Catholic school identity and the new evangelization

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Author(s)
Sultmann, William
Brown, Raymond
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2014
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Catholic school identity has been identified as a priority topic in the field of Catholic education. This article explores Catholic school identity within a changing context and in light of the challenges of the new evangelization. A Leximancer analysis of the aggregated verbal responses of eight focus groups across Australia (n = 73) highlighted four high frequency concepts (school, students, community, and people) as foundational to Catholic school identity. Subsequently, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) detailed the discourse expressions for each of these concepts and assigned a core principle to summarize ...
View more >Catholic school identity has been identified as a priority topic in the field of Catholic education. This article explores Catholic school identity within a changing context and in light of the challenges of the new evangelization. A Leximancer analysis of the aggregated verbal responses of eight focus groups across Australia (n = 73) highlighted four high frequency concepts (school, students, community, and people) as foundational to Catholic school identity. Subsequently, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) detailed the discourse expressions for each of these concepts and assigned a core principle to summarize the narrative. The principles that summarized the discourse concepts were: school (shared sacred mission); students (personal evangelization for life); community (being and building a Christian community); and people (authentic witness). Findings revealed the breadth, depth and uniqueness of Catholic school identity, the interaction of discourse concepts and their expression as core pillars of Faith, Learning, Leadership, Formation and Community. Discussion attended to the consideration of identity pillars as a focus for spirituality in support of the new evangelization.
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View more >Catholic school identity has been identified as a priority topic in the field of Catholic education. This article explores Catholic school identity within a changing context and in light of the challenges of the new evangelization. A Leximancer analysis of the aggregated verbal responses of eight focus groups across Australia (n = 73) highlighted four high frequency concepts (school, students, community, and people) as foundational to Catholic school identity. Subsequently, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) detailed the discourse expressions for each of these concepts and assigned a core principle to summarize the narrative. The principles that summarized the discourse concepts were: school (shared sacred mission); students (personal evangelization for life); community (being and building a Christian community); and people (authentic witness). Findings revealed the breadth, depth and uniqueness of Catholic school identity, the interaction of discourse concepts and their expression as core pillars of Faith, Learning, Leadership, Formation and Community. Discussion attended to the consideration of identity pillars as a focus for spirituality in support of the new evangelization.
View less >
Journal Title
Journal of Religious Education
Volume
62
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© 2014 Springer. This is an electronic version of an article published in Journal of Religious Education, Volume 62, Issue 1, pp 1-13, 2014. Journal of Religious Education is available online at: http://link.springer.com/ with the open URL of your article.
Subject
Education not elsewhere classified
Curriculum and Pedagogy
Specialist Studies in Education
Sociology