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This thesis explores the religious dimension of the role of the principal in the Catholic Secondary Schools of South Australia. The study is set in the context of a complex and changing environment. Society is becoming increasingly secular, and religious values are on the wane. The role of the principal has become progressively more encumbered by government regulation and policy and an increased level of accountability for a wide range of school outcomes, many of these outside the core purposes of the school (Fullan, 2003). In Catholic schools, the numbers of the professed religious men and women, traditionally the backbone of those schools, has declined dramatically in the last two decades and lay persons have taken over from members of religious congregations as principals in most Catholic Secondary Schools in South Australia This represents a paradigm shift in leadership in the Catholic schools. It has resulted in an increased focus from within both the Church and the Catholic Education System on the essential Catholic nature of those schools, and the role of the Principal in nurturing and managing this. The study found that principals had a deep sense of the importance of this dimension of their role, but that they felt a real need for more support and formation, especially in the scriptural and theological aspects of leadership. Most felt pressured by the ‘normal’ routine of principalship, and were looking for ways to ‘make time’ for reflection in order to better ground their actions and decisions in the core values of the schools, the System and the Church. As a result of this research, a series of recommendations are offered to Church and System authorities, to principals and to those aspiring to be principals in the Catholic Secondary Schools in South Australia. These relate to professional practice in such areas as defining the nature of the Catholic schools, and recognizing their particular charisms; developing leadership succession strategies and preparation courses for aspiring leaders; exploring alternative approaches to the principal selection process, and developing a mentoring program and professional support networks.

Between February 1st and March 16th 2023 sixteen qualitative research interviews wereconducted with deans, vicars and priests of both the Catholic Church in Sweden and theEvangelical-Lutheran Church of Sweden with the aim to compare how they look at their religiousleadership, and what their answers might say about their respective theological traditions using asuggested theory called Comparative Lived Theology. The main research findings rendered fromthese interviews may be divided into the following three sections: firstly, top-down and bottom-upleadership approaches in a religious setting is descriptive of the structure of the religiousorganisations. Secondly, the fact that Evangelical-Lutheranism is a majority religious tradition inSweden sets it apart from minority traditions such as Catholicism, and this affects the religiousleadership. Thirdly, the interviews generated a notion that party politics plays a different role in thestructure of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Sweden than it does in the Catholic Church in Sweden.

INTRODUCTION: The picture of the Sunday School teacher as presented In the Indiana Survey reveals the qualities of sincerity response to a strong sense of duty, and a religious attitude, but a sad deficiency in the matter of training and preparation for the delicate task of working with immortal souls. To draw into this great work those with special ability, and to encourage those already in to add training to their devotion, calls for the development of a professional spirit. By this spirit is meant the feeling that they are members of a great profession of teaching, with a pride in their calling and a sense of the worthwhileness of their task. They will realize that real teaching is one of the great enterprises of life, that it demands the best that is in a person, and calls for exercise- of his highest powers, for force, for originality and imagination equal to the powers of mind and spirit that bring to light the secrets of science, that produce the great inventions, and make the great discoveries. [TRUNCATED]

The movement of evangelical multiethnic churches, which occurred in the late-1990s and into the early 2000s, sought racial justice by developing racially diverse congregations as their core distinction of Christian discipleship. These evangelical multiethnic churches are situated in a longer historical narrative of black-led, black-centered ecumenical leadership focused on a theological framework of racial reconciliation, cross-racial interpersonal friendships, and diverse cultural expressions. However, research of these churches reveal they actually perpetuate the very inequalities they seek to dismantle. White hegemony remains intact in these multicultural Christian communities through its maintenance of white dominant structures and cultural norms, even with black-led senior leadership. The problem this project seeks to address through the concept of “white followership” is the lack of experience and skills among white evangelicals particularly in multiethnic churches to yield normative power and institutional culture to another cultural expression and organizational power arrangement. Utilizing Dr. Patsy Baker Blackshear’s definition of an exemplary follower, this project will develop the construct of white followership and the particular behaviors and characteristics white congregants in a minority-led multiethnic congregation can adopt. While this project relies on research of evangelical multiethnic churches across the United States, the focal site in which the construct of white followership will initially be applied is The Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is where I, a white female pastor, serve as its Associate Pastor. The methodological approach of this project is interdisciplinary, integrating history, anti-racism research, and white racial identity studies to elucidate the problem of white supremacy in the United States and the American church. The project relies heavily on: 1) sociological studies of religion, race, and power to enumerate the problem of white hegemony in evangelical multiethnic congregations, 2) theological and biblical studies to outline the imperative shift of power needed in white-dominated evangelical multiethnic churches; 3) business and leadership studies to introduce the concept of followership and enrich the construction of white followership; and 4) observing resistance among white congregants as change produces shifts in the status quo, adapting Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) and autoethnographic stories to measure change. White followership, in the scope of this project, focuses primarily on a pedagogical approach, institutional strategy, and overall ecumenical culture primarily expressed at The Sanctuary. It does not address more granular aspects of the communal worship experience, external evangelistic service, and community engagement and action, though those are important considerations as the applied work of white followership expands. Overall, the construct of white followership, while not exhaustive for the remedy of white hegemony in evangelical multiethnic churches, provides an innovative, malleable, and promising solution forward for white congregants to employ toward greater racial justice.

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No description available.