Table Of ContentTHE DISRUPT-REFLECT-LEARN CYCLE: HOW RESILIENCE WORKS WITH
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE TO SUSTAIN INTER-RELIGIOUS LEARNING
A Dissertation
presented to
the Faculty of
Claremont School of Theology
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
by
Stephanie Vamon-Hughes
May 2015
©2015
Stephanie Lorraine Varnon-Hughes
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This dissertation completed by
Stephanie Varnon-Hughes
has been presented to and accepted by the
faculty of Claremont School of Theology in
partial fulfillment of the requirements of the
Doctor of Philosophy
Faculty Committee
Najeeba Syeed, Chairperson
Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook
Frank Rogers, Jr.
Dean of the Faculty
Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook
ABSTRACT
THE DISRUPT-REFLECT-LEARN CYCLE: HOW RESILIENCE WORKS WITH
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE TO SUSTAIN INTER-RELIGIOUS LEARNING
by
Stephanie Varnon-Hughes
All forms of education necessarily invoke and address disequilibrium as it
precedes learning. Inter-religious education in particular deliberately sets out to invoke
encounter with something new—the very “inter” as prefix points to a plurality of
viewpoints: perspectives will be raised amongst, between, or against others. Sometimes,
the encounters are fraught with surprise, discomfort, or unexpected angst; at other times,
the encounters provide a bas-relief for deeper or renewed understanding of one or both
perspectives. For these reasons, the process of inter-religious education demands that we
be mindful about needs of students encountering alterity.
This study posits that resiliency and reflective practice are essential for inter
religious learning and aims to determine if these are indeed key ingredients, and to what
degree they are necessary (or not). Previous research on resiliency has focused on
children and young adults in therapeutic and school settings; some research has included
belonging to a faith community as one factor in resiliency, but no one has connected
resiliency as a trait that makes inter-religious learning more fruitful. Previous research on
reflective practice has focused on the facilitator, not the student. In religious education,
reflective practice is an ingredient of spiritual development, but no one has yet aimed to
discover how reflective practice influences inter-religious learners.
Because this study seeks to understand if and how certain capacities for learning
are fostered in inter-religious educational settings, and in an emerging field, from
practitioners who themselves have both contributed to a new field and spent a great deal
of time reflecting on their work, grounded theory provides a phenomenological method to
query those concepts allowing question and answering to resonate with one another. In
two stages of interviews, open-ended questions are used to first elicit responses from ten
professors and facilitators in inter-religious educational settings about their ideas,
reactions, concerns, and practices, and then to explore whether and when these specific
competencies arise in their settings. Then, “artifacts” of inter-religious education are
examined, including syllabi, course and program descriptions, and institutional and
organizational mission statements, to help build a thick understanding of how these
competencies potentially emerge and engage inter-religious education. Finally, a survey
of an even wider field of instructors, facilitators, and practitioners is conducted to
confirm or validate conceptualizations of these competencies. The intuitive inquiry cycle
is used to analyze data information.
As inter-religious education and dialogue can be discomfiting and transformative,
it is likely that connecting resiliency and reflective practice to inter-religious education
will benefit instructors, practitioners, colleges, seminaries, and programs that seek to
develop and foster interfaith education and initiatives. This research is a starting point for
considering how inter-religious educators can best facilitate spaces, methods, and
encounters that lead to the kind of personal and community transformation inter-religious
education makes possible.
V
DEDICATION
This dissertation is dedicated to Mrs. Ann Johnson, my teacher for fourth grade, seventh
grade, and many after-school and summer school arts programs.
For years, Mrs. Johnson commented generously and extensively on many of my stories
and poems; she was this writer’s first reader. Mrs. Johnson took time to hear me recite
poetry, to give me extra books to read, to encourage my writing, and she treated me like a
real author.
I decided long ago that when I wrote my first book, I would dedicate it to her.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1
Introduction 1
Background 1
Statement of the Problem 3
Significance of the Study 4
Research Question 8
Defining “Inter-Religious Education” 9
Research Design, Qualitative Research,
Data Collection and Analysis 17
Limitations 21
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW: A STORY OF THE FIELD 23
Prelude: Dissonance Defined, or: Why Inter-Religious Students
Might Need to be Resilient 24
Beginning: Resilience, Reflective Practice, and Religious
Education 25
Middle: Narrative Pedagogies, Religion as Resource 49
End: Why This Research, and Why Now 54
CHAPTER 3: EXPLORING REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AS A CAPACITY
FOR INTER-RELIGIOUS LEARNING 56
Introduction 56
Reflective Practice: From Schon’s Professionals to
Transformative Classrooms 57
Current Applications of Reflective Practice 61
Analysis of Reflective Practice in Teaching: The Cobbler’s
Children Have No Shoes 65
Is Reflective Practice Essential for Inter-Religious Learning? 75
CHAPTER 4: EXPLORING RESILIENCE AS A CAPACITY
FOR INTER-RELIGIOUS LEARNING 83
Introduction 83
From Vulnerable to Invulnerable: Moving from Negative
to Positive Attributes in Children in Resilience Research 85
Facets of Resilience Research: Competence, Coping,
and Community 88
Competence and Coping: Focus on the Negative, Focus on
Individuals 88
“Person-Environment Interactions:” How Relationships
and Community Support Resilience and Lessons for Interfaith
Learning 95
Religion and Resilience? Current Research on Possible Links
vii
and Limitations 97
Limitations of Applying Resilience to Inter-Religious
Education, and Further Questions 98
CHAPTER 5: METHODOLOGY 103
Introduction 103
Research Design 103
Qualitative Research 105
Methodology 110
Grounded Theory 111
Role of Researcher and Philosophical Sensitivity 112
Theoretical Sensitivity 113
Context of the Study 114
Population 115
Sampling 116
Operationalization 118
Purposive and Theoretical Sampling 118
Data Collection 121
Interviews 121
Data Analysis and Researcher Interaction with the Data 125
CHAPTER 6: RESEARCH FINDINGS 129
Introduction 129
Purpose Statement, Methodology, Sample 129
Interview Participants and Methods 131
Data Emerged and Confirmed 133
Data Analysis 139
Patterns and Themes of Significance 155
CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSIONS, DISCUSSION, AND SUGGESTIONS
FOR FUTURE RESEARCH 167
Introduction 167
Results 167
Knowledge, Attributes, Postures, and Traits in Transformative
Inter-Religious Learning 168
Artifacts as Evidence and Echo 172
Limitations of the Study 174
A Grounded Theory of How Resilience and Reflective
Practice Work Together to Sustain Inter-Religious Learning 174
Contributions of the Research 175
Recommendations 17 6
BIBLIOGRAPHY 180
APPENDIX A.l: IRB Proposal 184
viii
APPENDIX A.2: Institutional Review Board Proposal 196
APPENDIX A.3: Certification of Researcher’s CITI Completion 199
APPENDIX A.4: General Information on the Research Project 200
APPENDIX A.5: Agreement with Transcription Service 206
APPENDIX B: IRB Approval 213
APPENDIX C: Informed Consent Form 214
APPENDIX D: Interview Invitation and Research Summary 219
APPENDIX E: Interview Process, First Interviews 221
APPENDIX F: Interview Process, Second Interviews 223
APPENDIX G.l: Invitation to Potential Survey Participants 224
APPENDIX G.2: Follow-up Invitation to Potential Survey Participants 225
APPENDIX G.3: Survey Instrument Questions and Results 226
APPENDIX H: Field Notes 230
APPENDIX I: Code Categories and Frequencies 235
APPENDIX J: Index of Artifacts 236
APPENDIX K: Table of Themes from Artifacts 238
