The current qualitative study explored experiences of religion/spirituality and their impact on women’s identities among Christian working mothers in academia. Thirty semi-structured interviews were conducted and the data analyzed using the grounded theory method. The resultant themes reflected the roles and functions of religion/spirituality in women’s lives and in their identities, primarily by establishing a core sense of self that unified all of their roles and “selves.” Religion/spirituality also served as meaning-making frameworks that provided purpose both to the self and to each of the women’s roles, while religion/spirituality also pervaded every aspect of the self, coloring women’s experience and driving their decisions. Further, women discussed religion/spirituality providing a sense of purpose by which they could pursue actualization and transcendence through generative means in each of their roles. The results indicate that spiritual identity may be a broader and more fundamental element of identity than previously considered. Implications of the current data and suggestions for future research are discussed.

当前的定性研究探讨了宗教/精神信仰的经验及其对学术界基督教工作母亲中妇女身份的影响。进行了30次半结构化访谈，并使用扎根理论方法对数据进行了分析。由此产生的主题主要是通过建立一种将所有角色和“自我”统一起来的核心自我意识，来反映宗教/灵性在妇女生活和身份中的作用和功能。宗教/精神生活也充当了意义的框架，为自我和每个女性角色提供了目的，而宗教/精神生活也遍及自我的各个方面，充实了妇女的经验并推动了她们的决定。进一步，妇女讨论了宗教/灵性，提供了一种目的感，使她们可以通过产生性手段在各自的角色中追求实现和超越。结果表明，精神认同可能是比以前考虑的更广泛和更基本的认同要素。讨论了当前数据的含义以及对未来研究的建议。