The Study of Children in Religion: A Methods Handbook

Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 6
Foreword......Page 10
Acknowledgments......Page 16
Introduction......Page 18
I. A CHILDIST APPROACH TO THEORY AND HISTORY......Page 34
1 Agency, Voice, and Maturity in Children’s Religious and Spiritual Development......Page 36
2 Religion and Youth in American Culture......Page 50
3 Children’s Rights in Research about Religion and Spirituality......Page 67
II. USING ETHNOGRAPHY TO TALK WITH CONTEMPORARY CHILDREN......Page 82
4 Navigating the Institutional Review Board (IRB) for Child-Directed Qualitative Research......Page 84
5 “Maybe the Picture Will Tell You”: Methods for Hearing Children’s Perspectives on Religion......Page 97
6 Boundary and Identity Work among Hare Krishna Children......Page 112
7 Playing with Fire (and Water, Earth, and Air): Ritual Flunecy and Improvisation among Contemporary Pagan Children......Page 125
8 “La Virgen, She Watches over Us”: What Cholos and Cholas Can Teach Us about Researching and Writing about Religion......Page 138
III. STUDYING CHILDREN IN SCHOOLS......Page 154
9 Going through the Motions of Ritual: Exploring the “as if ” Quality of Religious Sociality in Faith-Based Schools......Page 156
10 Catholic Children’s Experiences of Scripture and the Sacrament of Reconciliation through Catechesis of the Good Shepherd......Page 174
11 Religion and Youth Identity in Postwar Bosnia Herzegovina......Page 189
IV. USING ADULT-GENERATED MATERIAL ABOUT CHILDREN: SOURCES AND METHODS FOR ACCESSING CHILDREN’S VOICES FROM THE PAST AND TODAY......Page 204
12 The Battle for the Toy Box: Marketing and Play in the Development of Children’s Religious Identities......Page 206
13 “God made this fire for our comfort”: Puritan Children’s Literature in Context......Page 219
14 Childhood in the Land of Hope: Black Children and Religion in Chicago, 1920-1945......Page 237
15 The Baptism of a Cheyenne Girl......Page 253
16 Examining Agency, Discourses of Destiny, and Creative Power in the Biography of a Tibetan Child Tertön......Page 269
17 Memory Work and Trauma in Research on Children......Page 284
Bibliography......Page 302
About the Contributors......Page 318
C......Page 322
G......Page 323
N......Page 324
S......Page 325
Y......Page 326