The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion and Childhood

Description

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 the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion and Childhood is a welcome addition to the burgeoning literature on children and religious literature ... As it is, this Reader has a wide-reachability through its select readings on media, materialism, education, citizenship, freedom, religions, and childhood. Therefore, it is an excellent go-to work for teachers, students, and readers who are interested in the field of religions and childhood. * Reading Religion * This collection of very readable, yet thought-provoking intellectual primary source materials, is a rich interdisciplinary resource. I recommend that this book forms a key component of study for anyone interested in religion, history, sociology or education and the intersection between these disciplines and 'childhood'. * Educational Review * It is the purpose of a Reader to ask more questions than it answers, and this particular collection succeeds admirably in its stated aims ... The heart of the volume lies in sociological approaches to contemporary and near-contemporary religious and educational discourse, coupled with some sensitive readings of earlier twentieth-century practices. In both these core areas, the Reader provides a fascinating, timely and useful contribution to debate. * History of Education * This book is the carefully-prepared, richly-outfitted herald of a whole new field of study. It which will change the way we look at religion, children, our societies and ourselves. * Linda Woodhead, Professor of Sociology of Religion, Lancaster University, UK * Bringing together a range of classic and contemporary work into a coherent and well-structured format, The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion and Childhood is an essential text for students and researchers alike. Its substantive breadth and intellectual depth provide much needed consolidation for this important but often neglected field of study. * Peter Hemming, Lecturer in Social Sciences, Cardiff University, UK * An excellent collection of primary sources with commentary [that] fills an important gap between texts about RE pedagogy and scholarly studies of religion. * David Lundie, University of St Mark & St John, UK *