Adult Learning in the Context of Interreligious Dialogue: a Collaborative Research Study Involving Christians, Jews, and Muslims Nadira K
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National Louis University Digital Commons@NLU Dissertations 2001 Adult Learning in the Context of Interreligious Dialogue: A Collaborative Research Study Involving Christians, Jews, and Muslims Nadira K. Charaniya National-Louis University Jane West Walsh National-Louis University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.nl.edu/diss Part of the Other Education Commons Recommended Citation Charaniya, Nadira K. and Walsh, Jane West, "Adult Learning in the Context of Interreligious Dialogue: A Collaborative Research Study Involving Christians, Jews, and Muslims" (2001). Dissertations. 15. https://digitalcommons.nl.edu/diss/15 This Dissertation - Public Access is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons@NLU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@NLU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ADULT LEARNING IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE: A COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH STUDY INVOLVING CHRISTIANS, JEWS, AND MUSLIMS Nadira K Charaniya and Jane West Walsh Critical Engagement Project Submitted to the Faculty of Adult Education National-Louis University In partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education Karim, Nafis, and Armaan for your love, Rabbi Ariel Walsh, and our son Ben, sacrifices, and endless support of my who helped in so many ways to support work. Mama and Papa for always me and to make our lives together believing in me and for disrupting your more livable, while I started and own lives to help me with this work. completed this research. I love you The rest of my family for your love, both. support, and encouragement. I love Jane West Walsh you all! Nadira K Charaniya ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Together, we are indebted to many people. Without each of them, this study would have been a much harder, if not an impossible, task. We list some of them here, as we also extend sincere thanks to the many others, not mentioned by name, who illuminated our path. Our thanks to: • The eighteen other participants in this study, who are not named, out of a commitment to confidentiality. You inspired us as we learned from you. • The National-Louis University ACE doctoral program faculty, for your wisdom, support, and encouragement, especially to our advisors: Dr. Elizabeth Tisdell, Dr. Randee Lawrence, and Dr. Scipio A.J. Colin, III; and our teachers: Dr. Thomas Heaney, Dr. Stephen Brookfield, Dr. Craig Mealman, Dr. Vanessa Sheared, Dr. Phyllis Cunningham, and Dr. Aimee Horton; • Our thirteen other NLU ACE Doctoral Cohort 2 collaborators, for their ongoing feedback and support, including a special mention to Drs. Carole Kabel and Gary Cale, our monthly residential learning partners; • NLU ACE Doctoral Cohorts 1 and 3, our network of colleagues breaking new ground in the field; • The entire Kabel family - Carole, Andrew, Scott and Adam - who opened their home to us every month for three years in a spirit of warmth, friendship and generosity; • Dr. Mary Boys and Professor Sara Lee, for their inspiration, their vision, and their enduring encouragement; and • The following people for the many ways – big and small – in which they have helped: - Rabbi Elliot Dorph - Dr. Conni Huber - Dr. Iris Saltiel - Dr. Mutumbo Nkulu - Rev. Chris Leighton - Rabbi Shira Lander - Dr. Roseanne Catalano - Dr. Moira Lee - Arif Amlani - Abby Stamelman Hockey - Dr. Leonard Swidler - Rabbi David Sandmel - Rabbi Ruth Langer - Aly Juma - Rav Soloff - Dr. Ed Taylor - Dr. Kristine White - Joanne Bramson - Dr. & Mrs. Sikander Kajani - HUC- JIR Los Angeles - Torah study class at Anshai Emeth - APRRE Members - Latino cohort students & teachers at NLU, Oct 2000 (ACE 546 & ACE 510) TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface iii Chapter 1 – Project Overview 7 Chapter 2 – Commitments That Inform Our Research and Practice 32 Chapter 3 – Defining Methodology: Charting the Terrain 59 Chapter 4 – Scenes From an Academic Collaboration 90 Chapter 5 – CIMCAM: Fruits of a Collaborative Process 130 Chapter 6 – Factors That Motivate Involvement 149 Chapter 7 – Interreligious Dialogue as Socially Constructed 188 Knowledge Chapter 8 - Attitudes, Behaviors, & Perspectives on Social Action 227 Chapter 9 – Pulling It All Together 249 Appendices – Semi-Structured Interview Questions 280 Participant Profiles 281 References 283 PREFACE This project addresses two different dimensions of research and practice in the field of adult education. First, it is an account of what we have learned about the nature of adult learning in the context of interreligious dialogue. This was the anticipated outcome of this research as conceived and developed in the initial stages of the research process. The purpose of the study was to consider the question: “What is the nature of adult learning that occurs in the context of interreligious dialogue?” From this central question emerged the particular questions we addressed in our interviews and analysis process: “What motivates adults to begin and sustain involvement in interreligious dialogue?” and “What elements characterize the knowledge that participants believe that they acquire as they consciously and purposefully engage in interreligious dialogue?” The findings gleaned from our research are metaphors and stories that describe the nature of the learning in the context of interreligious dialogue in response to these and other, related, questions. Second, it is an account of both the development and impact of the various kinds of collaborative processes, in which we engaged, to learn about adult learning in the context of interreligious dialogue. A highlight of this dimension of the project is a thick description of a new Collaborative Inquiry Metaphor Creation and Analysis Method (CIMCAM) focus group activity we developed especially for data collection and analysis, which we introduce in iii chapter three and elucidate in chapter five. While we always knew these aspects of our collaborative research were important, we did not anticipate the importance of writing and sharing this dimension of the study at the start. Chapter Overview Throughout this project, we share our reflections about both the interreligious dialogue process, and the collaborative research process on ourselves as individuals, as educational leaders in our own religious communities, as adult education researchers, and as adult education practitioners operating in the larger American milieu. Embedded deeply in both dimensions of the research project are reflections on our experiences as fellow students who met in the context of a doctoral cohort at National-Louis University who then became collaborative learning partners, interreligious dialogue partners, and ultimately, collaborative inquiry research partners. We wrote each chapter so that it could stand on its own. Starting with chapter one will provide readers with a helpful overview. However, if you are interested in one particular dimension of this research, you can read the chapters of interest out of order, with the help of the outline below. Chapter one introduces us as individuals and as collaborative researchers, and offers a rationale for why this study contributes to the field of adult education. In chapter two, we talk extensively about our own commitments as religious women, religious educators, and adult educators. Chapter three iv outlines the theoretical framework that informs the research, provides detailed information about how participants were identified and provides specific details about the research methodology, including the Collaborative Inquiry Metaphor Creation and Analysis Method (CIMCAM). In chapter four, we share details of the collaborative process with a focus on how we planned and made decisions, collaborative data collection and analysis, and the collaborative writing process. Chapter five provides a thick description of CIMCAM, using excerpts from transcripts of our focus group interviews to illuminate the process. In chapters six, seven, and eight we present the findings from our analysis of data gathered in the individual and focus group interviews. They include many of the personal stories and visual metaphors the 20 participants in our study, including ourselves, shared in the data collection stage of the research process. Chapter nine, addresses the question: “What are the implications and applications of learning, in the context of interreligious dialogue, for the theory and practice of adult education?” In this chapter, we discuss the significance of how symbols, including words, images and stories, are an essential component in the learning that takes place in the context of interreligious dialogue. We further discuss how this also was a significant aspect of how we learned about the learning in this context, as researchers. Further, we discuss how both the cognitive/intellectual and the affective/emotional domains are engaged in the context of interreligious dialogue and in our experience of collaboratively researching the nature of the learning in the context of interreligious dialogue. v Each dimension of this work has been challenging and enriching. It is therefore with a spirit of great joy that we bring the insights we uncovered to our colleagues in the field of adult education. It is our hope that abundant, luscious, and nourishing fruit will spring forth from the seeds of these fruits of our labor. vi CHAPTER ONE PROJECT OVERVIEW In the three years preceding the writing up of the findings of this study, the world and its peoples have seen many examples of conflict.