The Influence of Religious Belief on Educators' Sense-Making About Diversity

• In Event: Religion and Education in Pluralistic Contexts

Abstract

This paper is based on a phenomenological case-study that examined how diversity was understood and taken up in a conservative Christian school. Using sensemaking theory as its framework and working from the premise that religious beliefs can shape how diversity is interpreted, the study focused on the influence of religious ideology on school stakeholders’ sensemaking about diversity. This paper analyzes the influence of administrator, faculty, and staff’s religious beliefs on their diversity-related attitudes and actions. It argues that the school’s conservative Christian ideology, which manifested in the school’s desire to create a unified community of strong Christians, defined—even as it subverted—the school’s efforts to recruit a more diverse staff and student body and create an atmosphere celebrating diversity.

Author

• Allison Blosser, High Point University