Cultivating spiritual intelligence in adolescence in a divisive religion education classroom: a bridge over troubled waters

Abstract

Religion Education (RE) forms part of the curriculum of public schools in South Africa. The teachers are, however, not always certain how to deal with divisive religious plurality in multicultural classrooms. Our aim was therefore, to illustrate how the implementation of a spiritual intelligence (SQ) programme can in a constructive way encourage meaningful interaction among students in RE classrooms in secondary schools. Over a period of three months a programme to stimulate SQ was implemented by means of a qualitative case study with ten Grade 11 students of diverse religious convictions. This article reports on the impact of the programme in respect of self-awareness, as well as universal awareness and connectedness as key characteristics of SQ. The collection of the data included reflective activities, informal conversation interviews, focus group discussions, field-notes of observations, and a self-reflective journal. The findings indicate how the programme stimulated meaningful interaction and opportunities to deal with religious plurality in RE.

Keywords:

• Awareness
• multi-religious classrooms
• religion education
• spiritual intelligence (SQ)
• South Africa