Original Research - Special Collection: Society

Transformative remedies towards managing diversity in South African theological education

Marilyn Naidoo
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies | Vol 71, No 2 | a2667 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v71i2.2667 | © 2015 Marilyn Naidoo | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 24 March 2014 | Published: 29 May 2015

About the author(s)

Marilyn Naidoo, Department of Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology, University of South Africa, South Africa

Abstract

South Africa is a complex society filled with diversity of many kinds. Because of the enormous and profound changes of the last 20 years of democracy, this can be perceived as a society in social identity crisis which is increasingly spilling over into many areas of life. Churches have also gone through a process of reformulating their identity and have restructured theological education for all its members resulting in growing multicultural student bodies. These new student constituencies reflect a wide spectrum of cultural backgrounds, personal histories and theological commitments, and represent diversity in race, ethnicity, culture, class, gender, age, language and sexual orientation. These issues of diversity are theologically complicated and contested as they are attached to religious dogma. Diversity exists as a threat and promise, problem and possibility. Using current conceptualisations of diversity in South African Higher Education this article will seek to understand the notion of diversity and difference and the possibility of developing transformative remedies within the theological education curriculum.

Keywords

Theological Education; Diversity; Higher Education; Christian Institutions

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Crossref Citations

1. Practical theological considerations for a transformative theological education agenda in an African context
Alfred Brunsdon
Practical Theology  vol: 13  issue: 4  first page: 427  year: 2020  
doi: 10.1080/1756073X.2019.1635741