Date
3-2019
Department
School of Education
Degree
Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership (EdD)
Chair
James Swezey
Keywords
Paideia, Classical Christian, Enculturation, Virtue, Liberal Arts, Transcendent
Disciplines
Education
Recommended Citation
Squires, Jared L., "The Experiences of Christian Paideia among Graduates of Classical Christian Texas High Schools: A Phenomenological Study" (2019). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 1996.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/1996
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to describe the essence of the shared lived experiences in a Christian paideia for classical Christian high school graduates at five different Texas schools. Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) Ecological Systems Theory (EST) was the primary theory guiding this study. EST is significant for classical Christian educators because this theory suggests that the behavior and practices of individuals, embodied within a Christian paideia, will profoundly shape the development of students. The central question for this study was how do classical Christian high school graduates describe their lived experiences of Christian paideia? Participants described their lived experiences of Christian paideia in a profound manner. There was a distinct recognition by graduates that their entire being, including heart, soul, and mind, had been purposefully influenced to desire and pursue God’s innate qualities of truth, goodness, and beauty. This study was conducted with a qualitative approach, specifically the transcendental phenomenological method. This qualitative phenomenological approach was a valid design for this study because the research problem being addressed required the understanding of common or shared experiences for a group of classical Christian high school graduates. Snowball sampling was used to select 12 graduates who were derived from those individuals that were purposefully nominated by the headmaster for each of the five respective classical Christian schools. Data collection techniques included individual face-to-face interviews, virtual focus group interviews, and document analysis. Data analysis for this study was completed using Moustakas’s (1994) modification of the Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen method. The results of the study were six major themes that were utilized to answer this study’s central research question and four sub-questions, all of which were designed to describe the essence of the shared lived experiences in a Christian paideia for classical Christian high school graduates.
