{"title":"The views of social work practitioners with regards to religion and spirituality at the interface of social work practice with children and adolescents","authors":"R. Bhagwan","doi":"10.1080/1364436X.2022.2049219","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2022.2049219","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Although a trail of evidence has grown that supports the salience of spirituality in social work practice, little exists with regard to spiritually based intervention with children and adolescents. In order to bridge this scholarly gap, this study sought to investigate the attitudes and practice interventions amongst a group of social work practitioners in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. A cross-sectional descriptive design was used to gather data from 193 social workers who worked at the interface of children and youth. The study found high levels of personal religiosity and spirituality amongst the sample and significant support for the role of religion and spirituality in a social work context.","PeriodicalId":45218,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Childrens Spirituality","volume":"27 1","pages":"113 - 135"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48572206","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Primary validation of Children Spiritual Intelligence Scale in a sample of Latvian elementary school pupils","authors":"Ina Grasmane, Vitālijs Raščevskis, A. Pipere","doi":"10.1080/1364436X.2022.2043833","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2022.2043833","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The paper aims to describe the development of the Children Spiritual Intelligence Scale (CSIS), focusing on the stage of primary validation of the scale. Based on the five components of the theoretical model (Creation and awareness of personal meaning, Self-understanding, Mastery of self-control, Awareness of personal authenticity and uniqueness, and Social mastery), a 63-item scale with validated content was developed to measure children’s spiritual intelligence. The validation sample consisted of 200 pupils from grades 1–4 representing comprehensive education schools situated in different regions of Latvia. The exploration resulted with the psychometric properties of CSIS, showing the item difficulty and discrimination indices of items, interpretation of the factorial structure and internal reliability of the scale. The final set of 23 CSIS items, measuring children spiritual intelligence in a framework of a one-factor model with four included subcomponents, showed acceptable psychometric properties, enabling to pursue the next steps of scale development.","PeriodicalId":45218,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Childrens Spirituality","volume":"27 1","pages":"97 - 112"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44849236","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Teacher voice for reflections on practice: using the voice-centred relational method to determine early childhood teachers’ understanding of spirituality","authors":"B. Hyde, Elizabeth Rouse","doi":"10.1080/1364436X.2021.2024153","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2021.2024153","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article presents a methodological exercise using the voice-centred relational method to show how two Australian early childhood educators recognise and address spirituality in children’s learning and wellbeing. The relational voice-centred methodology is outlined and applied to two of the transcripts of participants from an exploratory project originally involving three educators. The analysis revealed that while these participants understood spirituality in ways consistent with the literature, there is a disconnect between key statements of the regulatory framework and their daily practice, leaving them uncertain as to how to reference and document this feature of children’s development.","PeriodicalId":45218,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Childrens Spirituality","volume":"27 1","pages":"79 - 96"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44946867","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Little Theologians: children, culture and the making of theological meaning","authors":"Elaine Champagne","doi":"10.1080/1364436X.2022.2047431","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2022.2047431","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45218,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Childrens Spirituality","volume":"27 1","pages":"74 - 76"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44782246","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Children’s life and spirituality development and their educations: sensing, spaces, and sources of influence","authors":"John Chi-Kin Lee","doi":"10.1080/1364436X.2022.2047280","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2022.2047280","url":null,"abstract":"Inspired by Fisher (2011), Hay and Nye (1998), Hyde (2008), Tirri (2009), Trousdale (2005), Willis (2012) and many other scholars cited in this editorial and beyond, three S, namely Sensing, Spaces and Sources of influences are initially proposed to inform children’s life and spirituality education. There could be at least two broad interpretations of spirituality, one associated with secular spirituality (Meehan 2002, 292) under the humanist approach that implies the search for meaning, identity, and place, and for an individual in universal human experiences (Grajczonek 2010, 5–6). In this space, spirituality is prone to be associated with connectedness, wholeness or intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships, and nature or the world but not necessarily concerned with God, Divine or an Ultimate (Grajczonek 2010, 5; Eaude 2005). At the end of the spectrum lies the spirituality linked with religious understanding within the space of faith and religious contexts. Bradford (1999, 3) advocated three facets of spirituality with a holistic approach that includes human, devotional, and practical spirituality. Practical spirituality is connected and developed, as an ongoing and cyclical process, with everyday life experiences (Bradford 1995, 8 cited in Sharpe 1997, 33). There are also scholars who make reference to Habermas’s (2001, 9) philosophy advocates spirituality as expression of postsecular religiosity and highlights individuals’ initiative to search life meaning and make sense of life themselves without answers provided by the church (Tirri 2009, 248; Ubani and Tirri 2006). There are different psychological and related perspectives on spirituality research that includes the notions of spiritual intelligence (Gardner 1983; Zohar and Marshall 2000; Tirri 2009, 246) and spiritual sensitivity (Tirri, Nokelainen, and Ubani 2006). For spiritual intelligence, there could be valuable contributions from ancient wisdom and eastern mysticism (Sisk 2016a, 183) towards an inter-connected world as well as cosmic whole, the Creator and the Creative Force (Sisk 2016b, 196). There exist many ways of strengthening spirituality for learning and enhancing spiritual intelligence such as development of a sense of community, consideration of personal goals, desires and wants and emphasis on love and compassion (Sisk 2016b, 202). Children spirituality was elucidated by Hay and Nye (1998, 119–124; cited in de Assis 2021, 13) as ‘intentional and natural process of relating to the world, to all things animate and inanimate, to others, including a Divine Other, and the self’. They propose, from the perspective of children’s spiritual sensitivity (Tirri 2009, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CHILDREN’S SPIRITUALITY 2022, VOL. 27, NO. 1, 1–9 https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2022.2047280","PeriodicalId":45218,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Childrens Spirituality","volume":"27 1","pages":"1 - 9"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44961258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Somayeh Saadatzadeh, F. Nateghi, M. Seifi, M. Jalalvandi
{"title":"Analysis of spiritual awareness in heavenly gifts curriculum of second grade elementary schools in Iran","authors":"Somayeh Saadatzadeh, F. Nateghi, M. Seifi, M. Jalalvandi","doi":"10.1080/1364436X.2021.2017861","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2021.2017861","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Spiritual self-awareness is defined as a person’s knowledge and awareness of all human capacities, namely innate and God-given talents, which is meant to understand the existence of God, to communicate with God, creation and nature, as well as to achieve faith and belief in purposefulness and immortality of human life in order to reach balance and transcendence of the soul. Our goal is to examine more closely the components of spiritual self-awareness in Heavenly Gifts curriculum assigned to second grade of Iran's elementary education system. The research findings in terms of goals, content, teaching and assessment methods are as follows: Goal, content and teaching methods: the component of spiritual beliefs highest frequency, emphasis, and greatest weight and suggested in teacher instruction manual has been in the field of knowledge, the final activities of each course are appropriate for evaluating the knowledge level of spiritual beliefs.","PeriodicalId":45218,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Childrens Spirituality","volume":"27 1","pages":"41 - 73"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45319441","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A study of spirituality in children’s books based on the works of Douglas Wood","authors":"F. Ghane, M. Najjarian, Majid Pooyan","doi":"10.1080/1364436X.2021.1999215","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2021.1999215","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Children’s literature is a spectrum which reflects all the characteristics and needs of children as well as the issues related to them. An aspect of a child’s life is spirituality. While children’s books can play a significant role in the spiritual development of children, the spirituality issue has been underrepresented in children’s literature. The present study was conducted to explore the reflection of spirituality in children’s books. To this end, the works of Douglas Wood were case studied as they are concerned with spiritual matters. The study is scientifically based on the Relational Consciousness theory by Rebecca Nye and David Hay, which focuses on children’s spirituality. It seems that the targeted books have the potential to take children on a spiritual journey and affect them in terms of spiritual growth and consciousness; in his books, Douglas Wood introduces different aspects of spirituality and shares his experiences with the addressee.","PeriodicalId":45218,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Childrens Spirituality","volume":"27 1","pages":"23 - 40"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42257844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Learning social literacy","authors":"Tony Eaude","doi":"10.1080/1364436X.2021.2013413","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2021.2013413","url":null,"abstract":"how these individual teachers are ‘in line with current trends and practices socially, but their professional context is in a different place which is at odds with, but not outside of, these influences.’ (p. 63). As Gillespie writes (p. 20), ‘it is clear that one’s past and the relationship between self and family affects the ways in which one identifies oneself and, in turn, how spirituality, or the spiritual aspect of one’s life, is understood,’ though more examination of the varying influences of community, culture and traditions would have been valuable. The focus is on teachers’ views rather than children’s. However, the emphasis on relationships, connectedness and the search for identity and belonging, with children having multiple identities and a less certain sense of belonging, fits well with recent trends in work on children’s spirituality and the importance of relational pedagogies. While a short book inevitably can cover only a limited range of issues in a very complex area, future work could usefully fill out the arguments made. For instance, while there are numerous ways in which the teachers’ spiritualities and professionalism ‘misalign’ (p. 29), specific examples and consideration of different views of professionalism would strengthen the claims being made. More discussion of the implications throughout the school curriculum and beyond – and the dilemmas that this poses – and the suggestion, which I found somewhat surprising, that these teachers associated spirituality with a call to social action, outside as well as within their classrooms, would similarly help to fill out the case presented. While Spirituality in Education is well written, thoughtful and nuanced, a brief conclusion to highlight the key points would have been helpful. It tries to link the academic discourse and how practising teachers think about spirituality and how to nurture this; and mostly does so successfully, though. Gillespie describes clearly how understandings of spirituality have changed from being almost exclusively linked with religion to a process in which everyone, whatever their age or background, is engaged and draws out the potentially radical nature of spirituality and how this challenges many of the assumptions which underlie current policy. While the focus is on the English system, much of the discussion will be of interest to a wider, international readership, especially academics and graduate students.","PeriodicalId":45218,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Childrens Spirituality","volume":"26 1","pages":"251 - 253"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46965467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}