In September 1980, a small international group of Jesuits and lay people met in Rome to discuss numerous important issues related to secondary education in the schools of the Society of Jesus. These discussions culminated in 1986 with the publication of the seminal document entitled “The Characteristics of the Educational Activity of the Society of Jesus,” promulgated on December 8, 1986 by the Superior General, Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach SJ.

The document contains 28 characteristics of Jesuit education, organized into 9 sections, which highlight Ignatius’ spiritual experience as the ultimate source of Jesuit education.

The document can help all those who work in Jesuit education to exercise the essential task of apostolic discernment. It can be the basis for renewed reflection on the experience of the educational apostolate and, in light of that reflection, for the evaluation of school policies and practices: not only negatively (“What are we doing wrong?”), but especially positively (“How can we do better?”).
This must take into account “changing” local circumstances: individual countries or regions should reflect on the meaning and implications of the Characteristics for their own local situations and then develop supplementary documents that adapt this universal document to their own concrete and specific needs.