Children's spirituality and the practice of meditation in Irish primary schools. Issue 1 (2nd January 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Keating, Noel
• Is Part Of: International journal of children's spirituality. Volume 22:Issue 1(2017)
• Page Start: 49
• Page End: 71
• Publication Date: 2017-01-02
• Subjects: Children -- Christian meditation -- spirituality -- nurture -- primary school -- personal spiritual experience -- silence -- nourish; Moral education -- Periodicals; Religious education -- Periodicals; Spirituality -- Periodicals; Children -- Religious life -- Periodicals; 155.25
• DOI: 10.1080/1364436X.2016.1264928
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1364-436X

Abstract

Abstract: This paper uses an interdisciplinary approach to explore the child's experience of meditation in Irish primary schools and its impact on children's spirituality. Using a phenomenological, hermeneutic, mystagogical methodology, it describes how children experience the practice of meditation, the benefits they consider they gain from it and the nature of its impact, if any, on their spirituality. Seventy children, aged 7 to 11, were interviewed. The study is original in that the interview protocol contained novel processes designed to elicit from children their experience, if any, of the transcendent in meditation and in its depth of analysis of the spiritual fruits of the practice. The study concludes that meditation does have the capacity to nourish the innate spirituality of the child. It offers a heuristic model outlining the key elements of the child's experience of meditation, stresses the importance of personal spiritual experience and supports the introduction of meditation in primary schools.