Religious vocabulary in children's prayer language: a small-scale case study in three UK schools

This paper describes a study into the quantity and style of religious language used by children in UK primary schools. Children's unguided prayers were analysed for religious themes and language, and these were correlated against age and faith stance of their schools. The study found that the c...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Rowland, Fay (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group [2019]
In: Practical theology
Year: 2019, Volume: 12, Issue: 5, Pages: 497-512
IxTheo Classification:CB Christian life; spirituality
KBF British Isles
RF Christian education; catechetics
Further subjects:B Stages
B Spiritual Development
B children's spirituality
B styles
B formal religious language
B unguided prayer
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Description
Summary:This paper describes a study into the quantity and style of religious language used by children in UK primary schools. Children's unguided prayers were analysed for religious themes and language, and these were correlated against age and faith stance of their schools. The study found that the children in faith schools, who are regularly exposed to religious language, used that learned vocabulary in their prayers. However, there was no direct correlation between the possession of religious vocabulary and use. Older children, from all the schools, used significantly fewer religious words than younger, despite having a larger vocabulary. In addition, children of all ages and in all settings frequently expressed spiritual concepts without using religious language.
ISSN:1756-0748
Contains:Enthalten in: Practical theology
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/1756073X.2019.1635740