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A study of the religious context of the Christian College and University: 1976-1986

The religious context of the Christian College and University from 1976 to 1986 is examined in this dissertation. The purpose is to determine to what extent the religious context of these institutions has changed. The two research questions asked are: (1) Has there been a change in the emphasis on the religious context of the Christian college or university in the past ten years? and (2) Is there a difference in the religious context of nondenominational and denominational institutions in 1985-86? From a population of 817 religious colleges and universities, two random samples are taken from 50 denominational and 50 nondenominational Christian institutions from each year. The religious content is measured against five criteria: required religion or theology courses, chapel attendance, on-campus student religious organizations, church attendance, and mission statement. These criteria were established by the Danforth Commission in 1966. A review of the literature examines the historical perspective of the secularization of both religious and non-religious institutions. A content analysis of the sampled institutions' catalogs is used to obtain the data. Several statistical methods are used on the data: ANOVA, Z-tests, and t-tests. The results indicate that there has been relatively little statistical change in the past ten years, however, the results do indicate that there is a significant difference in the 1986 sample between the two types of institutions for required religion courses, chapel attendance and mission statement. An independent analysis of religious style reveals that there are alternative ways to examine the entire religious context of Christian colleges and universities. To illustrate that, four representative institutions are examined. They are Boston University, Drew University, St. Joseph University, and Brigham Young University. Appropriate conclusions are made, as well as suggestions for further research. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-06, Section: A, page: 1419. / Major Professor: David W. Leslie. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_76299
ContributorsHaney, William J., III., Florida State University
Source SetsFlorida State University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeText
Format198 p.
RightsOn campus use only.
RelationDissertation Abstracts International

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