Ever since Jack Mezirow introduced the incipient, and then more developed idea, of transformative learning to the discussion on adult education more than thirty years ago, the parameters of its theory and practice have been pushed out further and further. The introduction of spirituality and learning to this discussion is not a new one, but this…

This volume brings together the work of a wide range of scholars to explore the long and complex history of the relationships between churches and education. Christianity has always been involved in education, from the very earliest teaching of those about to be baptised, to present-day churches' involvement in schools and higher education.…

Both Jarvis and theories of Christian Religious Education (CRE) emphasise that learning develops the whole person, yet they differ in their understandings of how and why this is the case. Jarvis's experiential learning theory begins "from below" with experience, whereas many approaches of CRE begin with the end result: individuals…

The purpose of this study was to understand the impact of spirituality in higher education. This literature review explored the role of spirituality in the transformational learning process of students in higher education. In order for transformational learning to be comprehensive and authentic, the spiritual dimension must be considered in the…

The aim of this qualitative study was to investigate the lived experiences of adult learners at 4 Christian colleges in Indiana who desired to pursue bachelor and associate degrees in accelerated programs. The growing trend of accelerated programming exists to meet the needs of a growing number of adults who believe that earning an academic…

This paper considers online pedagogy in relation to Christian adult learning and asks how this might be interpreted by theological educators. The online community of inquiry is proposed as one recognized pedagogical approach and illustrated by reference to a continuing professional development programme for online adult learners across the church…

This qualitative case study examined the cultural learning insights of four educators during and after an immersion experience in Kenya. During this experience the participants delivered professional development sessions to teachers in two rural Kenyan schools, and stayed with Kenyan families. Mezirow's transformational learning theory,…

One of Canada's greatest public intellectuals, George Grant (1918-1988) studied history as an undergraduate, focusing on concepts and themes rather than minutiae. That same intellectual disposition surfaced later at Oxford, where he had gone on a Rhodes scholarship to study law. Returning to Oxford after the war, he left law to study theology,…

Narrative learning is strongly allied with transformational learning and adult development (Merriam, Caffarella, & Baumgartner, 2007), given that it creates context for adult meaning making. Through the use of narrative writing, adult students have the opportunity to engage multiple aspects of learning. Many colleges and universities allow…

Both adult and traditional students at Indiana Wesleyan University take an introductory New Testament course in conventional, compressed, and accelerated formats and through online and onsite settings. This wide variety of demographics and modalities raises the issues of if and how the various incarnations of this course facilitate the achievement…

Attachment to God is a missing dimension of our current understanding of Christian adult education. Joung (2011) agreed that looking at individuals religious representations (i.e. attachment-related experiences) has crucial implications for Christian adult educators in any setting: formal or informal, academic or not, within the church or not.…

Religious education (RE) in Norwegian public schools has attracted much attention as a result of criticism from the UN's Human Rights Committee in 2004 and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2007. Due to the statement from the UN and the conviction in the ECHR, revisions have been made in the Education Act and the curriculum for RE.…

This essay advances a theory of generic criticism attuned to bodily affect. Aligning form with affect and genre with meaningful emotion, genre is described as the way in which the feeling of form is delivered to language. The primary example is Mel Gibson's film, "The Passion of the Christ," which was marketed as a melodrama, but which exemplifies…

Millions of Americans profess belief in God and follow a Protestant Christian belief system. However, very little research or literature explores their participation in religious adult education. Several areas within adult education are exhaustively researched such as health care, leisure, and career related courses, but studies within religion go…

This study examined the relationship between adult educators' multicultural effectiveness scores and their negotiation of similarities and differences scores. The participants were in faith-based institutions, specifically Christian churches and in graduate adult education programs of universities and colleges in the United States. Multicultural…