Calling and conflict: a qualitative exploration of interrole conflict and the sanctification of work in Christian mothers in academia.

Anderson, Tamara L.

This study investigated the role of spirituality in working Christian mothers coping with tension due to interrole conflict, in light of past research suggesting a relationship between spirituality and coping constructs. Interviews with 32 mothers working in Christian academia were examined using a post hoc analysis of content informed by principles of grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Several aspects of a sense of calling emerged that appeared related to the experience of interrole tension: a sense of certitude, collaboration, and a context of purpose. It was theorized that for these women, the sanctification of work, through experiencing a sense of calling, was related to coping with interrole tension.

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In today's culture many women with children participate in the workforce. In 2003, 7L1% of mothers in the United States with children under the age of 18 were employed (U.S. Department of Labor, 2004). The workforce participation rates of married mothers and mothers with children under the age of six were also high, at 68.6% and 62.8%, respectively. With increasing numbers of working mothers, many women take on the difficult task of managing interrole conflict, as they pursue both a career and motherhood. Interrole conflict was defined by Greenhaus and Beutell (1985) as a particular type of conflict that arises when different roles produce sets of pressures that are in some sense incompatible.

In recent years, spirituality has emerged as a key component of individual psychology. Its relevance to the topic of interrole conflict is suggested by its consistent connection to well-being (e.g., Coverman, 1989; Greenberger & O'Neil, 1993; Laster, 2002). In the following sections, existing research on interrole conflict will be reviewed, followed by a consideration of the spirituality literature suggesting a relationship with interrole conflict through the problem-solving and integrative characteristics of personal faith. It should be noted that, while interrole conflict for many working mothers takes place within the context of a family system, the current study focused on women's individual experiences and the concomitant use of personal resources.

Interrole Conflict

There is extensive research demonstrating that working mothers often report feelings of inner conflict between their career and parenting roles. This conflict is experienced as internal tension deriving from the seemingly conflicting goals of career and mothering. For example, Polasky and Holahan (1998) identified both internal and external sources of the conflict described by their participants, bringing to light the fact that the interrole conflict experienced by working mothers is not solely due to tangible role requirements, but also to internally perceived demands. Elvin-Nowak (1999) conducted a qualitative study on working mothers' experience of this internal role conflict in the form of guilt and found results similar to Polasky and Holahan; the experience of guilt was mainly due to women's subjective appraisal of the consequences of not meeting perceived role demands. Phanco's (2004) qualitative study of working mothers likewise indicated widespread experiences of internal tension, ranging from feelings of guilt to other negative self-assessments and stress.

The internal tension described here has been shown, in numerous studies, to have negative effects on the subjective well-being of working mothers. Coverman (1989) demonstrated that it is, in fact, the perception of work-family role conflict that decreases women's psychological health and well-being. Krause and Geyer-Pestello (1985) found that perceived conflict between work and home roles was highly predictive of depression in women. This effect was also observed by Greenglass (1985), whose results showed that stress from work-family conflict was associated with higher rates of psychological distress (depression, irritation, and anxiety) in women. In addition, Laster (2002) provided empirical evidence that work-family conflict is associated with psychological distress, which she defined to include depression, as well as perceived stress, guilt, and multiple types of anger. Suffering from interrole conflict has also been shown to be associated with decreased psychological and physical health in working mothers (Reifman, Biernat, & Lang, 1991).

The question of how women cope with the internal conflict between work and parenting roles has been posed by researchers. Two possible strategies that have been investigated and discussed in the literature are the superwoman strategy and the role-restructuring strategy (Polasky & Holahan, 1998). The superwoman strategy is a role expansion approach, in which women attempt to meet all the demands of each role. Role-restructuring is a re-definition strategy, where women change the external demands and/or self-expectations for each role. Gilbert, Holahan, and Manning (1981) demonstrated that women using a role re-definition strategy experienced just as much role conflict as women using a role expansion strategy, hypothesizing that role re-definition produces feelings of guilt, as women still feel that they should be fulfilling all of their responsibilities--even those which their roles no longer require. In a more recent study, Polasky and Holahan (1998) showed that more women tend to use the superwoman strategy in their efforts to balance their career and mothering roles, supporting the hypothesis that working mothers are reluctant to give up any of their many role responsibilities.

Spirituality and Coping

Recent research on spirituality suggests that it may offer an alternative way of coping with tension. Spirituality, used here to refer primarily to intrinsic faith or a personal, internalized, religious belief system, has been repeatedly linked to psychological well-being through its problem-solving and integrative properties. Gordon Allport (1950), often referred to as the father of personality psychology, spoke about the unifying aspect of personal faith:

The religious sentiment in some respects does differ in degree if not in
kind from other mature sentiments. It is certainly more comprehensive,
since it aims to join all other experiences into a single meaningful
system. It is likewise a uniquely integral system in that it aims to
give one leading directive to the life as a whole. (p. 124)

As early as 1979, Pargament, Steele, and Tyler found that individuals high in intrinsic faith (religious motivation) displayed increased psychosocial competence, which included the possession of a set of coping skills. Also in 1979, Sacks concluded that the spiritual exercises of a sample of Jesuit novices had significantly increased their self integration. Self-integration, defined as the unification of various aspects of one's personality into a coherent whole, is a construct which has been shown to be critical in optimal psychological health (Emmons, 2003).

In 1990, Newman and Pargament obtained results from a study with college students indicating that religion was often important in problem-solving, especially for emotional support and making sense out of the problems. Emmons (2000) conducted a more recent investigation of spirituality. He noted that one mechanism of the positive effect of spirituality on psychological well-being is its problem-solving qualities; spirituality can revise, reprioritize, and integrate goals, all of which are characteristics of successful problem-solving strategies. Emmons also noted that attempts at solutions that include a collaborative effort with God appear to be more helpful than those that simply defer responsibility to God.

One aspect of the problem-solving benefit of spirituality that has been alluded to above and is especially relevant to the discussion of role conflict is its integrative potential. Emmons (2003), following Allport (1950), proposed that the comprehensive nature of religion instills it with the potential to unify the conflicting aspects of one's life into a cohesive pattern, conferring the ability to manage role conflict. Conflicting roles could, thus, be psychologically managed more effectively if viewed within a spiritual framework. This framework is similar to Antonovsky's (1987) Sense of Coherence construct, which is defined as a global predisposition to approach one's life with confidence of (a) comprehensibility: that interactions with one's internal and external environments are structured, predictable and explicable; (b) manageability: that one has the necessary resources to meet the demands posed by these environments; and (c) meaningfulness: a belief in the worthiness of engaging in the environmental demands as challenges. Sense of Coherence has been found to relate to effective and adaptive responses to life stress (Flannery & Flannery, 1990). Antonovsky theorized that religion was a generalized resistance resource that could facilitate coping with stressors and lead to the development of a strong Sense of Coherence.

Another feature that highlights the relation of spirituality to interrole conflict is the importance of religion when people are faced with problems that exhaust their psychological resources (Pargament, 2002). Ozer (1995) linked self-efficacy, or the feeling that one has adequate resources to deal with situational demands, to psychological health when women are dealing with the pressures of multiple role responsibilities.

Mahoney et al. (1999) found that attributing sacredness to a domain of life was related to greater satisfaction and better functioning in that role. They labeled this psychological process sanctification. In a similar vein, Emmons (1999) discussed the relationship between personality integration, goal conflict, and well-being. He developed the term spiritual strivings to refer to goals that take on a spiritual quality. He then empirically linked these strivings to increased psychological health. Spiritual strivings are associated with increased subjective well-being, increased relationship satisfaction, and, of particular relevance here, less goal conflict. Using the same definition of sanctification as Mahoney et al., Emmons proposed that spiritual strivings affect well-being through their ability to sanctify everyday activities. Most recently, Mahoney et al. (2005) explored the sanctification of personal strivings in a community sample. Although their results did not reveal a relationship between sanctification of strivings and psychological or physical health, sanctification was found to be positively correlated with several constructs, including importance of, commitment to, confidence in, and meaning or joy derived from one's strivings.

Sanctification of career is manifested by what has been described in the literature as a sense of calling (Davidson & Caddell, 1994; Davis, 1997). From a Christian theological perspective, Davis defines calling, with respect to vocation, as a compelling summons by God that leads to the expression of oneself in a particular profession. Davidson and Caddell defined calling as work that has special meaning and that one feels led to do regardless of how much time it takes or how little money is earned; a calling is something one is put on earth to do. The results of their empirical study of calling demonstrated that internalized religion provides a contextual basis for work to be viewed as a sacred experience. Niebuhr (1956) described a providential type of calling involving matching one's talents and needs not only with those of a vocation but with those of society and the church as well. This definition leaves room for individuals to experience callings in multiple domains of their lives (e.g., career, family, community involvement, church ministry).

By increasing self-integration and promoting well-being through self-efficacy when dealing with multiple responsibilities, it appears that spirituality represents a key resource for managing interrole conflict. In addition, through the process of sanctification, viewing one's work as a calling may aid in the management of interrole conflict. Despite these multiple hypotheses regarding the benefits of spirituality in the management of conflicting role demands, there is limited research investigating the effect of women's spirituality on their experiences of role conflict. The current study investigated the experience of these interacting constructs among mothers working in academia. Qualitative methods were used to examine the impact of sanctification of career (i.e., a sense of calling to vocation) on these mothers' experiences of internal tension. The specific objective of this study was to develop a preliminary theory describing how Christian women may experience the interaction of a sense of calling to vocation, and the internal tension associated with balancing multiple roles.

METHOD

Qualitative Methodology

In order to allow for a comprehensive understanding of working Christian mothers' experiences of calling to vocation, a qualitative methodology was chosen. Interviews of Christian mothers working in academia, collected for other research purposes, had led to the unexpected discovery that vocation was a central issue in the life experiences of these women. Further qualitative analysis was done to explore their sense of calling to career. A grounded theory analytic strategy was chosen in which individuals' experiences of a phenomenon are explored and coded in the context of those experiences, then the coded constructs are integrated into a formal theory (Creswell, 1998). This methodology seemed most fitting for both the purpose of the study and the type of data. First, a grounded theory approach allowed for an exploration of the women's experiences of a sense of calling in the context of their internal tension from interrole conflict. In addition, the available data were more compatible with the methods of grounded theory. Other qualitative methodologies often require in depth interviewing of participants to obtain a complete picture of how the situation or event is experienced. The current study used selected text from archival interviews that did not specifically address the present research question, making grounded theory the more suitable type of qualitative inquiry.

Participants

The participants for this study were 32 Evangelical Christian mothers working in academia. The data were collected in two sets of interviews conducted for other research purposes. One striking finding was that the majority of the interviewed women (32 out of a total of 42 interviewed) spontaneously mentioned their sense of calling as an important aspect of their work life, leading to the present re-analysis of the archived data.

The 32 women were all professors at Christian universities and were mothers of children under the age of 18, who were still residing in the home. Participants were recruited through university faculty listings and membership listings from the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU). A variation of the snowball strategy was also utilized, where women who met the study's inclusion criteria provided referrals of acquaintances who also met the criteria. The majority of the participants were Caucasian, but also included two Black participants, one Asian American participant, and one Latina participant. Their mean age was 35, with a range from 28 to 54. The women had anywhere from one to four children (16% had 1 child; 49% had 2 children; 22% had 3 children; 13% had 4 children) with ages ranging from 6 months to 37 years (15 pre-school aged; 22 elementary-aged; 26 junior high/high school-aged; 11 over 18 years). The ages of each participant's youngest child ranged from less than a year to 17 years (13 preschool-aged; 11 elementary-aged; 8 junior high/high school-aged). All of the participants were employed full-time. Twenty-five women had doctorates in their field, while the remaining seven had masters degrees. The participants were from a wide range of disciplines, including biology, business, education, history, journalism, mathematics, music, nursing, philosophy, psychology, religion, and social work. The women shared a common evangelical Christian belief system, though a range of denominations were represented by the women and/or their schools, including Baptist, Catholic, Christian Church, Christian Reformed, Methodist, and Non-denominational. Evangelicalism is a conservative form of Christianity characterized by engagement with contemporary culture while attempting to maintain a biblically based identity, mission, and lifestyle (Gallagher & Smith, 1999). The women resided in nine different states and represented all major areas of the country.

Procedure

The data were collected utilizing a face-to-face, semi-structured interview technique. The first set of interviews focused on institutional support (Hall, Anderson, & Willingham, 2004), identity development and the impact of faith (Carruthers, 2003), and the effect of spousal support (Thorstad, Anderson, Hall, Willingham, & Carruthers, in press). The second wave of interviews followed up on themes that were noted in the first wave, focusing on mentoring (DeWeese, 2004) and the experience of internal tension, including the impact of faith (Phanco, 2004). The open-ended questions spontaneously produced response elements relevant to our purpose of exploring these women's sense of calling.

The interviews ranged from one to two hours in length. The interviews were conducted by three licensed clinical psychologists and four psychologists-in-training. The psychological training of all researchers allowed for an in-depth investigation into each woman's experience through the use of empathy, appropriate probes, and rapport-building strategies. The religious affiliation of each interviewer was not explicitly conveyed to the participants; however, the fact that the interviewers worked or studied at Evangelical Christian universities was not concealed. The interview questions (see Appendix) were composed by the researchers and tailored in a research group setting with no less than five members. While there was a set of pre-determined questions for each wave of interviews, their semi-structured nature gave the flexibility for follow-up questions to be asked in response to the surfacing of unexpected aspects related to the research topics. Also, in order to better explore the desired phenomena of study, the interview questions were tailored and revised in the aforementioned research group throughout the interviewing process. The flexibility inherent in both the semi-structured approach and the revision process is characteristic of qualitative inquiry (Creswell, 1998; Rubin & Rubin, 1995; Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

Data Analysis

The interviews were tape recorded and transcribed. Post-hoc analyses of the interview content informed by grounded theory methodology were used (Creswell, 1998; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Grounded theory prescribes that analysis follow four phases of coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) which were adhered to in this study: microanalysis (analysis of individual words, phrases, and sentences in brief sections of the data), open coding (formation of initial categories and dimensionalized subcategories based on the exploration of similarities and differences between interviewees), axial coding (examination of how each category connects with the other categories while considering the conditions, context, strategies, and consequences of each category), and selective coding (construction of a single core category to which all other categories are subsidiary).

Due to the problematic issues often encountered when applying the concept of internal validity to qualitative analyses (Seale, 1999), several other strategies were utilized to ensure the quality of the study. As recommended by Creswell (1998), data triangulation was achieved from the geographical, institutional, and denominational diversity of the participants, enabling the provision of a richer description of the women's experiences. Several researchers conducted the original interviews, meeting regularly to read and discuss the transcripts. During analysis of the archival data, the researchers met with a research group biweekly to examine and discuss the relevant interview content and emergent themes. These forms of investigator triangulation (Denzin, 1978) have been found to result in a reduction of personal biases. All theoretical statements were grounded in interview data (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), a practice that is considered an indicator of quality by Seale (1999). During this study, emerging categories and themes were continuously compared to previous codings. However, with respect to theoretical saturation (Creswell, 1998), since the data were archival, analysis continued until all interviews were coded in order to provide the richest possible description of the phenomenon.

With respect to the selection of relevant interviews, Davis' (1997) definition was used during qualitative coding as a guide to help identify which women from the previous studies were viewing their work as a calling. As previously noted, Davis described one's calling to vocation as a compelling sense of summons from God that leads to the expression of oneself in a particular profession. In addition to those who spoke explicitly of their vocation as a calling, women who spoke of their careers in the context of their evangelical Christian faith using phrases like "where I'm supposed to be" were considered to be viewing their work as a spiritual calling and thus their transcripts were also selected for inclusion in the current study.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

During the qualitative analysis, it was found that all of the women had feelings of tension between their multiple roles. Several aspects of the women's sense of calling emerged that clustered into three broad areas: (a) attributes of their sense of calling, (b) factors that shape what is experienced as their calling, and (c) implications of their sense of calling. Each of these aspects contains features that relate to the women's experiences of interrole tension in a way that can be formulated into a unified theory. For these women, the sanctification of work, through experiencing a sense of calling, seemed related to coping with interrole tension. This interaction appeared to occur through a sense of certitude, collaboration, and a context of purpose that developed out of viewing one's work as a calling. In order to present this overarching theory in a context relevant to the women's experiences, the three main aspects of a sense of calling will first be discussed, followed by a description of their relationship to interrole tension.

Attributes of a Sense of Calling

The women described several concepts that can be seen as attributes of their sense of calling. These characteristics were: a sense of conviction about one's vocation, seeing one's vocation as a meaningful pursuit, the comprehensive nature of one's calling, and the collective responsibility to fulfill one's calling.

A sense of conviction. Davis' (1997) definition of calling mentioned the compelling nature of the call. Many of the women in the present study exhibited this level of conviction about their calling. There was often a clear, strong belief that their career was a spiritual enterprise about which they were certain. One woman stated, "I've always known I was called to teach." While this level of certitude was apparent in many women's discussions of their calling, some women had a less focused sense of what they felt God was leading them to do. These women expressed the feeling that their calling may not always be clear to them, but they still experienced an understanding about the nature of being called that included an aspect of conviction. As one participant put it:

I believe God calls all of us. He gives us all a plan although we don't
always know what that is. I guess we have to do the best we can from the
circumstances in our lives, like when I pray and how do I feel
convicted ...

This woman appeared committed to both the pursuit of certainty (e.g., through prayer) and doing her best to follow her sense of calling in the meantime.

A meaningful pursuit. In addition to a high level of conviction about their calling, several women also described their calling in terms of a meaningful pursuit. It was apparent that being involved with something significant was a key aspect of their sense of calling to their career. One woman described her calling, "not to just do research for the sake of it, but to actually address meaningful problems and hopefully help someone at the end of the day with that." Another woman described her process of distinguishing her calling from pure selfishness.

So there is this internally, I have this, "am I being selfish or am I
really called?" I have that conversation in my mind quite a bit.

Interviewer: "What does it go like?"

"Are you being selfish? You're just doing this because you want to be
doing it. You want to work, you just love it, and you enjoy it. And so,
that's what you are doing, or do you enjoy it because it's what you are
supposed to be doing?" So far, it's always come out that, I have
students tell me things like, "You really made a difference in my life,
I'm so glad that you are my teacher, I've learned so much from you," you
know whatever that is, I feel I have a purpose for being there.

It seems that for many of the women, the feeling that there is a purpose behind one's work was a significant attribute of seeing their work as a calling.

Comprehensive nature of the call. Another characteristic of a sense of calling that emerged from the interviews was it's comprehensive span across the various domains of the women's lives. Several women shared strong feelings that their teaching, mentoring, advising, research, spousal, and mothering roles were all experienced as callings from God. One woman expressed delight over the realization that, in addition to being called to be a wife and mother, she was called to her career as well. Related to this comprehensive aspect, many of the women also felt somewhat of a hierarchical structure to their "multiple callings." While emphasizing their felt sense of calling to their careers, several women noted that their children were, as one woman put it, a "higher calling."

Collective nature of the call. Also relating to the comprehensiveness of the women's experiences of calling, a collective aspect of calling emerged. One woman stated, "you're not called to live life alone ... you can't work out your calling alone." She was illustrating her opinion that fulfilling one's calling, whether to motherhood or career, requires the context of relationships. Other women also talked about their callings in the context of affecting other people's lives. One participant described her calling in a very communal sense; however, unlike the women who described the necessity of carrying out one's calling by impacting others, this woman articulated a reliance on her family to facilitate her sense of calling, to make it possible for her to fulfill her calling. She described a sort of collective nature of her calling that is consistent with Mahoney et al. (2005) finding that sanctification of a striving is related to perception of social support for that striving.

It's just a sense in the whole family that I have a calling and its more
than just my ambition; it's more than just my thing and so I think the
family, including my daughter, sort of have a sense that it's their
responsibility to make it work for me, just as its my responsibility to
make their calling possible for them. So, I think that maybe underlying
this whole thing of cooperation among us, in the whole sense of we're in
this together, is the idea that this is really God's plan for us.

Factors that Shape One's Sense of Vocational Calling

The literature suggests that many factors influence one's vocational choice. Theories of vocation selection include those dealing with both personal (e.g., Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 2001; Holland, 1973) and environmental aspects (e.g., Arenofsky, 2002; Bratcher, 1982). As the interviews for this study were analyzed and the factors that shaped the women's sense of calling emerged, they fell into categories that parallel those established in the literature. We have described these emergent categories as internal and external shapers. The majority of the women expressed both inner feelings and environmental circumstances that were involved in shaping their sense of calling.

Internal shapers. One internal feature of the women's experiences that appeared to assist them in shaping their sense of calling was subjective enjoyment of their job. Almost all of the women in the study expressed some sort of positive evaluation of their career tasks that seemed related to their experiencing their work as a calling. For example, with respect to the teaching career that she considers a calling, one woman said: "For me there was just a love of learning, and an incredible sense of passion, and mission." Feeling that her love of teaching was used by God to point her in the direction of her calling, another woman articulated, "I just fell in love with teaching.... [God] kind of uses your interests at an intersection of opportunity and blesses that."

Along with a basic enjoyment of one's career, another factor that the women identified as shaping their sense of being called was their sense of personal skills or God-given gifts. "I really felt like I was really called to do this. And this is really where my strength is.... I think this is probably my gift that I have." This woman saw her area of strength as collaborating evidence that she was pursuing her calling. The following woman also directly links her gifts to her sense of where God is calling her, articulating that her gifts are determining her participation in what she feels is her calling.

I think from a work point of view, I see my job here ... as my calling.
That's where God has gifted me in that split. That is what I do because
that's where my talents are and I don't feel like I can't work because I
have a role as a mother; because I know that's where my gifts are.

Other women also shared this compelling sense to make use of what they viewed as their God-given gifts. "You are kind of turning your back on what God has given you if you don't use what you've got to the best of your ability."

Together with enjoyment and the concept of using one's skills and gifts, several women described a feeling of complementarity that appeared to shape their sense of calling. One participant articulated this idea as follows: "I think this is really what God wanted me to do--is to teach. He wanted me to be teaching here and it's sort of like a glove, it just fits me."

In some cases, women described an internal sense of peace that helped them discern and shape their sense of calling. In the midst of some tension, one woman used prayer to ask God if she was in line with God's will for her life. She described that the result "wasn't any audible voice, wasn't any lightning, it was a peace and a love for what I was doing ... that let me know that I was in the right place." In addition to the enjoyment of or love for career that many other women mentioned, this woman had an internal sense of peace that helped her discern where she felt God calling her to be.

External shapers. The first external cue that appeared to shape many women's sense of calling was the reflection on one's circumstances. As one woman put it:

I feel God is calling me to do this. I may not be handling it exactly
the way He'd like me to but I have to have faith since, if I look back
now and see what I couldn't see twenty years ago or thirty, you know,
this does seem to be the right thing. It is working well in many ways.

This woman is using the fact that circumstances are working out well as confirmation that she is in line with her sense of calling. Often, the women attributed a sequence of circumstances to God's leading. The idea conveyed was that "God just decided that this is where He wanted me to be and He led me here." While these women all believed that God-directed chains of events shaped their sense of calling, the specific mechanisms they described varied. Some participants viewed their God-directed circumstances as direct sources of confirmation that they were accurately following their sense of calling. One woman stated: "Everything just sort of fell into place.... This was my job, this is where I need to be so, I recognize that and I feel that God definitely had a hand on that." Other women experienced a more indirect confirmation, seeing their circumstances as proof that God had prepared them with the skills that fit with their sense of calling. One woman interpreted all the experiences of her life as giving her a specific skill set suited for the calling she sensed from God.

Another external factor that surfaced while exploring the women's sense of calling was the presence of "a role to play" or perceived needs the woman could meet. Again, while many women expressed this sentiment, the specific roles they saw themselves filling varied. Several women expressed how they felt called to be role models for their female students. For example: "I kind of feel called to help them and kind of show them how it's done. Not that I have perfected it, by any means, but just to show them that it can be done and be done well." This woman expressed seeing a need in her female students, which shaped her sense of calling in the direction of being a role model for them. Several women made comments about how their sense of obligation to make professional contributions shaped their calling. One woman explained, "I really have a big influence to make as a professor. It has felt like, that I could fulfill a call that God gave me through that role." Another woman saw her children's needs as shapers of her vocational calling.

Who I am as a mom keeps me in line with God's will for my life. I think
I would be tempted ... to push myself to be here and keep going, and I
would probably find myself in a position that I'm not ready to obtain.

This woman expressed the idea that her role as a mother, with children's needs to attend to, helps her to interpret God's direction with respect to her career goals.

One last external source that shaped some women's callings was religious knowledge. Such knowledge was gained by these women through two ways. First, through personal study of the Bible (referred to by the women as "Scripture"), some women found what they felt was direction from God with respect to God's will for their lives. Also, conversations and interactions with fellow Christians seemed to help some women discern the area of God's calling in their lives. For example, one woman described the necessity of her Christian community in deciphering her specific vocational calling.

Implications of One's Sense of Calling

The women in this study made statements alluding to three major implications of sensing a calling in their lives: strong commitment to and high priority of one's calling, the source of strength through which tasks are completed, and a different perspective on failure. Many women expressed the feeling that their calling is of high importance to them, leading them to experience a strong commitment to their multiple calling-related tasks. One woman said:

I remember at my previous institution, you know, if you talk about these
tensions, it's like, "well, just don't do any scholarship, that's fine."
But, it's like, "you don't understand ..." I could just teach and not do
any scholarship, I mean, that would be easier. But it's my calling to do
all this, it's all part of a package and so I don't have the option of
not doing it.

This woman's description of her calling is representative of many other women's experience in this study, and is consistent with research showing that imbuing a goal with a sacred meaning increases commitment to that goal (Emmons, 2000). Also evident in some interviews was the element of committing to tasks that are a part of one's sense of calling even if the enjoyment aspect is missing.

I had to see what was happening in the classroom as a Christian vocation
because I honestly didn't want to do that part.... Maybe I would rather
be in my office at my desk typing, but that's not all that God has
called me to do.

For several women, the consequence of placing one's calling in a position of high importance was the act of prioritizing. "For me, I feel like I have two callings [teaching and mothering]. I'm committed to both of those and everything else falls by the wayside." In a similar manner to the way in which spiritual conversion can lead one to re-prioritize goals (Paloutzian, Richardson, & Rambo, 1999), it seems that these women, by sensing their careers as spiritual endeavors, were led to prioritize their lives so that their callings maintain positions of higher importance than other activities. The high importance and strong commitment to one's calling, as expressed by the women in this study, matches the quantitative results obtained by Mahoney et al. (in press).

Emerging as another implication of seeing one's career as a calling was a certain understanding of the source from which one receives strength to complete role-related tasks. The women discussed this as a type of transcendence, receiving strength for a task above and beyond what would be considered humanly possible. "I really, really believe the bottom line that God gives you the grace to do what He has called you to do. Other than that, it cannot be done." Another woman commented, "If I want to succeed at both [career and motherhood], I really think I have to have God's help." The idea that there is a divine source of strength outside of one's own abilities that will assist in the working out of one's calling was present in numerous women's interviews.

The embracing of a transcendent source of strength appeared closely related to another implication of the women's sense of calling: their understanding of failure. In many interviews, there was a sense of self-acceptance. The women acknowledged that they were fallible people working on spiritual callings, and they believed that God would provide the divine strength to accomplish God's purpose in spite of their mistakes.

As you talk to people and as you read scripture and as you observe what
happens in church history ... you do see how God works with imperfect
people who do dumb things and insensitive things, who do inconsiderate
things and somehow the kingdom still moves on.... It gives you the idea
of the faith perspective, "this is my calling, there is forgiveness,
right?"

This woman eloquently stated the belief that if she follows her calling, there will be forgiveness for mistakes or failures. Often appearing embedded in this perspective of failure, many of the women had what is referred to by Cole and Pargament (1999) as spiritual surrender.

There are a lot of things that I am able to just give up to know that I
am not in charge of that, somebody else is controlling that. And so,
instead of taking all this guilt on myself, I am able to say, "God is
there and He's going to work it out."

Many of the women who experienced a sense of calling appeared to release themselves from guilt-inducing responses to failure through spiritual surrender, believing that the ultimate responsibility to make sure things work out is not theirs, but God's.

Experiences of Interrole Tension

Each woman in this study experienced some level of tension between her mothering and career goals. Participants described feelings such as stress, guilt, conflict, and moral dilemma that are consistent with the literature on interrole tension in working mothers (e.g., Gilbert, Holahan, & Manning, 1981; Polasky & Holahan, 1998). Out of the 42 archival interviews available, experiencing a sense of calling to vocation was mentioned in 32. While the interviews without reference to a sense of calling were not analyzed in detail, experiences of negative affect related to interrole tension, especially a sense of guilt and self-blame, seemed fairly pervasive and unresolved for these participants. The women who experienced their careers as spiritual callings often inserted caveats, qualifiers, or a sense of resolution into their descriptions of interrole tension. These statements are central to the interaction of the women's sense of calling and interrole tension and will be discussed in the following section.

Vocation Through the Sanctification Lens: A Grounded Theory

The central theme that emerged from the data seemed to unify the women's experiences of the interaction between a sense of calling and feelings of interrole tension. In 1999, Emmons proposed that the sanctification of everyday activities, such that goals become spiritual strivings, can give coherence to one's pursuits, leading to increased subjective well-being and decreased goal conflict. Stemming from their spiritual beliefs, the women in this study sanctified many of their roles, experiencing them as callings, and their responsibilities in these roles were seen as spiritual endeavors that were part of a greater plan. This ability to sanctify roles emerged as a key factor in their level of adaptive coping. Through this sanctification lens, the tension or conflict experienced between roles was more readily accepted and sometimes even embraced. The women looked at their careers as callings, and this approach provided a framework from which they could deal with their interrole tension. This sanctification framework consists of three main elements, comprising our grounded theory: (a) certitude and commitment, (b) collaboration, and (c) a context of purpose (Figure 1).

Certitude and commitment. The attribute of conviction that most of the women felt about their calling emerged as critical to the experience of internal tension over their multiple roles and, thus, was included in the grounded theory as the construct of certitude. This sureness seemed to stem from the previously discussed factors that they saw as shaping their sense of calling. One woman related the enjoyment and complementarity she felt with her multiple callings to an ability to deal with the interrole tension. This woman embraced the tension because of the fit she felt with her sense of calling. She said, "Challenging? Yes. Does it always balance? No. Do you feel pulled and tugged? Yes. But I love it." This woman's experience is consistent with the literature that links role satisfaction and positive affect with increased psychological well-being (e.g., Coverman, 1989). Other women expressed the link between their level of certainty and their ability to cope with the interrole tension in terms of their reliance on Scripture to help shape their sense of calling. One woman described her practice as follows:

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Every time I look at all these areas, that was going bonkers in my life,
I would always run back to the Word in Scripture. "Let me know if this
is Your will and I'm okay. I can handle the stress, I can handle the
craziness of this life if You just let me know if this is Your will."

The ability to cope that this woman felt was reliant on her sense of being in God's will for her life. As long as she felt she was correctly interpreting her sense of calling, she was confident that she could handle the interrole tension.

For many women, certitude of one's calling to vocation was related to commitment to one's career. One woman said, "This is my calling, this is not my job. I don't have any choice over doing this, this is what I'm called to do. So I don't feel any tension over what I'm called to do." This definitive statement illustrates her strong commitment to the career she feels certain is her calling. Research in the field of personal goals suggests that high commitment to attainable goals is related to increased subjective well-being (Brunstein, 1993). For many women in this study, high commitment to one's calling led to setting priorities, and appeared to be related to adaptive coping with interrole tension. One participant said the following:

I guess if God leads you to have a job or a profession that there is a
way that you can balance it to please Him, and, if you don't put
unrealistic expectations on yourself, that you can feel like you are
accomplishing everything He wants you to.

This woman believed that she could successfully tackle the demands of her multiple roles and committed to doing so because she was certain of her calling.

Collaboration. The belief that one has adequate interpersonal resources to deal with the demands of both parenting and a career was related to an ability to handle interrole tension for many of this study's participants. This was experienced in a manner reminiscent of Antonovsky's (1987) concept of manageability; however, this phenomenon went a step further in that a collaborative nature to approaching life's demands was often emphasized. The women expressed that the resources to manage their multiple roles came, not only from their own strength, but from the help of others. One woman articulated that her family was instrumental in helping her balance her life and pursue her career. Others expressed gratitude for coworkers and friends in helping them balance their multiple responsibilities. Despite the significant role of these groups of individuals, the majority of women ultimately attributed their strength as coming from a divine source. For these women, the critical collaboration, helping with their experience of tension, could be defined as a belief in a larger power who would be faithful to provide strength and get them through their tasks. Believing they had access to a divine source of strength, the women had confidence in their ability to fulfill their callings. This confidence can be seen as elevated feelings of self-efficacy, a construct which has been linked to psychological health when dealing with stress from multiple responsibilities (Ozer, 1995). With respect to this divine source of power, one woman exclaimed, "If I didn't have that, I don't know, I think the stress level would be much, much higher." In the context of discussing the calling she felt to be a wife, mother, and professional, another woman described God as "the great burden lifter," continuing, "with all of the different things that happen to be on a plate of responsibilities for the day ... I don't think I would be able to sort of manage or have a calm in the storm or peace about things without being able to know that God cares about every detail."

A context of purpose. Central to the relationship between a sense of calling and the experience of interrole tension for these women was the idea that one's work was taking place in the context of a meaningful "larger plan." This sense of purpose, which was an attribute of calling for many women, seemed to put their struggles with interrole conflict in a transcendent perspective. For example, one participant explained:

There is that tension, "should I be home with [the children] all the
time or should I be here?"... But then there's this peace about the
calling ... about impacting people's lives and having eternal
consequences and that helps me to get the broad picture.

This woman's felt sense of tension appears to be mediated by viewing her job as a calling in a context that has eternal consequences. For another woman, the feeling that she was partnering with God made every aspect of her life divinely meaningful, which helped reduce her feelings of stress and tension. For other women, seeing their work in the meaningful context of God's ultimate plan had implications for their understanding of failure in various roles. One woman articulated:

The part of me that recognizes that there is a greater plan is now able
to reflect back to where I came from in terms of a variety of places
that didn't make sense that now make more sense and it makes me excited
about, "what next?" And also it allows me to accept things that don't
work.

This woman was able to accept when things didn't go according to her own plans because of an ability to focus on the larger perspective and reflect on the fulfillment of a greater purpose. In a similar vein, several women expressed that they saw failure as an inevitable part of being human, but that they still believed that God would use them, through their calling, for God's ultimate purposes. Others were able to avoid feeling excessive guilt, which is often a major contributor to women's feelings of interrole tension, because they considered their careers as spiritual callings which they believed were taking place in a context where God was, and would remain, ultimately in control.

While there were many aspects of the women's sense of calling that surfaced as relating to their experience of interrole tension, they can be understood through a sanctification framework. For these women, feeling a sense of calling to vocation appeared related to effectively coping with the tension between mothering and career roles through the constructs of certitude and commitment, collaboration, and a context of purpose.

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

The current study of Christian mothers working in academia found that the women who experienced their profession as a spiritual calling often felt able to adaptively deal with the tension between their career and mothering roles. The management of interrole tension appeared related to the sanctification framework from which they approached their careers. Certitude about one's calling, stemming from both internal and external shapers, along with high commitment to one's calling was associated with a sense of adaptive coping for several of the women. Belief in a collaboration with God, who was the ultimate source of strength for these women, and the associated confidence or self-efficacy they felt with respect to their careers, appeared to significantly reduce the impact of stress for most of the women. Finally, viewing their careers in a context of purpose (i.e., with eternal significance) helped many participants deal with guilt and put failures in perspective, decreasing the internal tension experienced due to multiple roles.

These findings provide some preliminary qualitative support for Emmons' (2003) hypothesis that spirituality may be a useful resource for coping with interrole tension. The results also lend tentative support to his related notion that spirituality can add coherence to one's life by unifying sets of conflicting goals under a broader perspective. Seen from this unifying perspective, sanctification of career is similar to Antonovsky's (1987) concept of Sense of Coherence. This construct describes a global predisposition to approach one's life with confidence of comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness, and has been linked to effective and adaptive responses to life stress (Flannery & Flannery, 1990). However, Antonovsky theorized that religion was a generalized resistance resource that could facilitate coping with stressors and lead to the development of a strong Sense of Coherence. From the experiences of the women in this study, it seems that their personal faith actually transformed the factors that Antonovsky proposed lead to a unified perspective on life. The sanctification of various roles added a transcendent dimension to their lives that broadened the focus from personal to collaborative manageability and decreased the importance of constant comprehensibility.

It is important to note that the purpose of this study was not included in the focus of the interview questions and that data analysis took place using archival interviews. Questions that specifically addressed the women's experience of the interaction between their interrole tension and sense of calling would have facilitated a more direct exploration of this relationship, and data collection that occurred concurrently with analysis would have allowed questions to be revised throughout the process to capture a greater understanding of the phenomena. In addition, the participants reflected only a small amount of ethnic diversity and were all highly educated, working in academia at Christian universities. A replication of this study using customized interview questions and a more diverse sample of participants would be useful to determine whether or not the present grounded theory applies across ethnicity and employment class.

In conclusion, the results of this study suggest an additional dimension in the understanding of spirituality as it relates to subjective well-being. Previously in the literature, a relationship has been established between subjective well being and adaptively coping with interrole tension. From our qualitative analysis of the experiences of Christian mothers in academia, we theorize that the sanctification of work, through experiencing one's vocation as a calling, helped this sample of women cope with the tension experienced between their multiple roles by leading them to approach their pursuits with commitment and confidence in a context of ultimate purpose.

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AUTHORS

OATES, KERRIS L.M. Address: Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University, 13800 Biola Avenue, La Mirada, CA 90639. Title: Graduate Student. Degrees: MA, Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University; BS, McMaster University.

HALL, M. ELIZABETH LEWIS. Address: Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University, 13800 Biola ave, La Mirada, CA, 90639. Title: Associate Professor. Degrees: PhD, MA, BA, Biola University. Specializations: Psychodynamic psychotherapy; missions and mental health; women and work.

ANDERSON, TAMARA L. Address: Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University, 13800 Biola ave, La Mirada, CA, 90639. Titles: Director of Clinical Training; Associate Professor of Psychology. Degrees: PhD, California School of Professional Psychology; MA, Pepperdine University; BS, Biola University. Specializations: Individual and Group Psychotherapy.

APPENDIX

Sample Interview Questions

The following is a sample of interview questions from the various domains addressed in the two waves of interviews utilized for this study.

Institutional Support

* How has the school facilitated/made more difficult your task of balancing your many roles?

* How has the church/Christian community responded to your working?

Identity Development

* What comes to mind when someone asks, "Who are you?"

* How important is work to who you are? How would someone else know that about you?

* How important is being a mom to who you are? How would someone else know that about you?

The Impact of Faith

* How have your faith or religious beliefs impacted who you are and the choices that you have made in these multiple roles?

* Does being a Christian impact your idea of what being the best mom and best professional looks like for you? How so?

The Effect of Spousal Support

* Describe how your husband is involved in your multiple roles.

* How do you handle childcare in your home?

* Describe how your husband feels about your work. Example?

Mentoring

* Are you currently in relationships in which you see yourself as a mentor? Can you tell me about this relationship(s)?

* Tell me about the person(s) who has (have) had the most influence/impact on your life.

Experience of Internal Tension

* When it comes to your roles, describe for me what it would look like for you to be the best mom.

* Tell me about what it would look like for you to be the best professional you can be.

* What is it like when you fall short of what these ideals about motherhood and your career are. What are you left feeling? What do you say to yourself?

* Tell me a story about the most recent time when you experienced some tension between your roles as mother and professional.

KERRIS L.M. OATES, M. ELIZABETH LEWIS HALL, and TAMARA L. ANDERSON

Biola University

The authors wish to thank Biola University for a Faculty Research and Development Grant which partially funded this project. Correspondence concerning this article may be sent to Kerris L.M. Oates, MA, Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University, 13800 Biola Avenue, La Mirada, CA 90639. Email: kerris.l.oates@biola.edu