Marketing Christian higher education in Canada: a ‘nested’ fields perspective

The last two decades have witnessed an explosion in the growth and sophistication of post-secondary education (PSE) marketing. Education scholars have taken notice, both decrying such developments and studying its emerging characteristics. However, to date, empirical studies of PSE marketing have focused on mainstream secular organizations. Few researchers have sought to examine how Christian colleges and universities (CCUs) present themselves via promotional materials. This limits our understandings of how PSE marketing has evolved in different segments of the field. Through this study, we conduct an exploratory thematic analysis of the home web pages of 93 Canadian CCUs. We find that, depending on their field positioning, this organizational population varies in the extent to which it leverages religiosity to construct and communicate their identities. We make sense of these dynamics through the ‘nested fields’ perspective within organization studies.