Beyond Awe and Wonder
BEYOND AWE AND WONDER
- a study of how teachers understand
young children’s spiritual development
DAVID ANTHONY EAUDE
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Green College, University of Oxford
Trinity Term, 2002
CONTENTS
ABSTRACT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
BEYOND AWE AND WONDER
-a study of how teachers understand young children’s spiritual development
1Teachers and spiritual development - setting the context...... 1
1.iIntroduction and overview...... 1
1.iiRationale and distinctive aspects of the thesis...... 5
1.iii Research into teachers’ beliefs about young children's spirituality...... 7
1.iv Current contexts...... 10
1.iv.1The social context...... 11
1.iv.2The legislative context...... 13
1.iv.3The curricular context...... 15
2Approaching the task - philosophical considerations...... 20
2.iThe nature of the challenge...... 20
2.iiIssues of definition and description...... 21
2.iii What are the common features of spirituality in religious and other traditions?...26
2.iv Is the spiritual meaningful only within faith traditions?...... 30
2.vIs spirituality a term we can do without, or should simply abandon?...... 37
2.vi To what extent should spirituality be seen as primarily individual and internal?..40
2.vii What key features of spiritual experience can be identified?...... 42
3Looking at young children’s spiritual development - the research background...44
3.iYoung children and spiritual experience - where might one look?...... 44
3.iiGeneral observations about four- and five-year- olds...... 44
3.iii Is it appropriate to think of young children developing spiritually?...... 46
3.iv Insights from psychoanalytic traditions...... 49
3.vInsights from cognitive psychology...... 54
3.vi Insights from work on moral, religious and spiritual development...... 58
3.vii Formulating the key questions to be considered...... 66
4Exploring teachers’ understanding - philosophical and practical considerations..69
4.iIntroducing the rationale for the empirical work...... 69
4.iiWhat does it mean to explore a person’s understanding?...... 70
4.iii Considering coherence and consistency...... 74
4.iv A brief overview of the task...... 78
4.vChoosing a specific geographical area and group of schools...... 81
4.vi The influences of the LEA on this group of schools and teachers...... 85
4.vii Selecting research locations - overall considerations...... 88
4.viii Approaching the LEA and headteachers...... 90
4.ix Approaching and selecting the teachers...... 94
5Developing an appropriate research method...... 100
5.iExploring methodological dilemmas...... 100
5.iiDeveloping appropriate research methods - considerations of time...... 105
5.iii Developing the structure of the observations...... 107
5.iv Developing the structure of the discussions...... 110
5.vSharing interpretations with the teacher...... 121
5.vi Ethical issues...... 124
5.vii Conducting and learning from the pilot study...... 126
6Working with teachers in schools - from theory to practice...... 131
6.iIntroducing the early years units...... 131
6.iiExamining the structure and pattern of the visits...... 137
6.iii Observing teachers at work - practical issues...... 142
6.iv Talking with the teachers - practical issues...... 148
6.vReflections on my research method...... 153
7Exploring the teachers’ understanding - initial interpretations...... 156
7.iApproaching the interpretative task...... 156
7.iiThe units, the teachers and their views - a summary...... 160
8Interpreting the teachers’ understanding - making sense of what they did...... 184
8.iExtending the process of interpretation...... 184
8.iiAspects of the teachers’ practice explicitly related to spiritual development....187
8.iii Aspects of the teachers’ practice less explicitly related to spiritual development.192
8.iv Reflections on five critical incidents and their relationship to spiritual
development...... 198
8.vSynthesising how the teachers’ understanding was expressed in what they did..201
8.vi Examining the factors that influence the teachers’ understanding...... 206
9Interpreting the teachers’ understanding - a thematic approach...... 213
9.iEstablishing a thematic framework...... 213
9.iiWhat do the teachers think is distinctive about the spiritual?...... 216
9.ii.1To what extent do the teachers distinguish between emotional and spiritual development? 216
9.ii.2To what extent do the teachers equate moral and spiritual development?...218
9.ii.3To what extent do the teachers associate aesthetic and spiritual
development?...... 219
9.ii.4Is spiritual development meaningful only within a specific faith tradition?.221
9.ii.5Is spiritual development a term to be dispensed with or abandoned?...... 222
9.iii What do the teachers understand the nature of children’s spiritual experience
to be?...... 224
9.iii.1 To what extent do the teachers understand children’s spirituality as primarily internal? 224
9.iii.2What importance do the teachers ascribe to children’s engagement with what is mysterious? 225
9.iii.3To what extent do the teachers believe that children’s spiritual development is related to an awareness of other people, and the wider environment? 227
9.iii.4To what extent do the teachers understand spiritual development as about addressing what is potentially painful? 229
9.iii.5To what extent do the teachers believe values to be important in children’s spiritual development? 231
9.iv To what extent do the teachers believe young children can and do engage in spiritual experience? 233
9.iv.1To what extent do the teachers believe that young children have the capacity, and ability, for spiritual experience? 233
9.iv.2To what extent do the teachers believe that the child’s age, gender and ethnicity affect spiritual development? 235
9.iv.3To what extent do the teachers believe environmental factors affect children’s spiritual development? 237
9.iv.4Where in the curriculum do the teachers think that spiritual experience takes place? 239
9.v Drawing out significant issues across the themes...... 240
10Moving towards a new understanding of spiritual development 244
10.iWhat can be learnt from the empirical work?...... 244
10.iiTo what extent can a new understanding of spiritual development be
formulated?...... 249
10.iiiWhat is the rationale for this new understanding?...... 252
10.ivKey features of a new understanding of young children’s spiritual
development...... 254
10.vWhat are the implications of this new understanding?...... 261
11Drawing out the implications and conclusions...... 272
11.iWhat are the methodological strengths and difficulties of the approach
adopted?...... 272
11.iiWhat are the implications for teachers?...... 278
11.iiiWhat are the policy and training implications?...... 283
11.ivWhat are the implications for understanding spirituality more widely?...... 290
11.vWhat conclusions can be drawn and what are the implications for further
research?...... 293
REFERENCES...... 297
APPENDIX 1...... 305
- introductory information for the teachers
APPENDIX 2...... 309
- the questionnaire completed by the teachers
APPENDIX 3...... 310
- the questions for the first discussion
APPENDIX 4...... 311
- the summary of the first discussion as written for each teacher, omitting the self-assessment
schedule (included in Appendix 5)
APPENDIX 5...... 355
- the ‘overall view’ for each teacher as written after the visit and shown to the teacher, with
the exception of the final summary page
APPENDIX 6...... 444
- a brief summary of the answers to questions in the discussions
APPENDIX 7...... 449
- the matrix devised halfway through the empirical work to summarise the teachers’
understanding but not used as intended
APPENDIX 8...... 450
- the thematic framework adopted in chapter 9
BEYOND AWE AND WONDER
-a study of how teachers understand young children’s spiritual development
DAVID ANTHONY EAUDE
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Green College, University of Oxford, Trinity Term, 2002
ABSTRACT
In this thesis I examine, and evaluate critically, how teachers of four- and five- year old children understand spiritual development and use this to suggest the outlines of a new understanding of young children’s spiritual experience and development, enriched by the practitioner perspective.
I explore philosophically issues of definition, arguing that this area is better approached through description than precise definition. I highlight problems with the metaphor of development. I argue that a view of spiritual development as dependent on engagement with a religious tradition excludes most children and is too narrow. I consider a range of traditions of spirituality, and of research, especially in psychoanalysis and cognitive psychology, to raise key questions to be addressed in formulating a wider, more inclusive description.
I examine in depth the understanding of fourteen teachers of four- and five-year olds in ‘early-years units’ in Oxfordshire, both in their practice and in discussion. I examine their, often latent, understanding, especially in relation to the key questions. I provide interpretations based both on narrative and thematic frameworks in discussing the coherence and consistency of their understanding.
I bring together the philosophical and empirical aspects of the study to present the framework of an inclusive understanding describing spiritual experience and how teachers may enable, or enhance, it. I present spiritual development as enhancing, or enabling, personal integration and the search for meaning and identity. I highlight the importance of relationships and value rather than ‘internal’, emotional experience. I argue that schools have an important role and that much that is implicit in teachers’ practice enhances spiritual development. Recognising the limitations of the metaphor of spiritual development, I conclude that it should not be abandoned but that a range of metaphors should also be adopted. I conclude by discussing the implications for research, a revised view of spirituality, classroom practice, the curriculum and policy and training.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Although research is largely an individual, and often a solitary, task, a web of relationships, of advice and of support has sustained me, both in deciding to undertake this project and bringing it to completion. Many colleagues and friends in schools, and more widely, in Oxfordshire have been patient with my inquiries, interes ted in my work and solicitous for my well-being. I am grateful to too many people to name them all, but wish to thank in particular Christian Greiffenhagen, Sue Matthew, David Barton and Neil Hawkes who have all, in different ways, inspired, supported and advised me.
In particular, I should like to thank the fourteen teachers with whom I worked for an intensive period of discussion and observation. The generosity and courtesy with which I was received both by them, and their headteachers and other colleagues, was remarkable. Without this, my task would have been much harder than it was and the result considerably the poorer.
Academically, I wish to thank my supervisor, Professor Richard Pring, for the way in which he has fitted my demands into an impossibly full schedule, provided incisive and often challenging critiques of my views and guided me over the last four years. In the last year, Professor Mark Halstead has also given invaluable backing, listening with care, understanding my dilemmas and offering wise and constructive suggestions.
More personally, I wish to acknowledge my debt to my family. My mother, Margaret Eaude, has given me whole-hearted encouragement in an endeavour the subject of which she (and she was not alone) found hard to understand. Though we do not, as a family, express such emotions very openly, I know that she is very proud, and not a little surprised, that both of her sons have undertaken academic study relatively late in life. My father, Philip Eaude, would have shared these feelings, had he still been alive. I have often thought of him smiling, wryly, at my dilemmas and idiosyncrasies. I have come, in the course of this work, to be increasingly grateful for their love and care both in my childhood and since, even when they doubted the wisdom of what I planned to do. My brother, Michael Eaude, has been a strength to me as well, not least by demonstrating that such a course of study is both worthwhile and possible on a part-time basis. Finally, the love and the care for each other which Jude Egan and I have shared for over fifteen years, and her belief in, and support for, this project, have enriched both my life and this work far more than I can ever adequately express in words.