Our Findings

This page is an information-sharing center.  People directly involved in Ecologies of Learning can use it to learn from each other.  But it is primarily for visitors—scholars, clergy, community activists, public officials, citizens—who would like to see what we are learning about communities of faith and their interaction with urban communities of all kinds.

Findings from Metro New York
At this time, we are presenting writing by Ecologies of Learning staff and by students of New York Theological Seminary and other institutions.  As the project grows, we expect to present material by people in the congregations and communities working with EOL.

- The Consequences of Congregational Culture: How Parish Culture Shapes Parish and Civic Participation at St. Mary’s Catholic Church (by Katie DiSalvo)
- “A Tale of Two Congregations”: A Comparative Assessment of Community Building and Immigrant Adjustment in Two Congregations (by Moses Biney)

Findings from Chicago and Boston
Ecologies of Learning is an outgrowth and extension of the research initiated in the Religion in Urban America Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, with funding from the Lilly Endowment, in 1992.  It also builds on the work of the Metropolitan Congregational Studies Project at Harvard Divinity School from 2002-2004.  EOL Director Lowell Livezey was director of both of these projects and has incorporated methods and findings from these projects into the work of EOL in Metro New York.  In addition, part of the work of EOL is to compare and contrast New York with Chicago and Boston, and to build an increasingly comprehensive analysis of the many roles of religion in the large cities of the United States under the impact of globalization.  Therefore, we are presenting here some of the results of research in Chicago and Boston conducted through these projects by Dr. Livezey and his colleagues and students.

Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church-Brooklyn, NY Examining where the congregants of a church reside tells us a lot about the church.

Learn about a neighborhood in transition by mapping its culture