Identifying children's spirituality: How do you start without a starting point?

British Journal of Religious Education

Volumn 18, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 144-154

  Nye, Rebecca ^c   Hay, David ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM   (United Kingdom)

^c NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 21644452969     PISSN: 01416200     EISSN: 17407931     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0141620960180303     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. The overemphasis on cognition as opposed to affect is vividly pointed out in Margaret Donaldson's book Human Minds (London: Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 1992).
2. See Alister Hardy, The Spiritual Nature of Man (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979);
3. Edward Robinson, The Original Vision (New York: Seabury Press, 1983);
4. David Hay, Religious Experience Today: Studying the Facts, (London: Mowbray/Cassell, 1990);
5. and 'The Biology of God: What is the current status of Hardy's hypothesis?', International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 4:1 (1994), pp.1-23.
6. For recent large scale empirical evidence supporting this contention see, Kalevi Tamminen, Religious Development in Childhood and Youth, (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1991).
7. According to a recent survey by the Culham College Institute, teachers in the majority of the 21,000 primary schools in England and Wales say they are confused and uncertain about religious education. Though spirituality may not be best confined within the religious education curriculum (it may be this limitation which contributes to teachers' confusion and apprehension), there is a general assumption that RE has a special responsibility for addressing the spiritual aspects of life.
8. For a helpful introductory summary of the problems surrounding this formidably large field see the Appendix 'Theoretical Foundations: The Modern Study of Mysticism' in Bernard McGinn, The Presence of God: A History of Western Mysticism; Vol. 1: The Foundations of Mysticism (London: SCM Press, 1992), pp. 265-343.
9. See in particular Karl Rahner SJ, The Practice of Faith: A Handbook of Contemporary Spirituality, (New York: Crossroad, 1983).
10. Karl Rahner, 'The experience of God today' in Theological Investigations 11, tr. David Bourke (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1974), p.160.
11. Most studies are inclined to lay emphasis on cognitive development. See, for example, Ronald Goldman, Religious Thinking from Childhood to Adolescence (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964);
12. James W Fowler, Stages of Faith (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981);
13. K Helmut Reich, 'Religious development across the life span: conventional and cognitive developmental approaches' in David L Featherman, Richard M Lemer and Marion Perlmutter (eds), Life Span Development and Behavior Vol. 11 (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates).
14. For a critical review of research pertaining to children's spirituality see the chapter by D Hay, R Nye and R Murphy in L J Francis, W Campbell and W K Kay (eds), Review of Research In Religious Education (Leominster: Gracewing, 1996).
15. Robert Coles, The Spiritual Life of Children (London: Harper Collins, 1992).
16. We wish to underline that we have no intention of contradicting the orthodox Christian doctrine of grace. One can maintain a neutral or even a positive stance towards divine transcendence and the action of grace, whilst asserting that the human context within which the spiritual life most fruitfully develops can nevertheless be the subject of investigation.
17. A review of some of the many definitions of spirituality suggested to be relevant to education and, therefore, to children's lives, can be found in Nicola Slee, '"Heaven in Ordinaire": The Imagination, Spirituality and the Arts in Religious Education' in R Butterworth (ed.), A Catholic Spirit: Festschrift for Jim Bates (Roehampton, London: Southlands College, 1989).
18. John Hammond, David Hay, Jo Moxon, Brian Netto, Kathy Raban, Ginny Straugheir and Chris Williams, New Methods In R.E. Teaching: An Experiential Approach (Harlow: Longmans/Oliver & Boyd, 1990).
19. Margaret Donaldson, Human Minds (London: Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 1992). See note 1.
20. This is said to occur as pre-verbal thought and pre-conceptual speech are consolidated, resulting in a new form of characteristically human consciousness. This is translated, somewhat misleadingly, as 'inner speech' but should not be confused with silent speech, the kind of running dialogue one has with oneself. See L Vygotsky, Thought and Language (The MIT Press, 1986), particularly pp.236-256.
21. Caussade's best known work was published in English translation as Self Abandonment to Divine Providence by Collins/Fontana in 1971.
22. See Alfred Schutz, 'Making music together: a study in social relationship' in Arvid Brodersen (ed.), Collected Papers II: Studies in Social Theory (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964), pp.135-158.
23. See Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Beyond Boredom and Anxiety (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1975).
24. See Isabella Csikszentmihalyi, 'Flow in a historical context: the case of the Jesuits' in Mihaly and Isabella Csikszentmihalyi (eds), Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp.232-248.
25. The bearing of the theories of Schutz and Csikszentmihalyi on spirituality are discussed in Mary Jo Neitz and James V Spickard, 'Steps toward a Sociology of Religious Experience: the theories of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Alfred Schutz', Sociological Analysis, 51:1 (1990), pp.15-33.
26. See Eugene Gendlin, Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning (Illinois: Free Press of Glencoe, 1963)
27. and Focusing (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1981).
28. See Peter Campbell and Edwin McMahon, Biospirituality: Focusing as a Way to Grow (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1985).
29. This is a theme discussed by Karl Rahner in 'Experience of self and experience of God' in Theological Investigations 13, tr. David Bourke (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1975), pp.122-131.
30. Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy, tr. John W Harvey (Oxford University Press, 1950).
31. At one time the rising and setting of the sun was considered appropriate material for the consideration of ultimate mystery, or the twinkle twinkle of a little star. It is perhaps only a contextualised and adult gloss which sets up criteria for proper theological questions. The possibility arises that some of children's own, apparently soluble, questions must be considered as arising from as profound an experience as those of the religious contemplative or theologian.
32. See Karl R Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London: Hutchinson, 1959).
33. See Janet M Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985).
34. L Kohlberg, The Philosophy of Moral Development; Moral Stages and the Idea of Justice (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981).
35. See Jean Piaget, The Language and Thought of the Child (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1926).
36. Peter Berger, A Rumour of Angels (London: Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 1970).
37. The relation between childhood experience and images of God is impressively analysed in Ana-Maria Rizzuto's book The Birth of the Living God: A Psychoanalytic Study (University of Chicago Press, 1979).
38. The mainly Christian concept of God as Love is echoed in this path to spirituality.
39. See C Daniel Batson, P Schoenrade and L W Ventis, Religion and the Individual: A Social Psychological Perspective, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
40. The sociologist of religion Joachim Wach has probably made the clearest statement of this perspective. See, for example, Sociology of Religion (University of Chicago Press, 1944)
41. and The Comparative Study of Religions (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958).