Thesis advisor: Hosffman Ospino / The Catholic Church’s formal documents throughout the centuries have celebrated and affirmed the role of parents educating their children on faith matters in the context of the home. Nevertheless, the Church offers parents very little practical guidance as to how they can make their home a domestic church or what they can do to organically and consistently incorporate the faith into daily life. As the Church analyzes why presently 6 Catholics are disaffiliating for every new member that joins, it must reconsider the lack of attention the home has received as an authoritative space for religious transmission. The home, as a sacramental space, has the potential to call attention to the divinity that surrounds us and invites us to action and awakening. It is also the haven where we nurture our most important and loving relationships that initiate us into the faith. The home is also a space for negotiation, that is, where we learn to wrestle with mystery and ambiguity. Critical dialogues within the home are imperative to engaging the present world from a Catholic perspective. This dissertation conducted an ethnographic study of a group of Miami-based Cuban American Catholic women across two generations. The women were chosen based on their active involvement within the Catholic Church. The study found that 100% of the women were successful in transmitting their Catholic faith to their daughters due to four socialization practices. Faith modeling by extended kin, engagement in social justice vocations across the community, explicitly affirming the personalization of daily rituals such as prayer, and finally, ongoing intergenerational dialogues were found in the stories of all the women participants. Religious imagination is the glue that holds all of the moving pieces (home, women and socializing praxis) in this dissertation. I provide herein a midrash of Matthew 27:57-61 to illustrate how the physical and relational components of the Cuban-American home serve to negotiate a hermeneutic that is matriarchal, bottom-up, and interdisciplinary. The hermeneutic echoes the message of the women studied herein; namely, that a community working together in the midst of dislocation is already being liberated. Noting the psycho-social importance of a cohesive narrative identity and its impact on authentic faith transmission calls into question whether the pedestrian nature of the home has led to mistaken notions of this pedagogy being too simplistic. Nevertheless, in telling stories and (de/re)constructing life narratives, individuals are placed within the larger scheme of history, redemptive sequences are analyzed and building resilience, and the stories themselves become a safe space from which to discern larger questions. This dissertation proposes communal, home-based activities as an effective method for faith transmission as it fosters the necessary intimacy to share relevant and passionate stories that powerfully answer why being Catholic truly matters now and to our next generation. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry.

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The purpose of this mixed-method study was to examine the impact, if any, of Kolot's Rosh Hodesh: It's A Girl Thing! on adolescent girls in the areas of friendship, school issues, family issues, body image, and assertiveness after participating in the religious-based program for nine monthly modules. Participants completed pretests and posttests in the areas of self-concept and basic Jewish knowledge. Quantitative results demonstrated statistically significant results in the areas of basic knowledge of Jewish female role models, values, and traditions, and statistically significant results in the areas of general, parental/home, and global self-concept. Qualitative results revealed inconsistent results with application of lessons taught, with some effect being acknowledged in the areas of friendship, gossip, bullying, self-defense, and assertiveness.

The study investigates the role of religious education in the promotion of girls’ educational rights in peri-urban schools in Chingola district, Zambia. Fifteen schools were involved in the study and are all in the outskirts of Chingola town. Data was collected through oral interviews, questionnaires and observations. Questionnaires were given to 260 girls ranging from grade 5 to 9. Five questionnaires were distributed to each class. Besides the school girls, six instructresses were interviewed on cultural beliefs and practices that hinder girls’ progress in education. In addition, 15 teachers were also interviewed specifically to identify topics in Religious Education and their relevance in the promotion of self-confidence and self-esteem among girls as well as various teaching methods which promote learner-centredness. The Religious Education curriculum at primary, secondary and college levels of education was evaluated to assess its relevance to the promotion of girls’ education. Furthermore, contributions by some Non-Governmental Organisations and Religious Education towards gender equity in education and the Zambian government policy on gender were highlighted. The findings of the study were in four categories namely: cultural beliefs and practices that hinder girls’ progress in education, other problems affecting girl-child education besides cultural norms, freedom to enable girls to make their own constructive decisions, and topics in Religious Education which have the potential to promote self-confidence and self-esteem among the girls. The cultural beliefs and practices highlighted were the initiation ceremonies, early pregnancies and early marriages. The other problems hindering girls’ progress and advancement which came out vividly were long distances from home to school, poverty, boys jeering at girls when they got wrong answers and household chores. Further findings identified topics in Religious Education and their relevance towards the promotion of girls’ educational rights despite the influence of cultural beliefs and practices in the peri-urban schools. Some of the topics were ‘Advantages of having a friend’ taught in grade 1, ‘Growing in responsibility’ taught in grade 2, ‘Bravery and courage’ taught in grade 4, ‘Happiness’ taught in grade 5, ‘Development and co-operation’ taught in grade 6, ‘Marriage and family life’ taught in grade 7, ‘How people make choices’ taught in grade 8, ‘The talents people have’ taught in grade 8, ‘How people develop’ and ‘How religion helps people’ taught in grade 8, ‘Freedom and community’ as well as ‘Ambitions and hopes’ taught in grade 9. In conclusion, the research study has revealed that Religious Education as a subject has the potential to promote the girls’ educational rights and advancement in the peri-urban schools. Other subjects taught like Mathematics, Science and Technology are experimental subjects. They were rigid and cannot be bent while Religious Education leaves room for freedom in making concrete decisions. It deals also with emotions, values, and feelings. Mathematics imposes the facts without query. / Religious Studies / M.A. (Religious studies)

The study investigates the role of religious education in the promotion of girls’ educational rights in peri-urban schools in Chingola district, Zambia. Fifteen schools were involved in the study and are all in the outskirts of Chingola town. Data was collected through oral interviews, questionnaires and observations. Questionnaires were given to 260 girls ranging from grade 5 to 9. Five questionnaires were distributed to each class. Besides the school girls, six instructresses were interviewed on cultural beliefs and practices that hinder girls’ progress in education. In addition, 15 teachers were also interviewed specifically to identify topics in Religious Education and their relevance in the promotion of self-confidence and self-esteem among girls as well as various teaching methods which promote learner-centredness. The Religious Education curriculum at primary, secondary and college levels of education was evaluated to assess its relevance to the promotion of girls’ education. Furthermore, contributions by some Non-Governmental Organisations and Religious Education towards gender equity in education and the Zambian government policy on gender were highlighted. The findings of the study were in four categories namely: cultural beliefs and practices that hinder girls’ progress in education, other problems affecting girl-child education besides cultural norms, freedom to enable girls to make their own constructive decisions, and topics in Religious Education which have the potential to promote self-confidence and self-esteem among the girls. The cultural beliefs and practices highlighted were the initiation ceremonies, early pregnancies and early marriages. The other problems hindering girls’ progress and advancement which came out vividly were long distances from home to school, poverty, boys jeering at girls when they got wrong answers and household chores. Further findings identified topics in Religious Education and their relevance towards the promotion of girls’ educational rights despite the influence of cultural beliefs and practices in the peri-urban schools. Some of the topics were ‘Advantages of having a friend’ taught in grade 1, ‘Growing in responsibility’ taught in grade 2, ‘Bravery and courage’ taught in grade 4, ‘Happiness’ taught in grade 5, ‘Development and co-operation’ taught in grade 6, ‘Marriage and family life’ taught in grade 7, ‘How people make choices’ taught in grade 8, ‘The talents people have’ taught in grade 8, ‘How people develop’ and ‘How religion helps people’ taught in grade 8, ‘Freedom and community’ as well as ‘Ambitions and hopes’ taught in grade 9. In conclusion, the research study has revealed that Religious Education as a subject has the potential to promote the girls’ educational rights and advancement in the peri-urban schools. Other subjects taught like Mathematics, Science and Technology are experimental subjects. They were rigid and cannot be bent while Religious Education leaves room for freedom in making concrete decisions. It deals also with emotions, values, and feelings. Mathematics imposes the facts without query. / Religious Studies / M.A. (Religious studies)