Faculty of Education - Theses

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Subject: Australia × Subject: attitudes × Start date: 1990 × Type: Doctorate × End date: 1999 ×

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    Sharing the spirit: transmission of charism by religious congregations
    Hilton, Mark Edward ( 1998)
    Catholic schools have experienced significant changes in recent years. Other than the pressures that all schools face, the issue of the identity of Catholic schools has loomed large. With the dramatic decrease in the active membership of religious congregations, the continuation of their charism, their philosophical and spiritual tradition, has been a crucial concern. In this study, the processes for charism transmission were examined in order to identify these processes and their underlying assumptions. Through the use of interviews, participant observations and document analyses, the processes for charism transmission currently in use were documented. Charism transmission was found to occur through a range of formal and informal processes. Informal processes included school structures, networks, personal contact and the everyday reality of school life. Formal processes included a range of programs planned to share overtly the charism with lay colleagues. These included inservices, extended reflection programs and explorations of personal spirituality. These processes were consistent with the definition of charism proposed by Lee (1989) and with the model of shared praxis proposed by Groome (1991). In addition, vision, in this study, was influenced significantly by the historical context and tradition of the group. Thus, the description of vision, as proposed by Staessens and Vandenberghe (1995), was augmented with this additional perspective. The assumptions, which strongly influenced the chosen processes, were primarily related to the expected roles of religious and their lay colleagues. Although a shared or mutual responsibility was advocated by the majority of congregations, the processes employed were not always consistent with that assumption. As a result, a framework, based on the work of Butler (1996), for the development of more coherent and comprehensive approaches has been proposed.