Pastoral care as faith-practice of a Christian leader in a multi-faith school

Abstract

This study aimed to develop a basic framework for the Christian principal in a multi-faith school to provide pastoral care as faith-practice. To achieve this, the insights of power and authority from philosophical, sociological, and religious viewpoints; the impact of lived religion as faith practice on Christian leaders in multi-faith schools and pastoral care in a school setting were investigated. Qualitative data was collected using unstructured interviews of four high school principals. Data was analysed using inductive and thematic data analysis. Major and minor themes were identified and refined. This study determined that school principals face a variety of pressures that influence their decision making, including external governmental forces, and stakeholders that react to the principal based on their perception of power and the authority the principal holds. The principal will be influenced by their religious views, resulting in positive and negative outcomes. Their religious views can be manifested as faith practice in the form of a pastoral care programme they implement in the school they lead. All aspects of the influences exerted on the principal are taken into account with the development of a framework that would incorporate all these influences to form a guide in which they can plan, develop, establish and manage a pastoral care programme in the school over which they have been appointed.