Catholic educational leaders serve as the primary faith leaders in their school community and remain influential in the public discourse of Catholic education. As insiders understanding the contextual educational landscape, and who are at the forefront of renewal and change within their own school communities, Catholic educational leaders are critical in providing an account and understanding of how their lived experience contributed to the formation of their Catholic identity. Through their daily interactions with parents, students, stakeholders, politicians, and community, their ability to articulate their Catholic identity as a school leader is imperative for the broader understanding of Catholic education. This study, grounded in narrative inquiry methodology, explored the question “What is the lived experience of Catholic educational leaders in relation to shaping, informing, and influencing the conceptual formation of Catholic identity in 21st century schools?” This question resonates with the necessity to better understand how Catholic identity is lived authentically within Catholic schools for leaders who are entrusted with leading a diverse faith community. Four Catholic educational leaders share their stories of experience, working within a relational three-dimensional space of temporality, sociality, and place as key considerations of inquiry. By living, reliving, telling, and retelling their stories to live by, threads of coherence and continuity link their personal, professional, and spiritual landscape. Participant findings generated four organizing categories: Catholic identity, Catholic education, Catholic leadership, and relationships. Each category was subsequently framed with additional sub-categories to further develop and deepen Catholic identity as a storied landscape of experience within the framework of the three- dimensional narrative inquiry. Navigating this inquiry space gave rise to contradictions and tensions surrounding the articulation and expression of Catholic identity the difficult and complex role of Catholic educational leadership, the turmoil of an educational landscape that is challenging the relevance of Catholic education, and the dynamic and every evolving influence relationships have on faith formation. To both insiders and outsiders of Catholic education, this study illuminates a better understanding of how Catholic educational leaders shape, form, and influence the conceptual formation of their Catholic identity in 21st century schools. It also provides a lens to view how diversity and unity of Catholic identity is constructed and understood narratively. / Graduate

This study evolved from an involvement with professional people in a rural and semi-rural environment thereby taking into account the role which the Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP) plays in their professional context of work. Two underlying factors motivate the study. Firstly, that professional needs and capacities of faith, belief and spirituality are not been catered for in the EAPs. Secondly, that an African-Christian wholesome sense making approach provides more satisfactory answers to the lack of faith, belief and spirituality in the EAPs than the modern versions of the classic dualist and tripartite anthropological schemes of soul and body or soul, spirit and body. Furthermore, a wholesome sense making approach supports and tackles people’s wellness and well-being levels more satisfactorily than the classic dualist and tripartite views. An outline of an EAP in which faith leaders and consultants and their programmes are integrated and which contributes to the enhancing of well-being levels and performance management of professional people is described. The main focus of the study revolves around wholesome foursome experiential patterns in which alternating emphases of faith experience are acted out in the sense of ‘I believe God, I believe myself, I believe my human neighbours and I believe the physical natural environment’. This four side pattern of faith experience functions as an important theoretical assumption in the study. A second theoretical assumption has to do with the foursome processual framework of God’s grand acts of creation, reconciliation (redemption= cross and resurrection of Jesus), renewal (ongoing renewal of everything) and consummation and fulfilment towards the end (aim and goal) in which we as people and the physical natural environment are intrinsically and continuously involved. A third theoretical assumption revolves around the foursome experiential professional performance pattern of ‘I perform for God, I perform for myself, I perform for my human neighbours and I perform for the physical natural environment’. The foursome experiential patterns are also set as evaluative pointer patterns around which the empirical investigative part is constructed. / Philosophy & Systematic Theology / D.Th. (Systematic Theology)

This study evolved from an involvement with professional people in a rural and semi-rural environment thereby taking into account the role which the Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP) plays in their professional context of work. Two underlying factors motivate the study. Firstly, that professional needs and capacities of faith, belief and spirituality are not been catered for in the EAPs. Secondly, that an African-Christian wholesome sense making approach provides more satisfactory answers to the lack of faith, belief and spirituality in the EAPs than the modern versions of the classic dualist and tripartite anthropological schemes of soul and body or soul, spirit and body. Furthermore, a wholesome sense making approach supports and tackles people’s wellness and well-being levels more satisfactorily than the classic dualist and tripartite views. An outline of an EAP in which faith leaders and consultants and their programmes are integrated and which contributes to the enhancing of well-being levels and performance management of professional people is described. The main focus of the study revolves around wholesome foursome experiential patterns in which alternating emphases of faith experience are acted out in the sense of ‘I believe God, I believe myself, I believe my human neighbours and I believe the physical natural environment’. This four side pattern of faith experience functions as an important theoretical assumption in the study. A second theoretical assumption has to do with the foursome processual framework of God’s grand acts of creation, reconciliation (redemption= cross and resurrection of Jesus), renewal (ongoing renewal of everything) and consummation and fulfilment towards the end (aim and goal) in which we as people and the physical natural environment are intrinsically and continuously involved. A third theoretical assumption revolves around the foursome experiential professional performance pattern of ‘I perform for God, I perform for myself, I perform for my human neighbours and I perform for the physical natural environment’. The foursome experiential patterns are also set as evaluative pointer patterns around which the empirical investigative part is constructed. / Philosophy and Systematic Theology / D.Th. (Systematic Theology)