Comparisons Across Higher Education Contexts: Findings from Collaboratively Adapting an Interfaith Diversity Study

Understanding campus climates for interfaith learning and development in higher education supports universities in achieving their missions of producing global leaders and ensuring equitable access to and experiences of campus life for students of diverse religious, spiritual, and nonreligious worldviews. The Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey (IDEALS) was a mixed-method study designed to explore these issues in the United States; recently, U.K. researchers collaborated with U.S. principal investigators to collaboratively adapt IDEALS to the U.K. higher education environment. First, using the interfaith learning and development framework as a guide, the authors outline what aspects of the national and institutional contexts the adaptation process considered and how it produced the context-specific data. Second, the relational contexts for interfaith learning were explored using a multiple case study approach, which resulted in cross-context assertions about how students in both countries perceived their campus climates, engaged across worldview difference, and encountered insensitivity about worldviews during their university experience.