for which she is author of a popular textbook, Autoethnography as Method. She founded, and serves as Editor-in-Chief of, two open-access online journals, Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education and International Journal of Multicultural Education. Dr. Drick Boyd is an Associate Professor of Urban and Interdisciplinary Studies at Eastern University. He has written articles in the areas of urban multicultural education and critical pedagogy. One of his recent articles, “Autoethnography as a Tool for Transformative Learning about White Privilege” appeared in the July 2008 edition of the Journal of Transformative Education.

Table of Contents

Autoethnography as Method for Spirituality Research in the Academy; Spirituality and Personhood; “Now You See Her, Now You Don't” 1 : The Integration of Mothering, Spirituality, and Work; Finding Calcutta: Confronting the Secular Imperative; By a Crooked Star: Developing Spirituality Within the Context of a Faith-Based Institution; Spirituality and Professional Collegiality: Esprit de “Core”; Spirituality and Teaching; Helping College Students Discover Meaning Through Spirituality; What's God Got to Do with it? Teaching Personal Narrative at a Faith-Based Institution; Pedagogy and Spirituality in Higher Education: Perspectives, Practices, and Possibilities; Spiritual Introspection and Praxis in Teaching and Assessment; Spirituality, Scholarship, and Outreach; Studying Spirituality and Leadership: A Personal Journey; Listening to the Spiritual Voices of Others in Research; Teaching Religious Tolerance and Understanding; Weaving Activism, Faith, and Scholarship

Editorial Reviews

"Two important currents of thought wend their way through the pages of this captivating book.  The first is the fresh movement of spirituality that is bound neither by systematic religion nor by positivist modernity.  The second is the analysis of socio-cultural meanings of self (i.e. the situated self).  Together, they "inspirit" the reader to apply analyses similar to those of the authors.  Reading this book caused me to stretch."

- David R. Black, President, Eastern University

"Scholar/teacher/activists representing a diversity of faith traditions employ the personal revelatory power of autoethnography to document their life journeys and milestones. I was in awe about how these authors blended personal faith and professional commitment to boldly interrogate and transform not only their own belief systems, but also institutional hegemonic structures. The result is a profound analysis of what it means to be intellectually, spiritually and socially conscious in education and the world. Providing numerous examples of the kind of work that makes pedagogic practice a sacred activity, we are led to an educational justice model that holds promise to transform American higher education. All faculty who seek diverse forms of engagement in the scholarship of teaching, activism and spirituality must read this book."

- Laura I. Rendon, Professor, University of Texas-San Antonio; author of Sentipensante (Sensing/Thinking) Pedagogy: Educating for Wholeness, Social Justice and Liberation, Stylus Press

"Chang and Boyd’s text on spirituality in higher education is a timely, courageous, and honest contribution to understanding the multi-dimensions of academic life. Including a range of religious and spiritual beliefs and traditions among faculty in a variety of academic disciplines, this work provides probing and insightful autoethnographic accounts of how faculty integrate spirituality into their lives and identities, teaching, research, and service to the university and community. Pairing an autoethnographic approach with examining personal beliefs in the context of the “soul” of higher education, these authors invite readers to open their minds and hearts to the experience of spirituality in their and others’ academic lives.  Those who acknowledge the role of spirituality in their 'call' to the university will find companionship and support in these stories; those who resist connecting spirituality and academia may find themselves pondering the important issues raised by these stories long after they have finished reading them."

-Carolyn Ellis, University of South Florida

"Here is diverse and compelling collection of stories whose authors do something rare in academic life—they turn the tools of inquiry on themselves, exploring how their own spiritual journeys have shaped their teaching and scholarship. Long ago, Socrates warned that "The unexamined life is not worth living." But seldom do we take his words seriously, even in the academy, which is devoted to examining things. This book should encourage all of us to probe the roots of our own work. The stories you are about to read clearly reveal the value of doing so."

—Parker J. Palmer, author of The Courage to Teach, A Hidden Wholeness, Let Your Life Speak and Healing the Heart of Democracy

From the Publisher