Catholic School Identity Notes

Perceptions of Catholic Identity

  • Survey conducted in 2010 of over 3,300 administrators and teachers in Catholic elementary and secondary schools nationally.
  • The survey was conducted in anticipation of a national conference on the Catholic identity of Catholic elementary and secondary schools at The Catholic University of America, October 2-4, 2011.
  • The vast majority of respondents viewed the school’s culture or faith community as the most important component of its Catholic identity.
  • The longer the teacher or administrator worked in Catholic schools, the higher the rating they gave to the essential nature of the school’s faith community to its Catholic identity.
  • Other aspects of Catholic identity that received high ratings were prayer, the content of the religion course, who taught religion, liturgical celebrations, and participation in service.
  • The respondents viewed the percentage of Catholic students as the least important aspect of Catholic identity.
  • Personal anecdote:
    • Growing up in Philadelphia in the 1940s and 1950s, the Catholic identity of the parish elementary school and Catholic high school was strong and unquestioned.
    • Teachers were members of religious congregations.
    • Only Catholic children attended the parish school.
    • The Baltimore Catechism was used in elementary school.
    • Daily religion classes were rigorously taught in high school.
    • Prayers were said at specific times of the day in elementary school and every class in high school began with a prayer.
    • Liturgical celebrations were frequent and religious symbols abounded.
    • Students were challenged to be “soldiers of Christ” and to “spread the good news.”
  • The question "What do you mean by Catholic identity?" was posed during a strategic planning committee meeting.
  • The question prompted the author to be more proactive in explaining what the Church means by the Catholic identity of a Catholic school.

Nature of a Catholic School

  • The examination of the Catholic identity of a Catholic school must begin with an examination of the nature of a Catholic school.
  • Gravissimum Educationis, The Declaration on Christian Education (Paul VI, 1965) describes the distinguishing characteristic of a Catholic school:
    • A Catholic school pursues cultural goals and the human formation of youth.
    • Its proper function is to create a special atmosphere animated by the Gospel spirit of freedom and charity.
    • It helps youth grow according to the new creatures they were made through baptism as they develop their own personalities.
    • It orders the whole of human culture to the news of salvation so that the knowledge the students gradually acquire of the world, life and man is illumined by faith. (#8)
  • What makes a Catholic school distinctive is its religious dimension, which is found in the educational climate, the personal development of each student, the relationship established between culture and the Gospel, and the illumination of all knowledge with the light of faith (Congregation for Catholic Education, 1988).
  • In 1972, the bishops of the United States issued a pastoral letter entitled To Teach as Jesus Did (National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1972).
    • It delineated a fourfold purpose of Catholic schools: message, service, worship, and community.
    • The building of, and the living of, community must be explicit goals of Catholic schools (#108).
    • Community is not just a concept to be taught but a reality to be lived (#106).
    • Community is a necessary condition for, as well as a goal of, Christian education.
  • Thomas Groome from Boston College described what makes a school Catholic as follows: “the distinctiveness of Catholic education is prompted by the distinctive characteristics of Catholicism itself, and these characteristics should be reflected in the whole curriculum of Catholic schools” (p. 107).
  • Upon entering a Catholic school, it should be obvious that one has come into a Catholic environment.
  • As stated in The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School: “From the first moment that a student sets foot in a Catholic school, he or she ought to have the impression of entering a new environment, one illumined by the light of faith, and having its own unique characteristics” (Congregation for Catholic Education, 1988).
  • Pope Benedict XVI spoke to the nature of a Catholic school:
    • The essential task of authentic education at every level is not simply that of passing on knowledge, essential as this is, but also of shaping hearts.
    • There is a constant need to balance intellectual rigor in communicating effectively, attractively and integrally, the richness of the Church’s faith with forming the young in the love of God, the praxis of the Christian moral and sacramental life and, not least, the cultivation of personal and liturgical prayer. (Benedict XVI, 2012)

Culture and Community

  • An important component of any school is its culture.
  • A Catholic school by its very nature should have a distinct Catholic culture.
  • Research has shown that good Catholic schools have a “sense of community,” which has a positive effect on the quality of life in the school and contributes to its effectiveness (Bryk, Lee & Holland, 1993).
  • James Coleman noted the importance of a school’s community in a series of studies based on the 1980 U.S. Department of Education sponsored High School and Beyond Study (Coleman, Hoffer & Kilgore, 1982; Coleman & Hoffer, 1987).
    • Coleman wrote about the differences between value communities and functional communities (Coleman, 1988).
    • Value communities are those that share a common value or values, such as high academic ideals, a preference for a particular type of educational philosophy, or exposure to a particular type of environment.
    • Most private schools, including Catholic schools, should have strong value communities.
    • Catholic schools are more than value communities; they are also functional communities.
    • A functional community has a particular value orientation, but it goes beyond that.
    • It is a community that functions at a high level; it is efficacious in the sense that the social capital produced by the relationships within the community is instrumental in producing good outcomes (Coleman, 1988).
  • Coleman, who was not Catholic, used sociological terms to explain the type of community that he observed in Catholic schools.
  • Catholic educators would call this a faith community.
  • The school’s faith community is a functional community that produces social capital and is a major contributor to the effectiveness of the school.
  • It’s the faith community of the school that constitutes an integral part of the school’s Catholic identity (Convey, 1992).
  • The Church calls Catholic schools to be faith communities, dedicated to fostering both social reform in light of Christian values and the personal sanctification of the students (National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1979).
  • The major documents from the Congregation for Catholic Education from 1977 to 1997 emphasized the importance of the faith community in the Catholic school.
    • In The Catholic School (Congregation for Catholic Education, 1977), the Congregation directed that the Catholic school “…must be a community whose aim is the transmission of values for living” (#53).
    • Lay Catholics in Catholic Schools: Witnesses to the Faith (Congregation for Catholic Education, 1982) specified that the educational community of a Catholic school must be in the process of becoming a Christian community and a genuine community of faith (#41).
    • The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium (Congregation for Catholic Education, 1997) describes the Catholic school as a place “in which faith, culture and life are brought into harmony” (#11).

Curriculum

  • The curriculum of a Catholic school, in addition to containing academic subjects like all schools, also has a religion curriculum.
  • Teachers should look for opportunities to integrate Catholic teachings throughout the curriculum.
  • The code of canon law establishes that, first and foremost, a Catholic school is characterized by excellence (Canon 806).
  • As indicated in the National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools, a 2012 publication from the Center for School Effectiveness at Loyola University Chicago in partnership with the Roche Center for Catholic Education at Boston College, a Catholic school “has a clearly articulated rigorous curriculum aligned with relevant standards, 21st Century skills and Gospel values” (Standard 7).
  • Students should be exposed to the great wealth of the Catholic intellectual tradition.
  • The teachings of the Church are to be presented with the same rigor and academic expectations accorded to other subjects in the curriculum.
  • In the Vatican document The Catholic School (1977), the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education speaks to the formation of the whole person in a Catholic school, which includes “preparation for professional life, formation of ethical and social awareness, and developing awareness of the transcendental and religious education” (#31).
  • Standard 2 of the National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools specifies that an effective Catholic school “provides a rigorous academic program for religious studies and catechesis in the Catholic faith, set within a total academic curriculum that integrates faith, culture and life” (Standard 2).
  • An important component of the curriculum of a Catholic school is the teaching of religion.
  • Studies have shown the importance of the knowledgeable and committed teachers of religion and the problems that can occur when teachers of religion do not know or do not fully accept some Catholic teachings themselves (Cho, 2012; Galetto, 2000).
  • While the religion course must be the central component of the curriculum of a Catholic school, equally important is the integration of Catholic teachings in all aspects of the curriculum.
  • The content of a Catholic school is a “synthesis of culture and faith and a synthesis of faith and life” (Congregation for Catholic Education, 1977, #37) and all academic subjects can contribute to the development of a mature Christian (Congregation for Catholic Education, 1977, #40).

Administrators and Teachers Supporting Catholic Identity

  • Good administrative leadership and effective, committed teachers are important for the success of any school.
  • The Church has been clear about the importance of administrators and teachers in supporting the Catholic identity of a school and the development of its faith community.
  • In the document from Vatican Council II, Declaration on Christian Education, the Council Fathers wrote: “But let teachers recognize that the Catholic school depends upon them almost entirely for the accomplishment of its goals and programs. They should therefore be very carefully prepared so that both in secular and religious knowledge they are equipped with suitable qualifications and also with a pedagogical skill that is in keeping with the findings of the contemporary world” (Paul VI, 1965, #8).
  • The Congregation for Catholic Education in the document The Catholic School wrote: “The extent to which the Christian message is transmitted through education depends to a very great extent on the teachers” (Congregation for Catholic Education, 1977).
  • And again in its document, The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School, the Congregation stated that “the prime responsibility for creating this unique Christian school climate rests with the teachers, as individuals and as a community” (Congregation for Catholic Education, 1988).
  • Individual scholars who have studied Catholic schools also affirmed the importance of the principal and the teachers in creating the environment necessary for a good Catholic school with a strong Catholic identity.
  • Particularly important in Catholic schools are the leadership of the principal and the commitment of the teachers (Convey, 1992; Cook, 2001, 2002; Cook & Simonds, 2011; Helm, 1989; Tarr, Ciriello & Convey, 1993).
  • Ciriello (1998a, 1998b, 1998c) illustrated the importance of the principal as the spiritual leader, academic leader, and managerial leader of the school.
  • Schuttloffel (1999, 2008) has written extensively on the Catholic school principal as contemplative leader.
  • Cook (2001) described Catholic school principals and teachers as “the architects of Catholic culture.”
  • Shimabukuro (Shimabukuro, 1998, 2008; Shimabukuro & Fox, 2010) wrote about the ideal Catholic school teacher being among other things a community builder and committed to the spiritual formation of students.
  • Jacobs (1996, 1997) reminded Catholic school teachers that they have to be mindful of their ministerial role.
  • Empirical studies have consistently shown the importance that Catholic school administrators and teachers place on Catholic identity in a Catholic school and the development of its faith community.
  • In The Catholic High School: A National Portrait (Yeager, Benson, Guerra, & Manno, 1985), 87% of the high school principals included the building of community as one of the top seven educational goals for their schools.
    • More principals ranked this goal first or second than any other goal, and 72% of them believed their schools were quite good or outstanding in building community among the students and staff.
  • In a 1990 survey of 783 Catholic elementary school principals, Harkins (1993) found that statements related to the development of the school’s faith community were most often selected by the principals as essential for Catholic schools.
    • Thirty-nine percent of the principals selected a schoolwide emphasis on imitating Jesus as their first priority, while 14% selected developing a caring atmosphere, and 10% selected treating others with respect.
    • Furthermore, at least 59% of the principals selected each of these as being among their top six essential characteristics.
  • In a survey of 1,076 Catholic elementary school teachers, Kushner and Helbling (1995) found that the teachers were far more likely to indicate that the teaching of religion contributes more to the Catholic identity of their schools than does the presence of Catholic teachers or the presence of religious on the faculty or in the administration.
    • In addition, at least 90% of the teachers indicated that the school has very clear expectations of their role in religious and value education, that they are sure what their role is, and that they feel they have an obligation to promote the religious faith of their students
    • Similar to the secondary school teachers in Benson and Guerra’s study (1985) the majority of the teachers indicated that a Catholic school should place the most emphasis on developing in its students a personal commitment to Jesus, compared to acceptance of Catholic teachings on moral values, knowledge of doctrine or a clear understanding of the bible.

Model for Catholic Identity

  • A visual would be helpful in capturing the essence of Catholic identity.
  • The schematic model given in Figure 1 and first presented in Weathering the Storm: Moving Catholic Schools Forward (DeFiore, Convey, & Schuttloffel, 2009, p. 35) provides one possible representation of the various dimensions of a school’s Catholic identity.
  • At the top of the model are the people associated with the school who are the creators and drivers of a school’s Catholic identity, each in their own particular role of administrator, teachers, priest, staff support, or parents since they individually, collectively, and in varying degrees “communicate the message (content) and create the environment (culture) that comprise the essence of a Catholic school” (DeFiore, Convey & Schuttloffel, 2009, p. 34).
  • The communication of Catholic teachings in the religion course and, when possible, in other subjects and the school’s environment or culture constitute the major dimensions of a school’s Catholic identity.
  • While content is obviously important, research has shown that a school’s culture, particularly the type of community it creates, is an important contributor to its effectiveness (Convey, 1992).
  • The environment of a Catholic school supports its Catholic identity through the establishment of a faith community, an emphasis on service, the celebration of rituals (prayer, liturgy, sacraments) and the presence of appropriate symbols (statues, crucifixes, religious pictures).
  • The model also provides a framework as to how to develop measures of a school’s Catholic identity.

Method

  • In order to measure how Catholic school administrators and teachers understand the term “Catholic identity” and how their understanding relates to the model in Figure 1, a 3-part online survey was designed.
  • The respondents were informed that the survey was intended to find out what they and other Catholic school educators understand by the term “Catholic identity” and not how they assessed the extent of Catholic identity in their schools, but rather what meaning they associated with the term.
  • They were told that the surveys were anonymous; neither they nor their schools would be identified.
  • Part 1 of the survey consisted of a single open-ended question that asked the respondents to describe in 10 words or less the first thing that comes to their minds when asked to describe what the Catholic identity of a Catholic school means to them.
    • This question was placed first in the survey so that the items in the subsequent parts of the survey would not influence their responses to this question.
  • Part 2 of the survey involved the rating and ranking of 12 items based on the dimensions of Catholic identity in Figure 1.
    • The respondents were asked first to rate the items on a 4-point Likert scale (4=Essential, 3=Very Important, 2=Somewhat Important, and 1=Not Important) and then rank them in order of importance.
  • The 12 items in their order of presentation on the survey were:
    • The vast majority of students are Catholic.
    • A crucifix is present in every classroom.
    • Each class begins with a prayer.
    • The school has a strong faith community.
    • The vast majority of teachers are Catholic.
    • The teacher of religion is Catholic.
    • Catholic teachings are integrated into academic subjects other than the religion course.
    • The principal is Catholic.
    • The school’s day begins with a prayer.
    • Schoolwide liturgies occur periodically.
    • Students participate in Christian service.
    • Religion course presents the teachings of the Church.
  • Part 3 of the survey used a scaling procedure called paired comparisons, which is designed to rank a set of objects in terms of preference or relative importance by having the respondents select the more important item in a pair of items (Nunnally,1978)(Nunnally, 1978).
    • The number of possible pairs of nn items is one-half n(n–1)n (n – 1).
    • Such a ranking procedure is normally easier for a respondent to do than the ordered ranking of a set of items.
    • In addition, transforming the results of the pair selections according to a procedure outlined by (Guilford,1954)(Guilford, 1954) produces a scale with interval measure, whereas simple ranking results in an ordinal scale.
  • The administrators and teachers were given all possible pairs, six in total, of four components of Catholic identity and asked to select which member in each pair was more important than the other member in contributing to the Catholic identity of a school.
    • The four components, based on the dimensions of the model in Figure 1, were: (1) Religion Course Teaches Catholic Doctrine, (2) Integrate Catholic Teachings into the Curriculum, (3) Culture and Faith Community, and (4) Rituals and Symbols.
    • The results of the comparisons were then transformed to produce an interval scale.
    • The scale that resulted was used to determine how far apart in importance each of the four components is to one another.
  • Participants
    • Superintendents of Catholic schools in 47 dioceses were invited to assist with the administration of the survey by sending a link for the online survey to their principals and asking them and their teachers to take it.
    • The directions to the superintendents and principals stressed that the survey was designed to determine what the teachers understood by the term Catholic identity, not how they evaluated their school’s Catholic identity.
    • It was apparent from the returns that not all dioceses followed up with the distribution of the survey.
    • It is important to note here that the responses that were received are not statistically representative of all Catholic schools administrators and teachers since a statistical probability sampling procedure was not employed that would assure a representative sample.
    • A total of 3,389 surveys were fully or partially completed.
    • Over 1,000 administrators and teachers viewed the survey but did not complete it; although it is possible that some returned to the survey and completed it later.
    • The responses came from teachers and administrators from 36 states.
    • A minimum of 100 surveys were from 12 states: over 400 from New York, between 300 and 400 each from Georgia and New Jersey, over 200 from Florida, and between 100 and 200 each from California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana.

Results

  • Characteristics of the Respondents
    • Of those surveys where the respondent identified his or her role in the school, 14% came from administrators (n = 457), and the remaining 86% were approximately evenly distributed across teachers in grades PK-2 (n = 627), 3-5 (n = 672), 6-8 (n = 751) and high school (n = 708).
    • Identifying information was missing on 174 surveys.
    • Over half (58%) of the surveys with identification came from respondents who had worked in Catholic schools at least 10 years.
    • The highest number of surveys come from those who had worked in Catholic schools for 20 or more years (n = 947) followed closely by those with 10 to 19 years of experience (n = 930).
    • The remaining returns were from those with 5 to 9 years (n = 681) and 1 to 4 years (n = 663) of experience.
    • As expected, the vast majority of respondents, 90%, were Catholic.
    • A slightly larger percentage of administrators (96%) and a slightly smaller percentage of respondents from high schools (83%) were Catholic.
    • Slightly more than half of the respondents (51%) taught religion either as a religion or catechetical specialist or as part of their teaching responsibilities along with other courses.
  • Open-Ended Question
    • The responses to the open-ended question produced a wealth of descriptions of Catholic identity.
    • Four terms appear in over 10% of the responses: Faith, Catholic, Christ, and Jesus, with Faith appearing in over 20% of the responses
    • Three percent of the responses contained the combination, “Jesus Christ.”
    • Seven terms or combinations appeared in 5% to 10% of the responses: Liturgy (Eucharist, Mass), Community, Living, God, Values, Teachings and Love (Charity).
    • Other terms that appeared with some regularity were Prayer, Christian, Belief, Follow, Service, and Gospel.
    • Some examples of specific phrases in the responses are: Christ centered (75), Christ-like (52), Catholic Church teachings (50), Catholic values (42), Christian values (37), Gospel values (26), and Faith community (20).
    • Fourteen responses contained the phrase so familiar to Catholic educators in the past, “To teach as Jesus did.”
    • Further analyses revealed that, with few exceptions, the frequency of terms used were similar for Catholic teachers and non-Catholic teachers and for teachers in different grade levels and experience in working in Catholic schools.
  • Ratings of Importance
    • In rating the 12 items describing aspects of Catholic identity, at least 90% of the teachers and administrators gave essential ratings to three items: School Day Begins with Prayer, Strong Faith Community, and Religion Course Presents Teachings of the Catholic Church.
    • Three other items were rated as essential by more than 80% of respondents: Periodic Schoolwide Liturgies, Students Participate in Christian Service, and the Teacher of Religion is Catholic.
    • About three-fourths of the respondents thought that a crucifix in every classroom and the principal being Catholic were essential.
    • Just over 60% rated class beginning with a prayer and integrating Catholic teachings into the curriculum as essential.
    • Finally, 39% rated the vast majority of teachers being Catholic as essential; however, only 15% thought that the vast number of students being Catholic was essential to the Catholic identity of a Catholic school.
    • Clearly in terms of what’s essential to Catholic identity, the respondents focused more on what happens in the schools rather than on the characteristics of who attends the school or who teaches in them.
    • With few exceptions, the relative ordering of the essential nature of the items to a school’s Catholic identity was similar among the five subgroups of respondents.
    • For many components only small differences occurred among the subgroups.
    • Using a criterion of five or more percentage points as a notable variation from the ratings of the entire group, with few exceptions, the percentage of “essential” ratings by high school teachers tended to be lower than the percentages of other groups.
    • On the other hand, a higher percentage of administrators rated the religion teacher and principal being Catholic and the integration of Catholic teachings into the curriculum as essential elements of Catholic identity.
    • Class beginning with prayer received a higher percentage of essential ratings from principals and teachers in PK to 2 compared with other respondents.
    • Finally, teachers in the early grades (PK-5) were more likely than other teachers to rate the presence of a crucifix in the classroom as being an essential element of a school’s Catholic identity.
    • With only two exceptions, the longer the tenure in a Catholic school, the more likely the teacher or administrator rated the characteristics presented as being essential.
    • Except for having a crucifix in the classroom and the vast majority of students being Catholic, the relative importance of items increased almost linearly from respondents with less experience in Catholic schools to those with more experience.
    • A higher percentage of Catholic respondents and those teachers who taught religion rated the items higher than respondents who were not Catholic or those teachers who did not teach religion.
  • Ranking of Relative Importance
    • A ranking task forces a respondent to discriminate among components, each of which the respondent may have thought were an essential or very important component of a school’s Catholic identity.
    • The three components with the highest average importance rankings are strong faith community, religion teacher being Catholic, and the school day beginning with prayer, respectfully.
    • A strong faith community and the school day beginning with prayer are both among the highest ratings and rankings; however, that the religion course presents the teachings of the Catholic Church falls to fourth in the rankings being replaced in the top three by the religion teacher being Catholic.
    • In addition, the integration of Catholic teachings into the curriculum moves higher in the rankings than in the ratings, whereas students participating in service moves lower in the rankings than in the ratings.
    • In focusing on the characteristics of Catholic identity that received the highest ranking of 1 indicating they were most important, the five characteristics that appear most frequently are: (1) strong faith community, ranked most important by more than a third of the respondents (36%); (2) importance of the religion teacher being Catholic (12%); (3) importance of the principal being Catholic (11%); (4) the school day beginning with prayer (10%); and (5) the religion course teaches Catholic doctrine (9%).
    • Three-fourths of the respondents rated one of these components as the most important characteristic of Catholic identity.
    • Over half of the respondents (56%) ranked strong faith community either first, second, or third in relative importance as an indicator of the Catholic identity of a school.
    • Further analysis revealed that the ranking of faith community as the most important characteristic of Catholic identity was similar for administrators and teachers and for Catholic teachers and non-Catholic teachers.
    • The only noticeable difference in the percentages ranking this characteristic as the most important occurred for respondents with 20 or more years of experience, where 42% ranked Culture and Faith Community as most important compared with 34% or fewer of those with less than 20 years of experience in a Catholic school.
  • Paired Comparisons
    • The vast majority of respondents chose Culture and Faith Community as being more important to the school’s Catholic identity than the presence of Rituals and Symbols.
    • The teachers and administrators also selected Culture and Faith Community as a more important identifier of the school’s Catholic identity than Integrate Catholic Teachings into the Curriculum.
    • All groups of respondents continue to consider Culture and Faith Community as a more important component of a school’s Catholic identity than the content of the religion course.
    • Religion Course Teaches Catholic Doctrine was seen as a more important component of Catholic identity than the presence of Rituals and Symbols by all groups of respondents.
    • The pattern was somewhat different, however, for whether the content of the religion course was a more important component than integrating Catholic teachings into the curriculum.
    • More than half of the administrators selected Integrate Catholic Teachings into the Curriculum as more important; however, the teachers were about evenly split between Integrate Catholic Teachings into the Curriculum and the presence of Rituals and Symbols.
    • A graphical representation of how far apart on a common interval scale are the four components of Catholic identity for the administrators and each of the subgroups of teachers.
    • The graph shows that relative ordering of the importance of the components for the subgroups is the same: Culture and Faith Community is furthest in importance from Ritual and Symbols, followed by Integrate Catholic Teachings into the Curriculum and Religion Course Teaches Catholic Doctrine.

Discussion

  • It is clear from the findings that a school’s culture or faith community is viewed as the most important component of the school’s Catholic identity by the vast majority of the teachers and administrators who responded to the survey.
  • Over 90% of the teachers and administrators saw the school’s faith community as essential to the school’s Catholic identity.
  • The longer the teacher or administrator worked in Catholic schools, the higher the rating they gave of the essential nature of the school’s faith community to its Catholic identity.
  • Furthermore, in every group of respondents, the school’s faith community far surpassed the other components in importance.
  • The relationship between the length of time working in a Catholic school and the importance that teachers and administrators assigned to the development of the faith community in the school is an important finding.
  • Since the responsibility for creating the faith community rests principally with the teachers “as individuals and as a community” (Congregation for Catholic Education, 1988), these findings imply that it takes time and experience for teachers to grasp fully the importance of the faith community and their role in creating and sustaining it, which argues for the importance of a stable and experienced faculty.
  • Rapid turnover in a Catholic school may be a prescription for an unfocused Catholic environment.
  • Every effort should be made to retain committed and seasoned Catholic school teachers in order to preserve a strong Catholic identity in the school.
  • Three of the five other components that received high ratings from the teachers and the administrators for being essential to a school’s Catholic identity are also part of a Catholic school’s particular culture.
    • The school’s day beginning with prayer sets the tone for the entire day.
    • Periodic school-wide liturgies connect the Catholic school community to the wider Church’s Eucharistic celebrations, “the source and summit of the Christian life” as stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1324 (United States Catholic Conference, 1994).
    • Providing students with opportunities for Christian service enables students to put their faith in action and in service to others.
  • The final two of the six highest rated components of Catholic identity concern what is taught in the religion class and by whom.
    • The vast majority of the teachers and administrators affirmed the essential nature of the religion course presenting Catholic teaching and most placed high importance on the religion teacher being Catholic.
    • The communication of Catholic teachings and values, however, should not be limited to the formal religion courses, but should be infused in all aspects of the curriculum to the extent possible and appropriate.
    • While teachers may find it easier to integrate Catholic teachings in subjects such as English, language arts, social studies, and the sciences, particularly biology, why not also in the mathematics class in the types of word problems presented to the students.
    • In bringing Catholic teachings periodically to other courses in the curriculum other than the religion course, the intellectual environment of the school is enriched and students are helped to see that their faith and beliefs are not compartmentalized but rather are a part of their entire experience, a true integration of “faith and reason.”
  • The component of Catholic identity that showed the greatest variation in the rankings and ratings and among the groups of teachers and administrators was the integration of Catholic teachings into the curriculum.
    • It would seem that all teachers, but particularly those in the middle school and high school grades, could benefit from professional development that would assist them to develop ways to integrate Catholic teachings throughout the curriculum.
  • It is also clear from the findings that the majority of teachers and administrators did not consider the proportion of Catholics on the faculty and percentage of Catholic students as being essential elements of a school’s Catholic identity.
    • The respondents viewed the school’s environment, the content that is presented, and the presence of rituals and symbols as more important than the religion of those who taught in the school and the students who attend it.

Conclusion

  • In conclusion, the teachers and administrators felt that the most important component of Catholic identity in a Catholic school is the school’s culture or faith community.
  • The faith community was rated higher than any other dimension of Catholic identity and the term “faith” appeared among the most frequently mentioned attributes in the open-ended question.
  • The teachers and administrators also gave high priority to the content of the religion course, who taught religion and other aspects of the school’s environment, prayer at the beginning of the day, periodic liturgical celebrations, and students participating in Christian service.
  • The lowest priorities assigned by the teachers and administrators as being essential to the Catholic identity of a Catholic school were the percentage of students who are Catholic, followed by the percentages of teachers who are Catholic.
  • On the other hand, the respondents affirmed the importance of both the principal and the religion teacher being Catholic.
  • Differences in the perceptions of importance of various components were evident by the length of time the respondents had worked in a Catholic school, with more experienced teachers assigning more importance to the leading component than less experienced teachers, and their role in the school, with administrators assigning the highest ratings, following by teachers in elementary school and finally by high school teachers.
  • In addition, those who taught religion generally gave higher ratings to the components compared with those who did not teach religion, a large number of whom were high school teachers.
  • Finally, Catholic teachers were more likely than non-Catholic teachers to rate a particular component as being essential to the school’s Catholic identity.
  • Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI was very clear in his presentation to Catholic educators on April 17, 2008 at The Catholic University of America about the importance of education to the Church and, in particular, the education that occurs in a Catholic school with its faith dimension.
    • He later continued: “Clearly, then, Catholic identity is not dependent upon statistics. Neither can it be equated simply with orthodoxy of course content. It demands and inspires much more: namely that each and every aspect of your learning communities reverberates with the ecclesial life of faith” (Benedict XVI, 2008).
  • For the teachers and administrators of Catholic schools, a school is Catholic not because of its name, or the presence of crucifixes, or because it has a course in religion, or by the percentage of Catholic students, but rather by its Catholic ethos, its faith community, which is manifested in what is taught and how, how people relate to one another, what the environment looks like, what celebrations occurs and, finally, by its name.