Modelling pillars of Catholic school identity: an Australian study

Abstract

Within a paradigm of building identity from a perspective of continuity and discontinuity, a model of Catholic school identity is developed from the integration of applied research with perspectives from Post Conciliar Magisterium documents. The integration of data confirmed the significance of core factors, nominated as pillars, and incorporating Faith, Learning, Community, Leadership and Formation concepts as foundational to Catholic school identity. Cross-tabulation of the nominated pillars confirmed their validity with the initial data pools and offered additional insight as to their overall priority within and across the applied and theoretical data. Outcomes permitted a discussion of the dynamism of the pillars, comparability across sources, the interdependence of themes within each of the pillars, the generation of a model and the nomination of processes of integration to explain the overall interdependence of the data. The pillars, together with their associated themes, were advanced as offering a mental model to nurture meaning, assess change and build strategy within the dynamic system of the Catholic school.