Into the holy darkness: Ignatian education and the advent of justice in an age of uncertainty
Abstract
This study explores the ways in which a pedagogy of creative tension can benefit religious education for justice in the Ignatian tradition. The research utilizes the theological lens of justice as participation in the human community to explore the intersection of postmodern culture, contemporary adolescence, and religious education in Jesuit high schools. Drawing upon the work of Gabriel Moran, the study maintains that a pedagogy of creative tension exists between the two aims of religious education for justice: the formative immersion of service experiences for and with the poor and the critical distancing of the academic study of social justice in the school classroom. The guiding question of the study is: How can a pedagogy of creative tension help Ignatian education problematize the economic and cultural privilege of contemporary adolescents in order to religiously educate them for justice through participation in the human community? The researcher employs the root metaphor of holy darkness to investigate the liminal uncertainty of postmodernity and adolescence. The distinct approach of the study is that it presents a pedagogical method and process of creative tension for the disruption of privilege and integration of self in contemporary adolescence. The purpose of the study is to demonstrate that a pedagogy of creative tension within religious education for justice in Jesuit high schools can serve as a means of navigating the postmodern sensibilities that influence young people today. The researcher offers seven suggestions that concretely reflect these postmodern sensibilities: a pedagogical method of creative tension, a central focus on student experience, an openness to disruptive ambiguity, a hermeneutical receptivity to difference, an educational dialectic based on plurality, an imaginative use of reflection and play, and a concern for social and political transformation.
Subject Area
Religious education|Secondary education
Recommended Citation
Petriello, Joseph A, "Into the holy darkness: Ignatian education and the advent of justice in an age of uncertainty" (2012). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI3554036.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI3554036
