Editorial

As books review editor, as well as a reader of, and contributor to, the International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, I gain a particular perspective on the themes which are – and are not – highlighted in relation to children’s spirituality; and how these have changed over recent years. This editorial offers the opportunity to consider the current state of the discourse on children’s spirituality and to suggest some directions which this and future research might usefully take, though inevitably this reflects my own interests and prejudices to some extent. It also provides me with the chance to thank those who have reviewed books and to encourage other people to recommend suitable books and/or offer to review them – please contact me if so.

The majority of books put forward are, unsurprisingly, suggested by publishers, with authors sometimes asking for their books to be reviewed and unsolicited reviews received occasionally. Publishers tend to suggest books which are either academic and fairly dense or deal in relatively simple and more accessible terms with a particular issue such as ADHD, illness or bereavement. The more academic books, with some notable exceptions, are usually related to religion and/or religious education, and in some cases chaplaincy, but often refer only loosely to spirituality. The less academic ones frequently make only a somewhat cursory mention of spirituality, except those which discuss practical programmes, such as Godly Play, or approaches such as mindfulness. There have been more books recently which discuss children’s spirituality in relation to holistic education. Books are published from time to time on aspects of children’s lives such as dreams and imaginary friends which are necessarily dependent on children’s own perceptions and descriptions. Most of the books which discuss children of a specific age address the early years or adolescence, rather than the years in between. Only rarely are websites identified for possible review. Occasionally, books are recommended, or even sent, which make no mention of spirituality or children. Unsurprisingly, these are not considered for review!

What are we to make of this? First, the perception by publishers of what the IJCS will be interested in, and therefore presumably how spirituality is perceived more broadly, is that it relates mainly to members of faith communities and educators, especially those working in religious education. Maybe, the type of books recommended reflects the long-standing difficulty of defining what is meant by spirituality. I suspect we will always face this and should see spirituality as a very loosely defined concept, drawing on a Wittgensteinian view of family resemblances, and not be too restrictive about what counts as spirituality, while expecting greater clarity about what writers understand it to mean.

Second, while several of the books for a more popular audience address difficult and painful aspects of children’s lives, especially related to health and well-being, these topics are still underrepresented in the more academic literature, which tends to see spirituality largely in terms of what enhances children’s well being or make them happy and/or provides the foundation for religious affiliation. Linked to this, there is a strong emphasis on internal processes, with relatively little on how social factors such as gender, race or class affect children’s spirituality, or on the spiritualities of cultures and societies. I declare an interest in relation to the first of these points since my recent article in the IJCS (Eaude, 2019) highlighted this, but much would be gained from more detailed discussion on external factors and how they influence children and their spirituality. And from re-considering, and building on, work such as that of the theologian and sociologist John Hull (e.g. Hull 1996, 1998), in which he associates spirituality strongly with social trends such as materialism, consumerism and sexualisation which affect children and their identities profoundly and often adversely.

Third, most of the literature is still written by those who live in ‘Western’ countries, speak English as a first language and have an affiliation to Christianity or Judaism. The discourse remains dominated by cultural assumptions associated with these, despite the best efforts of the Journal Editors and the International Association for Children’s Spirituality to encourage contributions from writers from other cultures, backgrounds and faiths (or of no particular faith). Attempts to address this are represented in collections such as Watson, de Souza, and Trousdale (2014) and De Souza (2016) but it must remain a priority to widen the discussion by hearing and listening seriously to diverse voices from other cultures and faiths.

Fourth, many long-standing readers of the IJCS will remember the work of Jane and Clive Erricker and Cathy Ota in the Children and Worldviews Project, published both in this Journal and others, which gathered and analysed narratives from children themselves. This type of ethnographic research is rarely conducted now, perhaps because it is so time-consuming and the data hard to interpret. But more research of this kind would be valuable if we are to take seriously ‘children’s voice’.

Fifth, there seems to be scope for more work which does not try to address spirituality directly, but focusses on other aspects of children’s lives and then relates these to spirituality and spiritual development. However, authors addressing spirituality directly must be prepared to set out clearly but briefly the understanding of spirituality on which their research and writing is based; and those whose main focus is on another aspect which they link to spirituality must be clearer than they are often about how their conclusions link to the existing literature on, and definitions of, children’s spirituality.

Much of the literature tends to regard children and childhood too generally and does not distinguish between those of different ages. One must be very wary, as the late Jack Priestley reminded us many years ago, of seeing spirituality as developing on a steady upward gradient as children grow older; and should recognise that young children may have insights which are not open – or at least are less easily available – to older children and adults. However, tracking children’s spiritual ‘development’, or spirituality, over time would seem to be fertile ground for future research.

One of the great strengths of the Journal and the Association for Children’s Spirituality has always been how these have attracted contributions from a range of disciplines and countries and from academics and practitioners, especially at conferences. There is a pressing need for more cross-disciplinary studies, as suggested and exemplified by De Souza, Bone, and Watson (2016), though finding suitable co-researchers and securing funding for such research is difficult – and probably always be.

The future of small, specialised journals such as this one and their related associations is uncertain. I very much hope that, whatever the future holds, the academic study of children’s spirituality and the ideas discussed in the Journal will be further enriched, including submissions to journals dedicated to areas of study other than spirituality or religion. The challenges that children across the world face means that the need for well-planned research into, and writing, about areas such as globalisation, exclusion, inequality, environmental degradation, the influence of new technologies and neo-liberal approaches to education, especially where there is a pressure to narrow the curriculum, and how these influence children’s spirituality, remains even more important than ever.