Seeking Common Ground in Understanding Spiritual Development: A Preliminary Theoretical Framework
Spiritual development is intrinsically difficult to define. Philosophers, scientists, theologians, and other scholars have debated the nuances of this realm of life for thousands of years, and thousands of pages have been written to seek to give words and meaning to this dimension of human experience, thought, belief, and action.
At Search Institute’s Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence, we know that no single attempt can ever be adequate or take into account the range of perspectives that this area of life evokes and provokes. We also believe that clarifying our own starting points allows us to engage in dialogue and learn with others and also to begin empirically testing those assumptions. Our goal has been to identify a set of conceptual statements that are widely affirmed across cultures, traditions, disciplines, and worldviews.
The Process of Developing a Broad Consensus
The framework described here emerged from more than a year of interaction and feedback with the Center’s network of 118 international advisors, analysis of focus groups with young people in 13 countries, and ongoing review of the literature on spiritual development. Preliminary findings from the youth focus groups are reported elsewhere.
We engaged the Center’s international network of 118 scientific, theological, and practice advisors from around the world in a Web-based consensus-building process (using an online survey interface) around dimensions of spiritual development. Through this process, advisors critiqued and recommended criteria, ranked various dimensions of spiritual development, and offered other guidance as we sought to create a framework for understanding child and adolescent spiritual development as an integral part of human development. Then we sorted the items by the advisors’ discipline (science, theology/philosophy, and practice), geographic region of the world, gender, and religious tradition to ensure that each perspective was being taken into account. We completed four rounds of input across one year.
Criteria That Undergird the Emerging Framework
In order to understand the scope of the emerging framework (described below), it is important to understand the assumptions or criteria behind it, particularly given that many other approaches have been used to deepen our understanding of spiritual development. We began the Center’s theory-building work with a series of assumptions or criteria about spiritual development that have been refined and confirmed through engagement with the Center’s international advisors.
Through a series of online interactions, following criteria emerged for our framework. A majority of the advisors across traditions, disciplines, and cultures indicated that each of the following criteria (which are listed from greatest to least level of consensus among advisors) is “essential” to a comprehensive theory. From this perspective, our approach to spiritual development should seek to . . .
- Articulate that spiritual development—though a unique stream of human development—cannot be separated from other aspects of one’s being.
- Avoid suggesting that the definition is final or comprehensive, thus inviting continued dialogue and exploration.
- Be relevant (though not uniform) across gender, age, socioeconomic, and cultural and ethnic differences.
- Recognize that spiritual development involves both an inward journey (inner experiences and/or connections to the infinite or unseen) and an outward journey (being expressed in daily activities, relationships, and actions).
- Add conceptual value to how human development is understood by articulating what is unique about spiritual development and how it connects to other areas of development.
- Recognize that spiritual development is a dynamic, non-linear process that varies by individual and cultural differences.
- Highlight broad domains of spiritual development while recognizing that these are approached and manifested in many different ways among individuals, cultures, and traditions.
- Conceptually distinguish spiritual development from religious development or formation while also recognizing that they are integrally linked in the lived experiences of some people, traditions, and cultures.
- Recognize that spiritual development has the potential to contribute to the health and well-being of self and/or others or to harm self and/or others.
- Be understandable to people from many walks of life, including the general public.
These criteria have served as touchstones as we have continued to refine our definition and theory. As our work and the dialogue continues, we expect to refine and revise the criteria and the overall framework through an ongoing, dynamic interaction until we reach the point where the two are well-aligned, reflect the research findings to date, and resonate with the field.
An Emerging Framework
So as we enter the third year of our work, we offer the following “beta version” of a framework for understanding spiritual development in childhood and adolescence. This framework suggests that spiritual development as a constant, ongoing, dynamic, and sometimes difficult interplay between three core developmental processes (illustrated in Figure 1):
a. Awareness or awakening: Being or becoming aware of or awakening to one’s self, others, and the universe (which may be understood as including the sacred or divinity) in ways that cultivate identity, meaning, and purpose.
b. Interconnecting and belonging: Seeking, accepting, or experiencing significance in relationships to and interdependence with others, the world, or one’s sense of the transcendent (often including an understanding of God or a higher power); and linking to narratives, beliefs, and traditions that give meaning to human experience across time.
c. A way of living: Authentically expressing one’s identity, passions, values, and creativity through relationships, activities, and/or practices that shape bonds with oneself, family, community, humanity, the world, and/or that which one believes to be transcendent or sacred.
Figure 1. A Preliminary Framework for Child and Adolescent Spiritual Development
These three dimensions are not in themselves complete, as suggested in Figure 1. They are embedded in and interact with:
d. Other aspects of development (physical, social, cognitive, emotional, moral, etc.);
e. personal, family, and community beliefs, values, and practices;
f. culture (language, customs, norms, symbols) and sociopolitical realities;
g. meta-narratives, traditions, myths, and interpretive frameworks;
h. other significant life events, experiences, and changes.
Furthermore, these processes may result in . . .
i. Cognitive, affective, physical, and social outcomes that become manifested in either healthy or unhealthy ways.
Thus, this framework suggests that spiritual development as a core developmental process that occurs for all persons, regardless of their religious or philosophical beliefs or worldview. However, young people engage in theses processes in many different ways with different emphases and levels of intensity (from highly engaged to passive). And many young people tap their own culture or religious tradition’s belief systems, narratives, and community to give form to this process. In addition, this domain of life is also shaped by other resources and contexts, including arts, philosophy, and nature. Thus, religious beliefs and practices can be an integral to spiritual development, but they do not have to be.
Moving toward Greater Specificity
The above articulation of the framework is, of necessity, abstract. Each of the core processes introduced above attempts to integrate a wide range of dynamics or elements of spiritual development into a more cohesive framework. Indeed, guided by our advisors, we have proposed that each of the three core processes may involve several underlying dynamics, each of which is more or less prominent for different young people in different cultures and traditions:
Awareness or awakening, which may involve . . .
- Accepting, seeking, creating, or experiencing a reason for being or a sense of meaning and purpose.
- Being present to oneself, others, the world, and/or one’s sense of transcendent reality.
- Forming a worldview regarding major life questions, such as the purpose of existence, life and death, and the existence or non-existence of the divine or God.
- Living in awareness of something beyond the immediate everyday of life.
- Experiencing enlightenment, awakening, liberation, salvation, or other experiences of transcendence or deepening.
- Accepting or discovering one’s potential to grow, contribute, and matter.
Interconnecting and belonging, which may involve . . .
- Experiencing a sense of empathy, responsibility, and/or love for others, for humanity, and for the world.
- Finding significance in relationships to others, the world, or one’s sense of the transcendent.
- Finding, accepting, or creating deeper significance and meaning in everyday experiences and relationships.
- Linking oneself to narratives, communities, mentors, beliefs, traditions, and/or practices that remain significant over time.
A way of living, which may involve . . .
- Engaging in relationships, activities, and/or practices that shape bonds with oneself, family, community, humanity, the world, and/or that which one believes to be transcendent.
- Living out one’s beliefs, values, and commitments in daily life.
- Experiencing or cultivating hope, meaning, or resilience in the midst of hardship, conflict, confusion, or suffering.
- Living out an orientation to life in response to that which one perceives to be worthy of dedication and/or veneration.
- Attending to spiritual questions, challenges, and struggles.
- Expressing one’s essence, passions, value, and creativity in the world as a way of showing veneration or expressing one’s sense of transcendence.
To this point, we have sought to articulate these two levels of detail in framing our approach to spiritual development: naming the three processes and articulating several elements that appear to be embedded in each of them. Still to be done is to move “up” a level to a simply statement that captures the core dynamics (a process we have begun).
Perhaps more important, though, is to explore in greater detail the ways in which young people actually go about engaging in each of the elements. This level next level will reveal much more fully the specific and diverse beliefs and practices that young people do or could bring to each of the core processes of spiritual development. It is also at this next level that we begin to see enough specificity to measure young people’s own attitudes and practices, which is a major focus of our work in 2008.
What’s Coming Next?
All of the above is still in process as we continue internal team dialogues, engage with advisors, and introduce the ideas to other people in the field with different perspectives. Furthermore, we expect that it will be significantly reshaped as it is tested through the field test survey, which will be conducted in the second quarter of this year. Over time, we seek to refine the framework in a way that reflects the findings from the youth survey, is consistent with the expertise in the field, and facilitates communication and application with a broader audience.
We are developing a survey to test this framework in an exploratory study on multiple continents. Those findings will give new insight into how these processes “work” in young people’s lives and set the stage for more rigorous research in the future, including longitudinal research. In addition, we intend to develop tools and guides to use the framework (as it evolves) in dialogue and work with young people. Once we have evidence of its reliability and validity, it may serve as a framework for infusing spiritual development themes into youth development programs and practices—and, potentially, as the foundation for more robust studies that examine programmatic impact.
