Presenter: Sabrina Bengtzen
Authors: Sabrina Bengtzen, Isaac Calvert
Faculty Advisor: Isaac Calvert
Institution: Brigham Young University
There is a growing need for multicultural awareness and interfaith dialogue in the wake of unprecedented globalization across many fields, education not least among them. A significant portion of this awareness includes open dialogue about pedagogic practices and philosophies from a variety of sources, including contemporary research (e.g. philosophy, anthropology, social science, etc.) as well as sources of noteworthy cultural-historical importance. Within this context, a primary focus on contemporary research at the expense of salient cultural-historical sources may preclude the broader scholarly community from gaining access to valuable and perhaps unique educative insights. Such culturally and historically salient sources include sacred texts across various faith traditions, many of which are replete with pedagogic prescriptions considered sacred within their respective communities and so worthy of thoughtful consideration among education researchers today. To this end, this study presents pedagogic principles gleaned from an exhaustive reading and rigorous thematic analysis of the Doctrine & Covenants, a foundational text of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Themes from this text include specific insights and prescriptions surrounding methods of teaching and learning, teacher and learner attributes, properties of truth, and advice for those who choose to seek it. Previous efforts to study the pedagogic principles of this text have been largely confessional in nature. These studies have often pursued either apologetic or proselytory ends at the expense of employing rigorous scholarly textual analysis and, as such, have lacked relevance and applicability for a more general audience of education researchers. It is our hope that this study will add to a growing body of literature that explores pedagogic principles of various faith traditions (including Confucianism, Judaism, Islam, etc.), enrich contemporary education practice by introducing fresh principles as applied in non-confessional contexts, and encourage comparative analysis of pedagogic principles and practices across various faith traditions.