Intersections of faith in education: The often-silenced connections of faith, education, and global religions in diversity work

This presentation is a Panel of six scholars. For many educators, when considering facets of identity that inform and shape educational practices and beliefs, the role of faith and membership in faith communities remains uncomfortable, awkward, or even taboo. This reluctance to speak to the ways membership in faith communities and spiritual belief systems plays into our professional practices as educators may serve to create a denial or silencing of key elements of individual identities, reifying marginalizing conditions (hooks, 1997). As such, the purpose of this symposium is to give voice to multiple perspectives related to the roles of faith in educational settings and practices. Drawing from perspectives informed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Islam, Catholicism, the Baptist faith, and non-belief, the authors of the papers in this symposium root their work in North America, but speak to connections in various parts of the global community. Incorporating a range of methodological and epistemological approaches, the authors (including faculty members and doctoral students) work to reconceptualize diversity by resituating it in the global context of faith within our professional practices as educators