‘Commonness’, Diversity and Disequilibrium in Christian Higher Education: Narratives of and in Institutional Worldviews

Abstract

This paper explores the role of narratives in promoting a worldview in one Institute of Christian Higher Education (CHE), and examines how narratives function in institutional life. The authors report on a reflexive, ethnographic study into one institution of Christian Higher Education (called OC in this paper), which explores narratives of 32 participants across a 35 year span. From questionnaires, texts, interviews and participant dialogue, the authors construct a multi-leveled account of institutional life at OC, over several generations. They develop an understanding of the significance of narratives to worldview discourses in academic institutional life, and they propose some critical frameworks that enable an embodied and robust worldview which leaves scope for rich praxis rather than mere rule following by members of the institution (cf. Kemmis and Smith, 2008).