School of Graduate Research Student Theses

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Browsing School of Graduate Research Student Theses by Subject "D - Education Studies"

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    THE BUILDING BRIDGES THROUGH INTERFAITH DIALOGUE IN SCHOOLS PROGRAMME: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A MODEL OF INTERFAITH EDUCATION
    (2013-04-07) McCowan, Tim
    This thesis investigated the effectiveness of the “Building Bridges through Interfaith Dialogue in Schools Programme” in promoting intercultural and interreligious understanding, faith, empathy, trust, respect and co-operation between students from different faith, cultural and social backgrounds. This experiential education programme involves students in years ten and eleven and teachers from different schools and backgrounds to meet and dialogue, question and explore each other’s lives and faiths over six sessions in a year. The researcher used a survey questionnaire and guided interviews with 84 students, 16 teachers, 15 facilitators of the small groups and four regional co-ordinators alongside the general capabilities of the new Australian curriculum and various measures of empathy and intercultural understanding to make this assessment. Results revealed a majority of participants had grown significantly in trust, respect and interreligious understanding of the other and their faith tradition through direct engagement with a peer of a different faith background. The small group dialogues and informal conversations over a meal proved to have greatest impact on participants’ learning. The research also found that experiential interfaith education of this nature developed critical and creative thinking skills, challenged inaccurate stereotypes, increased awareness of one’s own values and faith commitments, improved self-confidence and the social capability to work successfully in religiously and culturally diverse teams. In promoting four of the general capabilities of the Australian curriculum, the research confirmed that experiential interfaith education such as the Building Bridges Programme offers an excellent model for educating new generations of Australians in religion, faith and culture, for them to become competent global citizens and leaders in the twenty-first century.
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    Toward Becoming Intercultural Theological Education: Engaging with Calabash Breakers
    (2011) Dewerse, Rosemary
    This thesis explores a conviction that the purpose of theological education is to model and facilitate deep engagement with the o/Other, for transformation comes through relationship and the Christian life is about transformation. In a context like Aotearoa New Zealand that is becoming increasingly multicultural, but where theological education still operates out of an agenda largely dominated by those who are racially white, the argument is made for a kind of deep engagement that would realise truly intercultural theological education. In order to ensure that this conviction is lived as well as discussed, the methodology for this research is shaped by the Buberian-derived idea of dialogical relation and seeks to pay careful attention to I, Thou, and It -- subjective reflection, the voice of the other, and objective analysis. A combination of autoethnography and modified grounded theory is employed alongside semi-structured, reflexive interviews and a research journal to facilitate this. The critical hermeneutic of Jung Young Lee, who claimed that it is "new marginal" people -- those who stand with their feet in two or more cultures and see "in-both," "inbetween," and "in-beyond" -- who hold the key to realising multicultural (or intercultural) theology for a multicultural context, undergirds and informs the choice of interviewees. In total the voices of thirty-seven people are heard, people here named "calabash breakers" because they cross boundaries and break rules. They are drawn largely from Aotearoa New Zealand and the United States, a country that has some history in addressing diversity in theological education. The result of analysis of their interviews reveals that they are advocating formation, more than knowledge acquisition, as being the appropriate educational milieu. Between them, the calabash breakers identify four areas needing particular attention within that: caring for identity; listening to silenced voices; experiencing epistemic ruptures; and dismantling discrimination. A case study of McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, drawing on material collected in September-October 2009, helpfully illustrates the challenges and implications of a commitment to these areas, across structures, curriculum, pedagogy, and community life, for an institution willing to dedicate itself long-term to the journey of becoming intercultural.