The Journal of Bahá’í Studies

Baha'i-inspired Educational Endeavors and Social Justice

2023-07-04T05:45:47+00:00

Bahá’í-inspired educational endeavors naturally seek, among other aims, to instill capacity in young people to build a more just society. Other educational efforts in North America share this aim, which is often expressed using the term “social justice.” This paper analyses conceptions of authority, freedom, power, equality, and identity that are mobilized in the context of educational endeavors associated with the aim of social justice. Some of these conceptions, it is argued, can lead to certain confusions in educational thought and practice. If education, Bahá’í-inspired or otherwise, is to contribute to social justice, careful attention needs to be given to the way these concepts are understood and translated into action.

Expanding on a Bahá’í-Inspired Pedagogy of Social Transformation

2024-08-13T09:47:08+00:00

The authors, both collaborators with the Wilmette Institute, are learning what pedagogical principles can be gleaned from community-building and training processes in the global Bahá’í community and how to apply these principles in formal higher education. Worldviews are deceptively complex and impactful in learning processes. Therefore, the authors challenge dominant models shaped by materialism and partisan onto-epistemologies. Rejecting competency-based education, Wilmette Institute programs aim to build capacity for contributing to prevalent discourses informed by our approach to engaging with them through the Bahá’í-inspired evolving framework for collective learning. The Institute’s curriculum design encourages faculty and students to adopt a learning posture through an environment that fosters a humble, searching heart, pure motive, and willingness to transform.

Interdisciplinarity, Connectivity and Capability

2026-05-19T18:09:14+00:00

Gaining insight into the complex problems facing humanity requires an ability to read one’s social reality, a right and responsibility shouldered by all. This paper explores the strengths and limitations of an interdisciplinary approach to reading social reality in the context of an interconnected world beset by attitudinal and social fragmentation. Having articulated certain limitations of interdisciplinarity as currently conceived, it examines “learning in action” (an iterative process involving consultation, action, reflection and study of the Sacred Texts) and its role in the promotion of human agency through the development of new capabilities, leading in turn to purposeful action and societal transformation.

From the Editor's Desk

2026-05-19T18:00:05+00:00

Some Seeds

2026-05-19T18:14:51+00:00

Psalm for Mirza Mihdi

2026-05-19T20:09:35+00:00

Exploring the Kitáb-i-Aqdas

2026-05-19T20:20:22+00:00

Review of

Exploring the Kitáb-i-Aqdas: The Laws and Teachings of the Bahá’í Faith, by Omid Ghaemmaghami and Shahin Vafai. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2025.

Exploring the Kitáb-i-Aqdas

2026-05-19T20:32:34+00:00

Review of

Exploring the Kitáb-i-Aqdas: The Laws and Teachings of the Bahá’í Faith, by Omid Ghaemmaghami and Shahin Vafai. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2025.

Millennialism, Millerites, and Prophecy in Bahá’í Discourse

2026-05-19T20:40:31+00:00

Review of

Millennialism, Millerites, and Prophecy in Bahá’í Discourse, by William P. Collins. London & New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 2025. xxxiii + 261 pp. Hardback. ISBN 978-1032504032