Exploring Spirituality and Culture in Adult and Higher Education (review)

The topic of spirituality in higher education has been receiving growing interest. As evidenced by the increasing number of books, articles, research grants, organizations, and meetings on the topic, higher education scholars and practioners are acknowledging the vital role that spirituality plays in higher education.

Among these contributions is a timely book, Exploring Spirituality and Culture in Adult and Higher Education, by Elizabeth Tisdell. In this book, the author combines her research on spirituality and culture with over 10 years of teaching experience to provide knowledge and insight on how spirituality and culture are interrelated and how this knowledge is important in teaching diverse populations. Unlike most higher education literature on spirituality, which focuses on the students' voices, this book explores spirituality among a sample of 31 educators from a range of racial and religious backgrounds. All of the participants work in higher education settings, deal directly with cultural issues in their learning activities, and perceive spirituality as a significant influence on their work. The added benefit of understanding how educators reflect on spirituality makes this book especially useful for teaching.

The book is divided into three parts. Part 1, "Breaking the Silence: Spirituality and Culture in Adult Meaning-Making and Education," introduces a framework in understanding spirituality in adult and higher education and the connection between spirituality and culture. Part 2, "Claiming a Sacred Face: Identity and Spiritual Development," deals with directions in spiritual development and how they interplay with other identities (i.e., gender, race, etc.). Part 3, "Spirituality in a Culturally Relevant and Transformative Teaching Practice," is devoted to practice and developing theory. Within each of these parts are stories and examples that move the reader from the abstract and theoretical to the lived experience. The examples that Tisdell provides are interpreted though the lens of critical poststructural feminist theory and well integrated with related research. At the ends of several chapters, she provides implications for teaching.

I recommend this book for four reasons: (a) For the most part, issues of diversity and spirituality have remained separate. Here, Tisdell discusses the value of both and especially the value of utilizing one to understand the other. For many cultures, spirituality is integral to understanding the world and the individual's place in it. Thus, for many, culture and spirituality are not easily separated; (b) She also does a fine job of discussing the overlap of religion and spirituality as well as how they can be understood separately. Many recent writings on the topic of spirituality have either ignored religion as a foundation for many individuals' spirituality or assumed that spirituality is interpreted similarly across all religions; (c) The author integrates spirituality with ethnic, gender, religious, sexual, and political identity, and incorporates perspectives on multiple identities. Many past studies on identity have examined various identities in isolation. Here, Tisdell provides accounts of how all identities are interrelated; (d) Most importantly, she suggests how integrating spirituality and culture in teaching settings can be transformative. She promotes spirituality—specifically aspects of authenticity, respect, and being present—as a vehicle toward emancipatory education. All too often, spirituality is viewed as extracurricular within the context of higher education. The book details the spiritual lives of educators and ways they relate their spirituality to their work, including their pedagogy.

The book also has a few limitations. First, the book's somewhat broad title can be a bit misleading as the focus is really about educators and their spiritual experiences. My initial impression was that the book would be about spiritual cultures or groups based on their spirituality. I would have appreciated a more specific title that reflected the book's purpose. The term "culture," for example, seemed a bit too general given that a good deal of the book focuses on ethnic cultures.

Given this emphasis, I would have also enjoyed more direct comparisons among ethnicities or religions. This question remains largely unexplored in spirituality research. Furthermore, while the author...