Seeking Refuge: When Race, Gender, and Spirituality Collide

• In Event: Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: Spirituality and Education: Selective Papers

Abstract

Although scholars continually advocate for greater attention to American college students’ spiritual lives (Astin, 2004; Astin, Astin, & Lindholm, 2011; Bryant & Schwartz, 2006), fewer researchers are primarily attentive to Black students’ spiritual and religious experiences (Constantine, Wilton, Gainor, & Lewis, 2002). Even more, the most relied upon theories of spiritual development in higher education literature (Fowler, 1981; Parks, 2000) fail to account for how one’s social identities, such as race and gender, matter in developmental processes. Thus, the purpose of this study is to understand both how Black undergraduate students enrolled at a predominantly White institution (PWI) develop their spiritual identities prior to and during college as well as how race and gender matter.

Authors

• Keon Monte McGuire, University of Pennsylvania

• Kimberly A. Truong

• Teon Donte McGuire, North Carolina State University