Whose Children are They? Talking about Responsibility for Children’s Religious Education

Abstract The REA Annual Meeting 2023 theme is organized around the question, "Whose children are they?" as a way to explore diverse and intersecting ways that we take and/or assign responsibilities for children’s religious education. In this essay, the Program Chair reflects on personal and scholarly experiences and questions that have framed and continue to shape her responses to the question. She suggests that the guild can take multiple approaches (descriptive, normative, imaginative, hybrid) to develop potential answers and invites participants to consider how contemporary research in child development and educational theory might helpfully support constructive discourse.