Toward A Spiritual Research Paradigm

Spirituality and spiritual experiences have been the bedrock of every civilization and together form one of the highest mechanisms for making sense of the world for billions of people. Current research paradigms, due to their limitation to empirical, sensory, psychologically, or culturally constructed realities, fail to provide a framework for exploring this essential area of human experience. The development of a spiritual research paradigm will provide researchers from the social sciences and education the tools and abilities to systematically explore fundamental questions regarding human spiritual experiences and spiritual growth. A spiritual research paradigm requires an ontology that considers all reality to be multidimensional, interconnected, and interdependent. It requires an epistemology that integrates knowing from outer sources as well as inner contemplation, acknowledging our integration of soul and spirit with the body and mind. Three additional aspects are useful to a spiritual research paradigm: axiology, methodology, and teleology. An axiology concerns what is valued, good, and ethical. A methodology is the appropriate approach to systematic inquiry. A fifth and less frequently mentioned aspect is teleology, an explanation of the goal or end (telos) to which new knowledge is applied, such as gaining wisdom and truth, touching the divine, increasing inner peace, exploring hidden dimensions, or improving society. This book takes the first step to develop such a research paradigm. We draw from world spiritual traditions as well as scholarship that has arisen from contemplative practices. We also attempt to build a bridge between science and spirituality. Spiritual research is not necessarily opposed to scientific research; in fact, each can shed light on the other.

Workplace spirituality is an emerging field of study and practice and this book asks the questions: Where have we been in the last ten years as a field and where should we be headed in the next ten years? The editors asked these questions of thought leaders from around the globe, leaders who represent different sectors, faith traditions, worldviews and organizational functions. This volume represents the best of current thinking about the state of the field of workplace spirituality and of what the future holds. There are four themes: (1) management themes such as leadership, ethics, change management, and diversity; (2) workplace spirituality in sectors such as health and wellbeing, policing and creative industries, (3) key issues that are emerging, such as self-spirituality, mindfulness, storytelling and the importance of nature, and (4) cutting edge epistemologies and methodologies including indigenous studies, relational ontology, ethnography, and psychodynamics. These articles were chosen to provoke new thinking, new research, and new practice in the field of workplace spirituality, with the goal of helping the field mature in the next decade.

Developing Women Leaders in the Academy through Enhanced Communication Strategies explores the experiences, strategies, and triumphs of women who have attained leadership roles within the academy as well as the shortfalls, disappointments, and battle scars many women leaders have experienced in their quest to lead. Clear direction, focused strategies, and enhanced communication are necessary to increase the ever-growing number of women in leadership positions in the academy. Contributions to this book discuss the ways in which these concepts have been employed to transcend the “academic ceiling” by creating mentoring networks for women, training programs, and other “ladders of ascension,” encouraging future leaders to be more assertive, self-assured, and strategic within the academic terrain. Scholars of communication, education, and women’s studies will find this volume particularly useful.

This book explores Daoist philosophies of qi and virtue through inquiry into their potential as technologies for cultivating good among individuals and society within educational settings, as well as in the modern world. The first part of the book, authored by Jing Lin, examines Daoist cosmology, axiology, and epistemology. She illuminates qi cultivation’s reliance on the accumulation of virtues, leading to transformation of the body and even—extraordinarily—the abilities of Daoist masters to transcend physical limitations to achieve health, longevity, and immortality. The second part of the book, authored by Tom Culham, establishes an understanding of qi and virtue as a technology within the Daoist paradigm, outlining the benefits of its cultivation while illuminating how contemporary Western philosophy and science support this paradigm. Both authors explore new forms of education to incorporate Daoist wisdom in schooling.

This book sheds new light on transrational approaches to peace research and highlights elicitive approaches to facilitation. Rather than encouraging researchers, teachers and practitioners to control and suppress their own positionality, the book argues that they can see themselves as a potential (re)source that can be creatively tapped for their work. Using dance as a central metaphor, it seeks to reposition research and facilitation as a truly experiential process where the entirety of human experiences and epistemologies can be brought into interplay, opening up new sources of knowledge. Providing a cutting-edge theoretical framework and based on his practical experience, the author demonstrates that facilitation and research are not just cognitive, but can also be(come) embodied, emotional, intuitive, relational and spiritual. By proposing a systematic, methodological framework for research and facilitation, the book offers practical guidance for peace practitioners, facilitators and researchers interested in working through all dimensions of their being and engaging with conflict transformation in a holistic way.

By foregrounding a first-person perspective, this text enacts and explores self-reflection as a mode of inquiry in educational research and highlights the centrality of the individual researcher in the construction of knowledge. Engaging in particular with the work of Thomas Merton through a dialogical approach to his writings, Self and Wisdom in Arts-Based Contemplative Inquiry in Education offers rich examples of personal engagement with text and art to illustrate the pervasive influence of the personal in reflective, narrative, and aesthetic forms of inquiry. Chapters consider methodological and philosophical implications of self-study and contemplative research in educational contexts, and show how dialogic approaches can enrich empirical forms of inquiry, and inform pedagogical practice. In its embrace of a contemplative voice within an academic treatise, the text offers a rich example of arts-based contemplative inquiry. This unique text will be of interest to postgraduate scholars, researchers, and academics working in the fields of educational philosophy, arts-based and qualitative research methodologies and Merton studies.

Providing a comprehensive overview of holistic education’s history, conceptions, practices, and research, this Handbook presents an up-to-date, global picture of the field. Organized in five sections, the Handbook lays out the field’s theoretical and historical foundations; offers examples of holistic education in practice with regard to schools, programs, and pedagogies at all levels; presents research methods used in holistic education; outlines the growing effort among holistic educators to connect holistic teaching and learning with research practice; and examines present trends and future areas of interest in program development, inquiry, and research. This volume is a must-have resource for researchers and practitioners and serves as an essential foundational text for courses in the field.

Even if all of the elements we know to be significant in the process of reconciliation were present, reconciliation would not necessarily take place. Reconciliation is a nonlinear, nonalgorithmic process that involves “matters of the heart.” From emergent creativity and its links to mysticism, to the evolution of emotions as drivers of thought, Awakening weaves cutting-edge discoveries in complexity theory with philosophical reflections on consciousness and language, drawing on Lonergan and Wittgenstein. Awakening as a phenomenon takes on a vibrant vitality as an aspect of transpersonal psychology and it manifests as imperatives to take responsibility for our relationships, to address complex challenges of justice, and to adopt a heart-based approach to peacebuilding.