Presenter: Alexandra Lyon
Authors: Alexandra (Lexi) Lyon, Dr. Karin DeJonge-Kannan
Faculty Advisor: Karin DeJonge-Kannan
Institution: Utah State University
Research indicates that American undergraduates often enter academia ill-prepared for interfaith conversations and overestimate their abilities to successfully participate in interreligious dialogue. A majority of public university students in the United States are interested in religion and spirituality—both personally and academically—yet many public institutions do not offer courses that educate students on religious diversity, thus inadequately preparing students to engage in interreligious dialogue in the workforce and their communities. Religious orientation and philosophical worldview are integral parts of a person’s identity yet discussing one’s religious or philosophical belief system is considered taboo in American society, including in public education settings. Essentially, religious identity is separated from students’ personhood, reducing religious education to occur almost exclusively outside of universities. To develop a better understanding of the world and its diversity, students must learn to recognizesocial power imbalances, with inherent privilege as well as marginalization, including in the context of religion. The current study illustrates the impact of a public university course focused on interconnections between language and religion, which created a welcoming academic environment for discussing religious and philosophical worldview diversity. This study measured students’ self-perceived preparedness for interreligious conversations in the classroom by collecting two of their assignments: a beginning-of-semester self-assessment survey, and an end-of-semester reflection. In addition, most participants agreed to an interview at the conclusion of the course. The data obtained was analyzed to determine the course’s effectiveness in preparing students for future interactions with people whose religious and philosophical worldviews may differ from their own. Four key themes emerged: ignorance, holy envy, truth claims, and ‘the other’. Taken together, results show that the course improved interreligious dialogue abilities by enhancing not only students’ knowledge but also their ability to empathize and communicate with those who may have different worldviews and belief systems.