Religion and spirituality in the spaces of the primary school : social and political explorations

Abstract

This thesis explores the issue of religion and spirituality in the spaces of the primary school through the employment of a mixed-method, qualitative approach. It includes a comparison between two case study schools - a Community primary and a Roman Catholic primary - both in multi-faith areas of an urban location in the North of England. By using a spatial and child-centreC! focus, the research investigates the social and political role and significance of religion, and spirituality for children, parents and teaching staff in the study schools .. This is achieved through attention to four different spaces and their interconnections with institutional space. The first is the nation, where the thesis explores how the two different schools advocated distinct types of religious citizenship and approaches to accommodating religious minorities on an everyday basis. The second space is the community, and the various ways in which the schools promoted social cohesion through the encouragement of positive encounters between children from different religious backgrounds, and the development of a sense of embodied togetherness. The third spatial focus concerns the extent to which religion inhabits public or private space in school ethos. The caring nature of school ethos in the two different contexts is also explored and the consequences for child participation in school life. The fourth and final space is that of the body within informal school spaces, where the focus is on the role of children's embodied religious and spiritual practices for re-envisaging understandings of school ethos and practice. The thesis makes original contributions to theoretical, methodological and empirical knowledge, including the significance of emot,ipns .and spirituality, understandings of children's agency, the use of child-centred methods as part of a mixed-method approach, and the role of religion in secular space, education and wider society