Understanding the Diversity of Catholic Higher Education: A New Empirical Guide for Evaluating the Influence of Catholic Identity. Issue 1 (23rd November 2022) - Glanzer, Perry L.
Abstract: Although scholars have often described faith‐based universities in America as "church‐related, " we argue this classification tells us virtually nothing about how the Catholic identity influences the mission, rhetoric, curriculum, or policies of Catholic institutions. Although Morey and Piderit (2006, Catholic higher education: A culture in crisis ) created a more sophisticated four‐part typology of Catholic institutions, we find that students, parents, administrators, and scholars, particularly scholars interested in institutional secularization, need a better means of empirical analysis to determine the degree to which the Catholic identity of an institution influences key administrative decisions of the university. Thus, we propose a method of content analysis that can quantify how the Catholic identity shapes key administrative, curricular, and cocurricular decisions and thereby places Catholic institutions upon a continuum. We then apply our new Operationalizing Faith Identity Guide (OFIG) to Catholic institutions in the United States to demonstrate the helpfulness of its application. Replication : The data needed to duplicate and replicate the findings in the paper will be made available immediately following publication.