Engaging International Advisors
in Creating a Shared Understanding
of Spiritual Development
Progress Report
March 2008
Eugene C. Roehlkepartain
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; and
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.
Just as important, we seek feedback and dialogue with colleagues, scholars, young people, educators, youth workers, parents, policy makers, and others about the emerging framework and the process we’ve used to develop it. Where does it ring true? What might be missing? How can it be effectively utilized in research, policy, and practice? What would make it more helpful over time. Share your perspectives on the Center’s online discussion board or respond to my blog, in which I offer additional thoughts on the process.
SUGGESTED CITATION: Roehlkepartain, E. C. (2008, March). Seeking common ground in understanding spiritual development: A preliminary theoretical framework. Minneapolis, MN: Search Institute. Retrieved from www.spiritualdevelopmentcenter.org/Display.asp?Page=DefinitionUpdate.
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May 2007
Progress Report
A major task of the Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence is to advance the theory and definition of spiritual development in childhood and adolescence within a global multi-faith and multi-cultural context. This theory-building work sets the stage for future research and also has the potential to enrich efforts to strengthen child and adolescent development.
As part of this task, we engaged our network of 100-plus distinguished, scientific, theological, and practice advisors in a Web-based consensus-building process. As one might expect, this process is both exciting and challenging, enlightening and complex. And the early work is yielding provocative questions and potential areas of broad consensus that merit further explication and testing. This article describes the process under way and summarizes key insights from the first round of advisor engagement.
The Process Under Way
In March 2007, we invited the center’s advisors to provide input in two areas: (1) criteria for creating a definition (or definitions) of spiritual development; and (2) potential dimensions of spiritual development. Because we are not able to gather advisors for face-to-face dialogue and because we want to hear from a wide range of perspectives, we are using a Web-based survey interface to conduct a modified Delphi Technique study, which is designed to build consensus among experts who cannot gather in one place.
Out of 117 advisors who were asked to complete the survey, 96 responded and completed the survey. Representation included scholars from every continent, various disciplines (psychology, sociology, theology, religious studies, anthropology, various practice-oriented fields, and others), and people with expertise in 10 religious traditions. (A complete list of the advisors is available at www.spiritualdevelopmentcenter.org/Advisors.) Although the panel over-represents North American Christians, analyses were completed with each subgroup of advisors to ensure that their perspectives were not overshadowed. In short, these advisors offer a wide range of perspectives to inform this process.
Perspectives on the Criteria for Shaping a Definition
One can approach defining spiritual development in many different ways. Each may be legitimate, but it is important to surface the assumptions and guiding criteria behind any definition(s) and approach. To begin this process, we proposed nine criteria for a definition of spiritual development and asked advisors to indicate whether each of the proposed criteria was “essential,” “important,” “not important,” or “problematic.” They had the opportunity to provide explanation for their responses and to add additional criteria that they thought should be included.
As shown in Table 1, at least two-thirds of the advisors indicated that all nine proposed criteria were “important” or “essential.” A majority indicated that four were “essential,” with at least 80% indicating that these were “important” or “essential.” Thus, they agreed, in general, that a definition must:
- Be relevant across gender and age differences
- Be understandable to people from many walks of life including the general public
- Resonate across cultures in a global context
- Add conceptual value to how human development is currently understood
These priorities held true among advisors from different discipline backgrounds as well as within each religious tradition and in different parts of the world. At the same time, it is important to pay particular attention to those criteria that many advisors found to be problematic. At least ten advisors raised questions about each of the following criteria:
- Disentangle spiritual development and religious development without devaluing either
- Recognize spiritual development as a universal developmental process that may or may not be intentionally nurtured through rituals or practices
- Balance/integrate a Western emphasis on individual development with a more communal or cultural understanding that is more prevalent in other societies
The comments from advisors on their ratings yielded important insights into the complex issues embedded in these statements. The most significant issues that they raised with which we must grapple include the following:
Disentangling religious development and spiritual development is problematic, with different advisors taking opposite perspectives. Some believe it is impossible to disentangle the two. Others indicated that the two should be completely separated from each other.
Several advisors are not sure there can be a universal understanding of spiritual development. They highlighted the diverse ways that cultures (and even different groups within cultures) nurture young people differently and have very different goals in this domain. Various religions and secular philosophies of the world have very different understandings of the ideal person and the ideal community, and thus understand spirituality very differently.
It is not altogether clear to some advisors that spirituality is something that “develops.” They noted that spiritual "development" is often unpredictable, slippery, and not cumulative or "developmental" in the ordinary sense. A definition must allow for a dynamic, changeable quality that encompasses not only growth and progression, but also cycles and even regression.
The distinction between individualism and collectivism needs to be reframed. The advisors noted that—contrary to the assumptions in our wording—the individualism-collectivism is not an East-West tension. Rather, it exists in most cultures and traditions, as well as in local communities and even within individuals.
Perspectives on the Dimensions of Spiritual Development
Next, we named 15 possible dimensions of spiritual development, all of which were introduced with the phrase, “Spiritual development is, in part, . . .” These dimensions were based on reviews of literature, early analysis of focus group data, and team dialogues. The 15 dimensions and their overall ratings are shown in Table 2. On average, the advisors rated 11 of the 15 dimensions as important or essential (a 1 or 2). This consensus was generally evident across advisors in different traditions, geographic contexts, and discipline areas. Furthermore, all 15 proposed dimensions were rated as “essential” or “important” by at least one of the subgroups of advisors.
If we narrow our focus on those criteria that are seen as “essential,” we find that a majority of all the advisors rated six of the criteria as essential (#1–6 in the table), with very few indicating that they are “not important” or “problematic.”
It is important to note, however, that two of these dimensions received lower ratings from some subgroups of advisors. Advisors from the Buddhist and Hindu traditions did not, on average, see “How persons embed the self in something larger than the self” as important or essential. Similarly, those advisors not associated with a religious tradition see as less important “how persons understand their relationship to that which is transcendent or sacred.”
In addition, some dimensions that received lower ratings overall were rated more highly by particular subgroups. For example, advisors with expertise in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions rated, on average, #12, #13, and #15 as “essential” or “important.” Advisors associated with Islam rated #14 as “essential” or “important.”
In addition to reviewing the proposed dimensions, advisors raised questions, offered alternatives, and named some other potential dimensions to be considered. Some of the major questions and issues they raised include the following:
What is the appropriate balance/integration of “self,” “other,” and “transcendent other”? Some advisors argued that spiritual development has the complementary effect of bringing oneself further outward and further inward.
The proposed dimensions emphasize cognitive dimensions over affective dimensions. As a result, they underemphasize the human capacity to be moved or inspired with animation and emotion. Young people can have a vibrant spiritual life without explicitly mentally addressing ultimate questions of meaning and purpose. Children work out their spirituality in an intuitive way, in relationships with people, their environment, and their imagination.
The proposed dimensions inappropriately privilege the timeless, eternal, and transcendent over the ordinary and mundane. They place too much emphasis on transcendent, timeless, eternal etc. and on self-universe relationship as opposed to self-other, human-human, human-nonhuman relationships.
Proposed dimensions imply too much certainty and finality. Rather than “coming to peace with who they are,” spiritual development may be about the challenge and the quest rather than the destination.
The proposed dimensions pay inadequate attention to struggles and trials. The current dimensions neglect the idea that hardship, trial, and rigorous spiritual discipline may be important steps on the journey.
The link to resilience, happiness, justice, and other areas of impact is missing. Several advisors noted the lack of explicit mention of the role that spiritual development plays in young people’s lives. Or, as one advisor put it, spiritual development involves wise understandings that influence the ways individuals interpret and value what happens in life, and that inform wise decisions and behavior.
Moving Forward
This first round of input from advisors yielded substantial information on both the shared foundations as well as the diverse approaches (and challenges) to understanding and defining spiritual development (and related concepts). As this consensus-building process continues, we must grapple with the complex questions raised by the advisors (described above)—many of them questions that have vexed the field for decades.
Each of these—and other—questions remains to be examined in more depth in Round 2 of the advisor engagement process, which will begin in June 2007. And there will likely remain core questions with which the field must grapple from multiple perspectives and approaches. It is likely that the most meaningful approaches will find ways to integrate and balance the understanding so that the work more effectively resonates across and within diverse cultures, traditions, and worldviews.
This article is an interim report, based only on the first round of input. As this consensus-building process continues, we anticipate further refining and deepening of the constructs in response to the guidance of the advisors as well as insights that emerge from other center research and activities.
Feedback from the next round will also provide the platform for subsequent refinement, in hopes of articulating a broad (though certainly not universal or final) consensus in July or August 2007. This foundation will guide the development of several publications (both academic and more practical) while also providing the foundation for the development of new measures of spiritual development. An exploratory, multi-country quantitative study of spiritual development is slated to be completed in 2008.
Because relatively few scholars in different traditions, disciplines, and contexts are part of this process, it is important not to over-interpret the differences or commonalities in the findings. Yet this early work suggests that, with additional effort, there is a good possibility of being able to move toward a strong consensus (though not unanimity) about some of the core elements of spiritual development in childhood and adolescence.
Table 1
Advisor Ratings of Criteria for Definitional Work (Total Sample)
(These are raw numbers, not percentages.)
| Proposed Criteria for Developing Definitions of Spiritual Development |
Essential |
Important |
Not Important |
Problematic |
| Be relevant across gender and age differences. |
57 |
34 |
3 |
3 |
| Be understandable to people from many walks of life, including the general public. |
54 |
35 |
7 |
0 |
| Resonate across cultures in a global context. |
51 |
32 |
7 |
6 |
| Add conceptual value to how human development is currently understood. |
49 |
41 |
4 |
1 |
| Create a shared understanding of spiritual development, while also acknowledging that it is manifested in many diverse “spiritualities.” |
47 |
40 |
3 |
7 |
| Balance/integrate a Western emphasis on individual development with a more communal or cultural understanding that is more prevalent in other societies. |
45 |
33 |
8 |
10 |
| Recognize spiritual development as a universal developmental process that may or may not be intentionally nurtured through rituals or practices. |
44 |
35 |
1 |
16 |
| Recognize that spiritual development has the potential to be either positive (adaptive) or negative (maladaptive). |
37 |
40 |
10 |
8 |
| Disentangle spiritual development and religious development without devaluing either. |
34 |
37 |
8 |
1 |
Table 2
Ratings of Potential Dimensions of Spiritual Development
This table shows the average response for each potential dimension of spiritual development on a scale from 1 (essential) to 5 (problematic). The boldface numbers are the indicators where the average is <2, making it either "essential" or "important."
| Spiritual Development is, in part, . . . |
Response Average |
| 1. How persons address ultimate questions of existence meaning and purpose. |
1.56 |
| 2. How persons develop the sense that life has meaning beyond the ordinary or mundane. |
1.56 |
| 3. How persons make sense of their lives and understand their reason for being. |
1.65 |
| 4. How persons understand their relationship to that which is transcendent or sacred. |
1.65 |
| 5. How persons grow in self-awareness through relationship (to community, to nature, to humanity, to the divine, to ancestors, etc.). |
1.68 |
| 6. How persons embed the self in something larger than the self. |
1.72 |
| 7. How persons develop and live out an orientation to life in response to that which is for them the highest truth. |
1.77 |
| 8. How persons find and honor the sacred. |
1.77 |
| 9. How persons create the hope or conviction that their time on earth matters. |
1.78 |
| 10. How persons understand and make commitments to what they see as eternal and timeless (such as ultimate truth or reality). |
1.78 |
| 11. How persons forge a connection between the self and the universe (community ancestors nature humanity higher power etc.). |
1.86 |
| 12. How persons become mindful of and accept the fullness of human potential or capacity. |
2.17 |
| 13. How persons discern and come to peace with who they are. |
2.18 |
| 14. How persons discover and embrace their essence as mind body and spirit. |
2.30 |
| 15. How persons find and experience unity and interdependence between "the essence of me" with "the essence of the universe." |
2.34 |
|
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