Children's Spirituality: A Bibliography

I have an interest in issues around children's spirituality and spiritual development. So here's a selected bibliography of some of the best stuff.

Education, Spirituality and the Whole Child, ed. R. Best, 1996, Continuum

Children, Spirituality, Religion and Social Work, M. Crompton, 1998, Ashgate

Spirituality and the Curriculum, ed. A Thatcher, 1999, Cassell

The Child in Christian Thought, ed. M. Bunge, 2000, Eerdmans

Reconstructing Religious, Spiritual and Moral Education, C. Erricker & L. Erricker, 2000

Spirituality and Education, A. Wright, 2000, Routledge Falmer

Contemporary Spiritualities: Social and Religious Contexts, eds. C. Erricker & J. Erricker, 2001, Continuum

Spiritual Education: Cultural, Religious and Social Differences - New Perspectives for the 21st Century, eds.  J. Erricker, C. Ota & C. Erricker, 2001   

Children, Churches and Christian Learning, L. Francis & J. Astley, 2002, SPCK

Spirituality and Ethics in Education: Philosophical, Theological and Radical Perspectives, ed. H. Alexander, 2002

Celebrating Children, eds. G. Miles & J. Wright, 2003, Paternoster

From the Ground-Up: Understanding the spiritual world of the child, K. Copsey, 2005, BRF

Spiritual Education: Literary, Empirical and Pedagogical Approaches, eds. C. Ota & C. Erricker, 2005

The Spirit of the Child, David Hay & Rebecca Nye, rev. ed. 2006 [1998 1st ed], Jessica Kingsley Publishers

Spiritual Education in a Divided World: Social, Environmental and Pedagogical Perspectives on the Spirituality of Children and Young People, eds. C. Ota & M. Chater, 2007, Routledge

See also the International Journal of Children's Spirituality

Comments

[Jim Gordon]

Thanks for an excellent bibliogrpahical resource in an area too important to be specialist. I wonder if any of the items in the bibliography deal with the spirituality of children with special needs. If not are there good resources you would recommend? This is an area of personal interest for Sheila (my wife) and I and I would be grateful for any suggestions. Thanks again for taking the time to put this post together.

[Margaret Sutherland]

Yes, this is a very helpful biblography. The journal mentioned is also a good source of stuff. Jim - Some excellent work has been done by Elizabeth O'Brien, SEN Advisor to the Arch Diocese of Birmingham in the area of spiritual formation and children with SEN. She has been heavily influenced by John Swinton's work. Spirituality is also an area of great interest for another group of young people - those who are gifted and talented (or as Scotland would say, more able). There are interesting articles around about that too. In the Scottish context these young people are now considered to have additional support needs. Scotland has, I think helpfully, moved away from the idea of Special Educational Needs.

[Marcus Bull]

Got some of these. Kathryn Copsey and Hay & Nye were good. I've also beed reading:
- Gretchen Wolff Pritchard, 'Offering the Gospel the Children' (1992, Cowley Publications)
- John Sutcliffe (editor), 'Tuesday's Child: a reader for Christian Educators' (2001, Christian Education Publications)

Highly recommend them both!!