The study of diversity climates is as complicated as the study of diversity itself. Despite the call for more sophisticated and multi-dimensional approaches to the study of diversity climates, few empirical efforts have been designed to do so, as the literature remains replete with work bifurcating and labeling diversity climates as positive or…

Worldview is often neglected as a dimension of holistic student learning and development in college, yet certain higher education practitioners are deeply committed to supporting students with diverse religious, spiritual, and secular identities. This article explores common characteristics among these "interfaith champions" and how…

The United States' higher education landscape includes over 600 colleges and universities affiliated with a Christian denomination. Many of these institutions employ faculty whose worldview identities depart from the Christian ethos of the campus. The present study draws on case study data to examine how worldview minority faculty members make…

Background: One of the most influential factors shaping college students' prosocial development--the development of attitudes and behaviors that involve positive engagement within one's community and larger society--is the peer group. Friends have an especially important influence on students' learning and development because of the time and…

The purpose of this paper was to examine the institutional conditions and educational practices associated with the development of first-term students' appreciative attitudes toward Jews. Using a longitudinal design, we administered a theoretically derived and empirically validated measure of interfaith experiences to 7,194 first-term students…

Supporting students' friendships across social boundaries is one powerful way in which colleges and universities can contribute to the civic mission of higher education. Using data from the Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey (IDEALS), a national, multi-institutional study, we examined how institutional conditions…

Extending research on encouraging students' spiritual explorations in ways that enhance their overall wellbeing, this study examined how faculty and staff provided support to college students dealing with challenges to their spiritual wellness. Findings suggest that common challenges to spiritual wellness, such as encountering spiritual dissonance…

The purpose of this article is to introduce the theory of interfaith learning and development to the scholarly community. Building on the work of others, the authors adopted an interdisciplinary, equity-oriented approach to developing the theory, which also serves as the basis for a framework intended to guide and inform interfaith practice.…

This paper focuses on how undergraduate students on five public university campuses perceived and reacted to religious coercion. We identified three sources of coercion: (a) public proselytizers, (b) peers, and (c) academic faculty whose expression of beliefs was perceived as implicitly coercive by students who often connected religious beliefs to…

In the United States, some would argue the recent political climate has been characterized by great division and animosity. The realities individuals are seeing across the United States are also taking root on college and university campuses, which often serve as microcosms of the larger society. In light of the challenges persons face at present…

The purpose of this paper was to examine the institutional conditions and educational practices associated with the development of first-year students' capacities to script their own religious, spiritual, and worldview narratives through exposure to and thoughtful reflection on encounters with diverse others. We longitudinally administered a…

The purpose of this study was to examine appreciative attitudes toward Jews--a historically marginalized and targeted worldview identity group in the context of American higher education--among non-Jewish undergraduates. Drawing from a sample of 13,489 students across 52 institutions and using a multilevel modeling approach, we found that…

The current study enhances the understanding of campus climate for religious and worldview diversity by examining how non-Muslim college students perceive Muslims and Islam and what predispositions, environmental factors, and experiences predict their attitudes toward Muslims. Results indicate that informal engagement with diverse peers,…

Atheists are often marginalized in discussions of religious and spiritual pluralism on college campuses and beyond. As with other minority worldview groups, atheists face challenges with hostile campus climates and misunderstanding of their views. The present study used a large, multi-institutional sample to explore predictors of non-atheist…

This study employed qualitative content analysis to examine the written responses of 1,071 college students to the open-ended survey question, "What does spirituality mean to you?" Connectivity is core to the way many students depict spirituality and is inherently multidimensional, as students emphasize both…