Early adolescent students from Australian Catholic schools demonstrate a variety of implicit understandings and make meaning in a range of ways when asked to engage a biblical text involving Jesus and His interaction with a man possessed by an unclean spirit (Mark 1:21-28). Students in twenty first century Western culture make meaning from ancient texts in ways that reflect the characteristics of their specific age group, their participation in Catholic schools activities and their immersion in the wider popular culture. / Approximately 460 students from fifteen Adelaide schools participated in this study. Research methodologies of conversation analysis and focus discussion groups encouraged students, as constructors of their own frameworks of knowledge, to supply rich and insightful responses to Mark's text. They also supplied illustrations relating to their understandings of the text. A reader response approach, as a critical biblical method of responding to the text itself, allowed students' meanings to be discerned as functions of their prior experiences. Use of these qualitative methods allowed access to students' multiple and socially constructed realities as they provided several varied perspectives about the same text. / Responses reflected the variable rate of maturation amongst early adolescents as well as characteristics common to this age group. Increases in intellectual development, language capabilities and ways of expressing themselves encourage and enhance abstract thought processes and multi-dimensional thinking. The quality of their religious meaning making skills is enhanced by increases in their religious awareness and ways of thinking religiously. / These developmental changes are occurring in an era of social flux where ways of knowing are changing and the nature of truth is ambiguous. Early adolescents live in a culture where many of the traditional ways of making meaning have been replaced with personal realities. Simultaneously, Catholic schools present an important context in the lives of students who receive experiences of religious education congruent with principles of the Catholic tradition. Some forms of knowledge that they construct today are contextually legitimate while others reflect universal ideas. / Students' responses included in-depth constructions of two central figures in the text, Jesus and the unclean spirit. Their responses demonstrated a consistent depiction of the person Jesus while responses concerning the unclean spirit were quite varied. It is suggested that Catholic school culture accounted for students' ideas about Jesus while many ideas about unclean spirits came from popular culture. Some students saw the story as narrative genre although there were a number of responses that saw the story as a recount, either factual or imaginative. Mark's reasons for writing the story also fostered varied and diverse responses. Responses concerning any meaning of the story for students today were also varied and diverse. Students believed that Jesus exists today in spirit but were divided upon today's existence of, and if so the form of, unclean spirits. Students also supplied a variety of interpretations of the term 'miracle.' A small number of students understood Mark's text as contemporary biblical scholars would wish it understood. / The findings are discussed in terms of implications for religious education curriculum developers and teachers involved in religious education programs for this age group of students. It is suggested that educators and teachers honour the nature of early adolescent students' psycho-spiritual development when dealing with gospel text. / Thesis (PhDEducation)--University of South Australia, 2005.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/267414 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Greaves, Stephen John |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | copyright under review |
Page generated in 0.0015 seconds