Investigating Australian education students’ views about spiritual well‐being, as compared with teachers in schools

Abstract

Education students in Australian state and Christian universities expressed their views on ideals, lived experience, and help expected from schools in four domains of spiritual well‐being (personal, communal, environmental, and transcendental) (SWB), using the Spiritual Health and Life‐Orientation Measure (SHALOM). Students’ lived experiences greatly affected their views on help provided by schools to nurture students’ SWB. Currently, the more religious students in Christian universities reported support for their SWB from religious activities, whereas students in the state university gained support from more humanistic sources. But is this sufficient? Education students in state universities are likely to maintain the status quo regarding SWB in state schools. They report levels of help for students in line with current teachers’ views. Christian university education students have lower expectations of schools than current teachers in Christian schools. However, some positive action is being taken in Christian universities to address the spiritual formation of their students. Further opportunities are needed within teacher education and schools in Australia for staff to address this area of vital concern for their own and students’ SWB.

Keywords:

• assessing spiritual well‐being
• SHALOM (Spiritual Health and Life‐Orientation Measure)
• support
• spiritual dissonance

Notes

1. This paper is derived from a presentation at The 8th International Conference On Children’s Spirituality, Australian Catholic University, Ballarat, Australia, 20–24 January 2008.