Paganism, despite growing as a religious affiliation over recent decades, has rarely been the subject of study within higher education. Due to the general lack of cohesive organizations, a persistent social stigma, and a number of ill-defined identity labels, they have proven difficult to study even within the general population. This chapter will…

This project seeks to chronicle the history of Hindu students at American colleges and universities. When did these students, identified as Hindu, begin to appear on campuses? How did they navigate their faith identities while in this context? How did they see themselves and how were they perceived by others? What was their relationship with…

In this paper, we, members of a dharmic* scholars collective, share the outcomes of our discussions over the last three years centered on the question: what shifts in research and practice are necessary to enable higher education to address the concerns of dharmic* (Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, and Hindu) students in the US? Topics we have focused on in…

The world religions paradigm (WRP), often regarded as hegemonic in research and education in religious studies, has long been criticized for being modeled on predominantly Protestant, Christian, and Western ideas about religion, and thus running the risk of reductionism and of a failure to recognize expressions of religion that do not fit this…

Desire to live in peace and unity despite the multi ethnic and multi religious composition of Nigeria, remain ideals that are constant in the nation's Constitution. However, accruable benefits of a culturally and religiously pluralistic society have continued to elude Nigeria due to incessant religious violence arising from the mutual suspicion of…

Can the philosophical foundations of spiritual practices inform management education pedagogy and in the long-run support emotional development and more ethical and responsible business practice? In this article, we introduce the essential aspects of three different spiritual traditions--Daoist inner work, Buddhist mindful reflexivity, and Quaker…

In a recent volume of the "Journal of College and Character," Matt Mayhew and Alyssa Rockenbach presented their frameworks by which they have designed and utilized their IDEALS study over the past several years. In this present article, the authors contend that despite their rigorous research, the researchers and measurements oftentimes…

Purpose: In this paper we seek to provide insight as to how wisdom is, or might be, perceived and enacted in Higher Education contexts. Selected constructs of wisdom derived from the "Bhagavad Gita" provided a platform from which seven invited College of Education faculty participants considered their own framings of wisdom in the…

Nearly a decade ago, Alyssa Rockenbach, the editor of the "Journal of College & Character's" "Spirituality on Campus" section, issued a call to action. First, she invited scholars to better assess campus spiritual and religious climate. Then, she urged practitioners to redouble their efforts to share and promote best…

This article builds on theories of safe and brave spaces to demonstrate how to transform higher education institutions to be better able to incorporate multivalent forms of diversity. In particular, the article suggests leveraging the civic-oriented methodology of interfaith cooperation (Patel & Meyer, 2011) in order to encourage people to…

This article problematizes the practice of relying on participant self-identification in research on religious, secular, and spiritual identity (RSSI) within the field of higher education, with particular attention to the implications related to participants who chose non-religious labels. While this practice is commonplace in the field, it is…

What goes on within educational institutions can be pivotal for whether and how democracy and political tolerance are nurtured, and peaceful relations between groups encouraged. Several studies oriented to the content of curricula have shown that education in India must be reformed if it is to promote inter-ethnic peace, political tolerance and…

This article examines how a sample of 62 higher education institutions in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom discuss international students in their official institutionalization strategies, focusing on how ideas of race and diversity are addressed. We find that institutional strategies connect international students to an abstract…

The struggle for mutual respect of difference may be the most paradigmatic form of public conflict in the United States and elsewhere today. In recent years, a movement and broad community of practice has burgeoned in the United States and beyond, which brings people together across deep divides to engage in dialogue aimed to reduce conflict and…

Caste, and awareness of it, have been a persistent, though changing, feature of South Asian communities' experience in the UK. In twenty-first century Britain the issue of caste has come to the fore and has been hotly contested, in relation to equality legislation. In this wider context, the present article maps some of caste's historical…