The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion and Childhood

From recent sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, to arguments about faith schools and religious indoctrination, this volume considers the interconnection between the actual lives of children and the position of children as placeholders for the future. Childhood has often been a particular site of struggle for negotiating the location of religion in public and everyday social life, and children's involvement and non-involvement in religion raises strong feelings because they represent the future of religious and secular communities, even of society itself. The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion and Childhood provides a rich resource for students and scholars of this interdisciplinary field, and addresses wider questions about the distinctiveness of childhood and its religious dimensions in historical and contemporary perspective.

Divided into five thematic parts, the volume provides classic, contemporary, and specially commissioned readings from a range of perspectives, including the sociological, anthropological, historical, and theological. Case studies range from Augustine's description of childhood in Confessions, the psychology of religion and childhood, to religion in children's literature, religious education, and Qur'anic schools.

- Religious traditions covered include Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, in the UK and Europe, USA, Latin America and Africa
- An introduction situates each thematic part, and each reading is contextualised by the editors
- Guidance on further reading and study questions are provided on the book's webpage

Anna Strhan is a Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Kent, UK

Stephen Parker is Professor of the History of Religion and Education at the University of Worcester, UK

Susan Ridgely is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Part 1: What is Childhood? Theoretical Perspectives
Introduction
1. A Description of Childhood, Confessions, Augustine
2. Two Concepts of Childhood, from Centuries of Childhood, Aries
3. Education of Man, Friedrich Froebel
4. Thinking and Its Application to Religion, from Religious Thinking from Childhood to Adolescence, Ronald Goldman
5. Erotic Innocence, James Kincaid
6. Religious Minds: The Psychology of Religion and Childhood, Jeremy Carrette, Professor of Religion and Culture, University of Kent, UK
7. The Hindu Tradition and Childhood, Eleanor Nesbitt, Professor Emeritus, University of Warwick, UK
8. The New Age Movement and the Definition of the Child, Beth Singler, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, UK
9. The Social Studies of Childhood, Anna Strhan, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in Religious Studies, University of Kent, UK
Part 2: Changing Ideas and Spaces of Childhood Piety: The Secularization, Resacralization and Reinvention of Childhood
Introduction
10. The Domestic Context of Child Rearing, Richard Baxter
11. On Discipline, Praise and Parental Authority, in Some Thoughts Concerning Education, John Locke
12. The Religious Potential of the Child, Sofia Cavalletti
13. The Modern Sunday School, George Hamilton Archibald
14. God Talk with Young Children, John Hull
15. Godly Play: An Imaginative Approach to Religious Education, Jerome Berryman
16. Learning to be a Muslim, J. Scourfield, Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Cardiff, S. Gilliat-Ray, Professor in Religious and Theological Thought, at the University of Cardiff, UK
17. Becoming Muslim in a Danish Provincial Town, Marianne Holm Pedersen, Lecturer in Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
18. Faith Co-Creation in U.S. Catholic Churches: How First Communicants and Faith Formation Teachers Shape Catholic Identity, Susan Ridgely, Associate Professor of American Religions, University of Wisonsin-Oshkosh, USA
19. Forming Religious Subjects: Making Missionary Children on the Spiritual Frontier, Emily J. Manktelow, Lecturer in History, USA
Part 3: Religion, Education and Citizenship
Introduction
20. Education, Discipline and Freedom, Immanuel Kant
21. The New-born Child, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
22. The Religious Training of Children Among the Jews, Rabbi A.A. Green
23. Traditional Qur'anic Students in Northern Nigeria, Hannah Hoechner, Research Associate, Oxford Department of International Development, UK
23. Children's Right to Religion and Religious Education in International Perspective, Friedrich Schweitzer, Professor of Religious Education, University of Tuebingen, Germany
24. Religious Education for Citizenship and the Second World War, Stephen Parker, Professor of the History of Religion and Education, University of Warwick, UK, and Rob Freathy, Senior Lecturer in the History of Education, University of Exeter, UK
25. British Quakers, Citizenship and the Adolescent Girl, Sian Roberts, Honorary Fellow at the School of Education, University of Birmingham, UK
26. Danish Free Schools, Religious Children and Societies of Peers, Associate Professor of Education, University of Exeter, UK
Part 4: Media and the Materialities of Childhood Religion
Introduction
27. The Child's First Steps in Religion, John G. Williams
28. No Matter How Small: The Democratic Imagination of Dr. Seuss, Henry Jenkins
29. A World of their Own Making: Myth, Ritual and the Quest for Family Values, John R. Gillis
28. The Changing Musical Aesthetic and Religious Discourse Around the Child in the Late Twentieth Century, Stephen Parker and Rob Freathy, Stephen Parker, Professor of the History of Religion and Education, University of Warwick, UK, and Rob Freathy, Senior Lecturer in the History of Education, University of Exeter, UK
29. Children, Toys and Judaism, Laura Arnold Leibman, Professor of English and Humanities, Reed College, USA
30. Hindu childhoods in the Netherlands: 'Knowing' the Gods through Film, Dana van Breukelen, Department of Culture Studies, Tilburg University, Netherlands
31. The Construction of Childhood and Religion in Broadcast Worship, Rachael Shillitoe, University of Worcester, UK
32. The Classroom as a Site of Religious Learning and Moral Socialisation, Stephen Parker, Professor of the History of Religion and Education, University of Warwick, UK
Part 5: Religious Discipline and the Agency and Domination of Childhood
Introduction
33. Theology and Children in the Roman Catholic Sex Abuse Crisis, Robert Orsi,
34. Mitzvah Girls, Ayala Fader
35. Learning Courage: Child labour and Moral Discourse in Brazil Maya Mablin
36. The Child's Right to Religion in International Law, Rachel Taylor, Associate Professor of Law, University of Oxford, UK
37. Understanding Childhood: Child Sex Abuse and the Roman Catholic Church, Susie Donnelly, Teaching Fellow, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, UK
38. Abuse, Neglect and Childhood Trauma in Religious Contexts, Gordon Lynch, Michael Ramsey Professor of Modern Theology, University of Kent, UK
Bibliography
Index

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