Thesis (M.S.)--Eastern Illinois University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-145).

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-120).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains x, 187 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 141-164).

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-120). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2009. / Additional advisors: Aaron Kuntz, Aaron Moyana, Andrew McKnight, William Boyd Rogan. Description based on contents viewed June 5, 2009; title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 212-228).

Advocates of middle grades reform in the United States argue that curriculum and instruction, as well as leadership, organization, and community relationships, should be informed by knowledge of the developmental characteristics of 10 to 15 year-olds within physical, social, emotional, psychological, cognitive, and moral domains. Noticeably absent from their conception of human development are spiritual developmental characteristics of young adolescents. This interdisciplinary research was a critical constructivist (Kincheloe, 2008) inquiry of the following question: What is the educational relevance of spiritual development in middle grades education? To study this question, critical historiographical research methods (Villaverde, Kincheloe, & Helyar, 2006) were used to interrogate the academic discourses of three fields related to the research question: (a) the middle grades concept; (b) spirituality as a developmental domain; and (c) holistic education. Foundational texts from these fields served as sources of data. I present the result of the data analyses as narratives on the paradigms that influenced the (hi)stories of these three academic fields. These narratives were analyzed for common epistemological and ontological perspectives. Amongst the paradigms of the three fields, three meta-paradigms are shared: Ecological Epistemology, Holistic Ontology, and Positivist Ontology. In addition, a discursive interrelationship within each field, a dynamic of paradox, was found between the three meta-paradigms. These results offer encouragement for the relevance of spiritual development as part of the middle grades concept, as they suggest that integration of knowledge of adolescent spiritual development is theoretically supported by commitments to caring relationships in schools and constructivist learning theory. The results also suggest a paradigm revolution (Kuhn, 1996) that might allow for a new discourse of possibility (Giroux, 1981) for spirituality in education. This dissertation research could serve as a basis for further research that focuses on how to integrate knowledge of adolescent spiritual development in public schools in the United States.

University of Macau / Faculty of Education