Dissertation
The Impact of Studying Abroad on the Intercultural Spiritual Formation of Harding University Latin America Students
(2023)
Abstract
This DMin dissertation project was about travel as a spiritual practice. There is an intercultural component of spiritual formation wherein the Spirit of God works to form students as they interact with a place, a people, and their history and culture. This is based on a theology of travel in God’s diverse world.
The participants in this qualitative study were the thirty students who made up the Harding University Latin America (HULA) group, based in Arequipa, Peru in the spring semester of 2023. HULA is a three-month program, designed as part of the liberal arts curriculum at Harding University with the goal of enriching a student’s education with intercultural awareness and spiritual growth through interacting with God’s complex world. The ministry intervention was based on three main components: a Latin American Humanities course, a Bible course, and cross-cultural learning experiences.
This program aimed for intercultural spiritual formation, which is the growth humans experience through an increased awareness of God and the diversity of God’s world that results in an increased disposition to love God and love other humans. I chose six indicators for growth in intercultural spiritual formation: spiritual sight, cultural sight, empathy, openness, curiosity, and missional living. To assess growth and identify key contributors, I implemented a Pre-HULA and Post-HULA questionnaire, combining Likert Scale items and open-ended questions. I conducted a coding analysis on the questionnaire results as well as student essays.
The findings indicated that participation in the HULA program helped shift students’ understanding of the nature of God and the world to include diversity. It helped evolve students’ understanding of the nature of spirituality to see the presence of God in their neighbor. Finally, HULA helped develop students’ orientation of missional living toward loving their diverse neighbor more deeply.
Keywords
- Travel,
- Theology,
- Intercultural,
- Spiritual formation,
- Study Abroad,
- humanities,
- diversity,
- missional living,
- culture,
- Peru
Disciplines
Publication Date
Spring January 1, 2023
Degree
Doctor of Ministry (DMin)
Advisors
Dr. Steve Cloer, Dr. Lance Hawley, Dr. Katherine Dillion
DOI
https://scholarworks.harding.edu/hst-etd/34
Citation Information
Jeremy Daggett, D.Min.. "The Impact of Studying Abroad on the Intercultural Spiritual Formation of Harding University Latin America Students" (2023) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/jeremy-daggettmdiv/3/