It’s All About Jesus!: Faith as an Oppositional Collegiate Subculture - Hardcover

Magolda, Peter M.; Gross, Kelsey Ebben

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1579223540 ISBN 13: 9781579223540

Publisher: Stylus Publishing, 2009

Synopsis

What is it like to be a collegian involved in a Christian organization on a public college campus? What roles do Christian organizations play in the lives of college students enrolled in a public college? What are evangelical student organizations’ political agendas, and how do they mobilize members to advance these agendas? What is the optimal equilibrium between the secular and the sacred within public higher education? What constitutes safe space for evangelical students, and who should provide this space?

This book presents a two-year ethnographic study of a collegiate evangelical student organization at a public university, authored by two “non-evangelicals.” The authors provide a glimpse into the lives of college students who join evangelical student organizations and who subscribe to an evangelical way of life during their college years. They offer empirically derived insights as to how students’ participation in a homogeneous evangelical student organization enhances their satisfaction of their collegiate experience and helps them develop important life lessons and skills. Ironically, while Christian students represent the religious majority on the campus under study, Christian organizations on this campus mobilize members by capitalizing on members’ shared sense of marginalization, and position themselves as cultural outsiders. This evangelical student organization serves as a safe space for students to express their faith within the larger secular university setting.

The narratives and interpretations aim not only to enrich understanding of a particular student organization but more importantly to spark intellectual discourse about the value of faith-based organizations within public higher education. The role of religion in public higher education, student involvement in the co-curriculum, and peer education are three examples of critical issues in higher education for which this idiosyncratic case study offers broad understanding.

It’s All About Jesus! targets multiple audiences – both sacred and secular. For readers unfamiliar with evangelical collegiate organizations and the students they serve, the authors hope the narratives make the unfamiliar familiar and the dubious obvious. For evangelicals, the authors hope that the thickly described narratives not only make the familiar, familiar and the obvious, obvious, but also uncover the tacit meaning embedded in these familiar, but seldom examined subculture rituals.

The authors hope this book spurs discussion on topics such as campus power and politics, how organizations interact with the secular world around them, and how members can improve their organizations. Additionally, this text urges secular readers in student affairs to consider the many benefits, as well as liabilities, of “parachurches” as co-curricular learning sites on campus.

Lastly, given that the authors lay bare their methodology, their use of theory, and the tensions between their perspectives and those of the participants, this book will serve as a compelling case study for courses on qualitative research within religion studies, anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies fields.

About this title

Book Description

"If after picking up [this book], you feel motivated and equipped to begin an ethnography of a nearby religious commnity, you are not alone. It is a sign of their success that Magolda and Gross are able to capivate their readers early and to hold their attention firmly. It challenges public and private, secular and religiously affiliated institutions to recognize that dialogue about religion and spirituality are ‘essential to students' identity development and essential to living out American higher education standards’."―
Teaching Theology and Religion

About the Author

Peter M. Magolda was Professor Emeritus in the Department of Educational Leadership at Miami University. He focused his scholarship on ethnographic studies of college students, critical issues in qualitative research, and program evaluation. He is author of The Lives of Campus Custodians and co-author of Contested Issues in Student Affairs, Contested Issues in Troubled Times, and It’s All About Jesus!: Faith as an Oppositional Collegiate Subculture, and has served on the editorial boards of Research in Higher Education and the Journal of Educational Research. He was an ACPA Senior Scholar inductee, and in 2013 received the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Mentoring Award. He also received Miami University’s Richard Delp Outstanding Faculty Member award, as well Alumni Award from The Ohio State University and Indiana University.

We deeply mourn the loss of author, teacher, and friend Peter M. Magolda.

Kelsey Ebben Gross is an academic advisor at the University of Michigan.

Edition details

• Publisher: Stylus Publishing
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1579223540
• ISBN 13: 9781579223540
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 368