As it looks forward to its 15th volume in 2010 IJCS is moving beyond its early childhood and is itself entering adolescence. From its initial inception and original vision of a space for dialogue, conversations and exploration Clive Erricker and Jane Erricker, working with Cathy, quickly established a journal that brought together a range of backgrounds, perspectives and voices that over the years have contributed to a rich and diverse international conversation that has helped us understand and engage with children’s spirituality. This editorial acknowledges and thanks Clive and Jane’s work, commitment and valuable contribution in enabling this conversation to grow and develop through the journal. Indeed the journal has also enabled the growth of an academic community and we also acknowledge and thank our international board of consulting editors and many peer reviewers and book reviewers who have advised, supported and enabled this journey.
Clive and Jane will now be stepping down from the journal and a new team of co‐editors has been established. Cathy will be continuing to work as co‐editor and she is joined by Dr Brendan Hyde and Dr Karen‐Marie Yust who together will form the new editorial team.
Brendan is senior lecturer in religious education at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, where he was also awarded his doctorate. He is the author of Children and spirituality, searching for meaning and connectedness and co‐author of The spiritual dimension of childhood (both published through Jessica Kingsley). Brendan has research interests in hermeneutic phenomenology as a tool for gaining insights into children’s spirituality generally, and in Godly Play as a means of nurturing spirituality in early childhood.
Karen‐Marie is the chair of the Christian Education Department at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia (USA), where she has taught for the last four years. An ordained clergywoman in two Protestant traditions, she received her doctorate from Harvard University in 1996. Her publications in the area of children’s spirituality include Real kids, real: Practices for nurturing children’s spiritual lives (Jossey‐Bass) and the edited volume, Nurturing child and adolescent spirituality: Perspectives from the World’s religious traditions (Rowman & Littlefield). Her research focuses primarily on the relationship between religious practices and spiritual formation and the interplay of developmental theories and theology/philosophy in shaping community cultures that support children’s spiritual well‐being.
It is fitting that the journal now has an international editorial team and we are excited at the opportunity to bring our range of expertise and perspectives to taking the journal and its original vision forward into the future. Through peer‐reviewed articles, research reports, practitioner reflections and book reviews we will continue to explore the different ways of understanding what we mean by ‘spirituality’ and its relevance for schooling, education, youth work, health and society. We are committed to maintaining and extending an international, interdisciplinary and multicultural forum for those involved in the research and development of children’s and young people’s spirituality, within which this debate can be addressed and widened.
The editors believe a constructive and wide‐ranging debate is necessary, involving educators, academics, religious communities, parents, local and national government and employers, and that this should take account of international perspectives and contributions from a broad range of subject disciplines.
The journal and its editors will also continue to build on its strong relationship with the journal’s link association, The Association for Children’s Spirituality (www.childrenspirituality.org) and will also work closely in partnership with the Children’s Spirituality annual conference.
As the journal matures and builds on these links we hope that together we can work towards a vision for the future that lends credibility to this field of study and encourages new scholars and practitioners in a variety of academic and geographic contexts to take seriously the theoretical and practical questions related to children’s spirituality. We encourage new and existing contributors to submit their work as articles, research reports and practitioner reflections. Feel free to contact any of the editors to discuss your ideas or for more information.