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A Private and Public University Case Study Analysis of How Existential Worldview Diversity Infrastructure Emerged

Kaur-Colbert, Simran
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1666701042942221

Abstract Details

2022, Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, Educational Leadership.
Existential worldview diversity infrastructure has emerged across public and private higher education institutions in the interest of advancing religious pluralism, yet receives little attention from current literature, graduate preparation programs, and student affairs practitioners from a critical religious pluralism theoretical and social justice framework. The existing literature around the field of interfaith-interreligious studies, college student religious and spiritual development, campus religious and spiritual climate, and multicultural organization development does not address how this infrastructure emerged let alone the way that white Christonormativity and the false neutral of secularism is embedded within liberatory models for advancing religious pluralism in student affairs and higher education. My qualitative case study is grounded in a constructivist paradigm informed by the critical theoretical perspectives of Critical Religious Pluralism Theory and Third World Feminist Theory. My case study involved two levels of sampling. The first level sampled a private university (Southwestern Catholic University, SWCU), and public university (Midwestern Public University, MPU). The second level sampled participants within each university’s existential worldview diversity infrastructure: Center for Religion and Social Justice at SWCU and the Multifaith Collective at MPU. The range of participants’ insights point to the substantive impact that engaging with religious pluralism had on the emergence of existential worldview diversity infrastructure at each university. Interviewed administrators, faculty, and campus religious advisors understood that methods for religious pluralism allow students to feel connected at the intersection of their religious, secular, and spiritual identity. Overall, my analysis does not minimize religious oppression nor is it complicit with white Christonormativity. Instead, I consider and raise the topic of societal transformation around religious pluralism in student affairs and higher education especially around how existential worldview diversity infrastructure emerged at one public and one private university. On one hand I uncovered that the CRSJ emerged as an apparatus that might disrupt the tension between white Christian religious hegemony and pluralism at SWCU. On the other hand, I uncovered that the MC emerged as apparatus with the capacity to disrupt the false neutral of secularism at MPU with its efforts to advance religious pluralism. My analysis illuminated how the elements of power and privilege act as undercurrents to the work of critical religious pluralism in a public and private university context
Elisa Abes (Committee Chair)
Lisa Weems (Committee Member)
Elizabeth Wilson (Committee Member)
Anthony James, Jr. (Committee Member)
167 p.
Educational Leadership; Higher Education; Higher Education Administration; Religious Education; Spirituality
Critical Religious Pluralism Theory; White Christian Privilege; Third World Feminist Theory; Case Study

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Kaur-Colbert, S. (2022). A Private and Public University Case Study Analysis of How Existential Worldview Diversity Infrastructure Emerged [Doctoral dissertation, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1666701042942221

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Kaur-Colbert, Simran. A Private and Public University Case Study Analysis of How Existential Worldview Diversity Infrastructure Emerged. 2022. Miami University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1666701042942221.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Kaur-Colbert, Simran. "A Private and Public University Case Study Analysis of How Existential Worldview Diversity Infrastructure Emerged." Doctoral dissertation, Miami University, 2022. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1666701042942221

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

miami1666701042942221
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© 2022, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Miami University and OhioLINK.
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