Does Interfaith Programming on College Campuses Influence Attitudes toward Religious Minorities?: A Case Study
In 2009, the University of Tampa, a private, non-sectarian mid-sized urban university in the Southeastern United States, announced it was going to construct a chapel on campus. Accompanying the chapel was the formation of a faculty, staff, and student group tasked with overseeing religious, spiritua...
| Published in: | Research in the social scientific study of religion |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2022
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| In: |
Research in the social scientific study of religion
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| Further subjects: | B
History of religion studies
B Religious sociology B Social sciences B Religionspsycholigie B Religionswissenschaften B Religion & Gesellschaft B Vergleichende Religionswissenschaft & Religionswissenschaft |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In 2009, the University of Tampa, a private, non-sectarian mid-sized urban university in the Southeastern United States, announced it was going to construct a chapel on campus. Accompanying the chapel was the formation of a faculty, staff, and student group tasked with overseeing religious, spiritual, and interfaith programming on campus. I fielded a survey of students at the University of Tampa in 2009 after the announcement of the chapel that included a battery of questions about religiosity and spirituality but also included measures of prejudice towards Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish and other minority religious individuals. The chapel was completed in 2011 and the group overseeing religious, spiritual, and interfaith programming had begun offering events, activities, and retreats on campus, many of which centered on interfaith discussion and dialogue. In 2013, I fielded a follow-up survey with the same questions as were included in the 2009 survey. Using cross-sectional rather than longitudinal samples, there was no significant change in general attitudes toward religious minorities among the student body at the University of Tampa despite the introduction of both a chapel and numerous activities designed to foster interfaith contact and greater tolerance for others. However, I found mixed evidence that students who participated in interfaith discussion groups held more accepting attitudes toward minority religions. |
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| Contains: | Enthalten in: Research in the social scientific study of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/9789004505315_014 |