Latter-day Saint Undergraduate Students' Interfaith Engagement: A Post-Intentional Phenomenological Study

Abstract

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are a minoritized and marginalized population in the United States and on most college and university campuses (Rockenbach, Bowman, et al., 2017). Recent studies highlight the negative characteristics of campus environments that affect Latter-day Saint undergraduate students' experiences. Furthermore, non-Latter-day Saint college students know little about Latter-day Saint beliefs and do not dedicate time to learn about them during college (Rockenbach et al., 2020). This qualitative study aimed to explore the question: How might interfaith engagement take shape for Latter-day Saint undergraduate students in the context of the interfaith learning environment? I used a post-intentional phenomenological research approach (Vagle, 2018) to investigate the research question and guide my study. The findings revealed that students' Latter-day Saint identity and the context of their experiences shaped their interfaith engagement. Additionally, both intrafaith and interfaith engagement influenced students' interfaith learning and development while in college. This study has implications for university administrators, faculty, and staff, Latter-day Saint Institute Directors, and Latter-day Saint students. The findings also have implications for future research on interfaith engagement, interfaith learning and development, and experiences of Latter-day Saint undergraduate students.