Religion and Identity Formation
The Hands of Religion and Dispersion of Identity: A Qualitative Study of Tehranian College Student Women Born in the 1980s
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Khadijeh Safiri, Elnaz Shir Mohammadi
Building on ideas developed in the interpretative paradigm, this paper aims to explore how a governmental religion or a religious government leads identities of subjects, Tehranian college student women born in the 1980s, to dispersion, through using grounded theory method. The governmental religion causes subjects to experience fragmentation in four main dimensions, including the philosophy of life: crediting/discrediting religious beliefs (performing religious rituals, believing in the metaphysics derived from religion); lifestyle: various patterns of religiosity (self-referential, devotional, pure heart) and sexual relationships (monogamy, white marriage); political trust: accepting/refusing the religious government (making political and religious reforms); social communication: preferring desires and demands regardless of religious values and norms (selecting desired clothing), being free in making personal decisions (developing various types of interactions). Witnessing dispersion and experiencing decentered identities can be identified as the consequences of imposing obligation, by the conservative government and hands of religious fundamentalism, on the society in order to establish tremendous hegemony.
The Role of the Church in Creating Social Capital: Undergraduates Identify Community Institutions
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Stacy Maddern
This research presented here is the product of a data set drawn from an undergraduate course designed to encourage students to create, reshape and identify the core components of what they would consider an ideal or essential community. Ranging three concurrent semesters of teaching with nearly two hundred students involved, this study reveals the identification of the church as a significant institution in building community cohesion. In doing so, students do not identify such in religious or faith-based context, but rather as a central community center used for building social capital. The fundamental question at the core of this research seeks to understand what bearing churches, as social institutions, have on a citizen’s political involvement, and to what extent membership involvement helps to build social trust and tolerance of other groups in society. This study also considers various denominational factors in correlating community involvement and outreach. Given the participation of an emerging generation of adults, there is a potential inquiry into Robert Putnam's finding that a decline in religious affiliation was a contributing factor to the demise of social capital in American society.
Revisiting the State of the Global Workplace: The Relation of Spirituality, Engagement, and Productivity
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session James Emerson Mañez
Global productivity growth is in decline and one of the significant factors is employee engagement. The state of the global workplace is that employee worldwide lacks the spirit of work to be engaged in their job. Thus, employee engagement is also in decline. This may imply that many employees are working dead so to speak and do not have the spirit to be engaged at work. Literature affirms that there is a positive significant relationship between spirituality at work and employee engagement. The link of spirituality in the workplace and employee engagement is a high agenda for many organizations across the globe. Many organizations are trying to unpack this link and try to measure how spiritual and engage their employees in their job and what to do about it towards productivity growth. This paper is exploratory and descriptive in nature. The study aims to understand and relate the concepts of spirituality, employee engagement, and productivity using works from literature and global indices. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the possible significant relation of spirituality, employee engagement, and productivity.
