Institutional World Creation: The Social Construction of Organizational Identity in Christian Higher Education

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Autor/in	Canada, Joshua R.
Titel	Institutional World Creation: The Social Construction of Organizational Identity in Christian Higher Education
Quelle	(2023), (227 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Monographie
ISBN	979-8-3795-5907-6
Schlagwörter	Hochschulschrift; Dissertation; Higher Education; Religious Colleges; Christianity; Organizational Culture; Religion; Religious Factors; Ideology + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Thesis; Dissertations; Academic thesis; Hochschulbildung; Hochschulsystem; Hochschulwesen; Christentum; Unternehmenskultur; Ideologie
Abstract	Since the earliest colonial institutions, Christianity and higher education have maintained a complex relationship. While initially dominated by Protestant intuitions, the landscape of U.S. higher education expanded denominationally, including Catholic institutions, after the Civil War and into the 20th century. As public institutions strengthened, government oversight of higher education increased, and American religion held less prescribed influence over higher education, Christian higher education institutions have responded in diverse ways to remain viable, ranging from cutting ties with their founding denominations and any vestiges of explicit religion to emphasizing a niche and distinctive role as a Christian institution amid mostly secular peers. This current era of ideological pluralism and religious pluriformity (Jacobsen, 2012) within higher education challenges the assumptions of Christian institutions and, therefore, emphasizes the role of organizational identity as a socially constructed reality that is constantly forming and being formed by the externalization of leaders' internalized beliefs about and interpretations of their institution and particularly its Christianity. This qualitative, multi-site case study explores the role of Berger and Luckmann's (1967) concept of social construction, and Berger continued work regarding religion and secularization as they regard organizational identity (Albert & Whetten, 1985) within 2 Christian institutions of higher education (Catholic, Protestant-Evangelical). Understanding how the board and senior leaders of these institutions make meaning of their organizational identity as a Christian institution amid sociological shifts in the higher education industry, within religious demographic changes, and the decentralization of Christianity in society, and transitions within their Christian traditions are central to this study. I interviewed 26 trustees and senior leaders at these two participating institutions and spent 2-3 days on each campus engaged in field study of board meetings, senior leadership meetings, campus events, observation of the physical space, and everyday happenings on campus. In addition, I observed relevant Zoom meetings of board committees for 1 of the 2 institutions. The findings of this case study highlight the ways institutions relate to their founding tradition, including efforts to internalize and institutionalize the values of social justice-focused Catholic sisters and honor a founding Protestant denomination while acknowledging the institution is and is becoming increasingly more theologically and socio-culturally capacious as the denomination shrinks and, in some areas, becomes more conservative. Similarly, the study reveals the importance of institutional value narratives for meaning-making and recontextualizing organizational identity, such as narratives of serving immigrant White-ethnic Catholics galvanizing efforts to embrace a Catholic HSI identity. Finally, the study explores how these institutions seek to maintain a commitment to and plausibility for their religious identity. For the Catholic institution, these efforts are in the context of a value of hospitality that cultivates pluralistic beliefs within the institution, including beliefs that run counter to formal Catholic theology, no necessarily social teachings, but whose inclusion is central to the leadership's understanding of Catholic higher education and their particular institution. For the Protestant-Evangelical institution, plausibility and maintaining its identity are deeply related to their understanding of Biblical interpretation, especially regarding human sexuality, opposition to external forces that challenge the validity of these assumptions, and imagination of what "is a Christian" institution in the minds of senior leaders and trustees. Ultimately, this current era of ideological pluralism and religious pluriformity challenges the assumptions of Christian institutions. For evangelical Protestant colleges and universities, denominational affiliation or embracing an anti-secular orientation is no longer sufficient as a foundation for institutional identity. For Catholic colleges and universities, this means assumptions about the givenness of Catholic culture, community, and the influence of members from their founding order or tradition no longer provide a rationale for these institutions. In both cases, institutional mission and identity are matters of ongoing debate, negotiation, and clarification that exist explicitly and implicitly within the institution. Christian institutions are actively engaging in clarifying their organizational identity. In terms employed by Peter Berger, this identity work means moving from a state of relative identity stasis ("world maintenance") to one of ongoing identity creation ("world construction"). This study finds that in contrast to the past when identity was often understood to be self-evident, religious colleges and universities must now articulate their particular Christian missions and identities with paradoxically both greater clarity and more nuance and with the expectation that, for the foreseeable future, the work of interpreting and contextualizing Christian mission and identity will be an iterative process as the landscape of the United States. Christianity and higher education continue to evolve. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.] (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01