Religious Affiliation in Women Formed by Single-Gender Catholic Schools
The primary purpose of Catholic education is to proclaim the mystery of salvation to all, and restore all things to Jesus Christ. If students in Catholic schools are not increasing their religious affiliation during and after high school, this mission is left incomplete. This qualitative research utilized the narrative approach to discover how faith formation in a single-gender Catholic high school in a midsized midwestern city affects religious affiliation after high school. From an alumnae survey and interviews with three alumnae analyzed using the MAXQDA coding software, three primary themes emerged from the stories of the formation process at the school and how religious affiliation was affected in the alumnae. The themes identified were people, intellectual development, and faith formation experiences. While the participants' stories described many meaningful elements of the faith formation experiences in school, they did not reveal that these efforts led to increased religious affiliation after high school. The information gained from this research led the researcher to propose the Four R’s model, including reflection, a resume, registration, and response, as a solution to addressing the issue of religious disaffiliation in students attending a single-gender Catholic high school.
Narrative Approach, Religious Affiliation, Single-Gender Catholic High School
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