Latter-day Saint Undergraduate Students' Interfaith Engagement: A Post-Intentional Phenomenological Study

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are a minoritized and marginalized population in the United States and on most college and university campuses (Rockenbach, Bowman, et al., 2017). Recent studies highlight the negative characteristics of campus environments that affect Latter-day Saint undergraduate students' experiences. Furthermore, non-Latter-day Saint college students know little about Latter-day Saint beliefs and do not dedicate time to learn about them during college (Rockenbach et al., 2020). This qualitative study aimed to explore the question: How might interfaith engagement take shape for Latter-day Saint undergraduate students in the context of the interfaith learning environment? I used a post-intentional phenomenological research approach (Vagle, 2018) to investigate the research question and guide my study. The findings revealed that students' Latter-day Saint identity and the context of their experiences shaped their interfaith engagement. Additionally, both intrafaith and interfaith engagement influenced students' interfaith learning and development while in college. This study has implications for university administrators, faculty, and staff, Latter-day Saint Institute Directors, and Latter-day Saint students. The findings also have implications for future research on interfaith engagement, interfaith learning and development, and experiences of Latter-day Saint undergraduate students.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Higher Education

Department dc:contributor.department

Higher Education

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Anderson, Ian James

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Robbins, Claire K.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Perillo, Patricia Ann
• Lane, Tonisha B.
• Christensen, Danille

• Latter-day Saint students
• interfaith engagement
• college student development

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:37458

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/115199