Facilitating spiritual intelligence in South African secondary school learners

Abstract

This article was motivated by concern for the challenges-on a spiritual level-that secondary school learners in South Africa face in the context of moral decay. It therefore aims to develop educational strategies that Life Orientation teachers in particular can use to facilitate spiritual intelligence (SQ) in learners, especially when religious and cultural diversity in schools is considered. To this end, a programme to develop SQ was designed based on a literature review, and then implemented within the framework of socio-constructivism. Purposive sampling was employed to select 10 Grade 11 learners in a secondary school in Pretoria. The programme was implemented with the learners in seven contact sessions over a period of three months. To evaluate the programme, a qualitative case study design was employed. Continuous evaluation during implementation was by means of learner reflective activities, informal conversation interviews, focus groups, semistructured interviews, observations and a researcher self-reflective journal. The findings of this exploratory study revealed that certain content and educational strategies can facilitate SQ in secondary school learners.