The Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence


Book Description

This Handbook draws together leading social scientists in the world from multiple disciplines to articulate what is known and needs to be known about spiritual development in childhood and adolescence.




Developmental Psychology and Young Children’s Religious Education


Book Description

Developmental Psychology and Young Children’s Religious Education sets out to identify the conceptual pre-requisites for young children’s religious education learning and clearly highlights the challenges that children and their teachers encounter in the RE educational process. Based on a study with 431 children aged 5 to 7 years from different schools, faith and non-faith, and 47 teachers from the same schools as the children, this book offers an insightful look into younger children’s religious education, providing statistical evidence to dismantle the belief that young children lack the ability to conceptualise God in abstract terms. The information obtained from these children and their teachers reveals a major discrepancy between the teachers’ perceptions of young children’s conceptual abilities for RE learning, on the one hand, and children’s actual abilities revealed in their responses throughout the study, on the other. Based on the evidence described in the volume, Petrovich argues that teacher-training courses for primary RE need to be designed to include a substantial component of contemporary developmental research that is of direct relevance to children’s conceptual abilities and understanding of abstract concepts. Developmental Psychology and Young Children’s Religious Education is essential reading for students and researchers in developmental psychology, religious education, teacher education, education studies and cultural anthropology.




Parenting Matters


Book Description

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.




The SAGE Handbook of Developmental Psychology and Early Childhood Education


Book Description

With the expertise of a body of international contributors from Australia, Canada, USA, UK, Finland, The Netherlands, Italy, Greece and Chile, this handbook explores key in-depth issues in quality Early Childhood Development and Education. Unlike previous publications in the discipline, this title combines research and practice to investigate emotional and social development, wellbeing and mental health, language, cultural environments, as well as the role of parents in a child′s development. It is divided into six key parts: Part I: Emotional Development Part II: Social Development Part III: Play, Development and Learning Part IV: Memory and Understanding Part V: Learning, Language and Literacy Part VI: Executive Functions, Metacognition and Self-Regulation




Developmental Psychology and Early Childhood Education


Book Description

The importance of high quality early childhood education is now universally recognised, and this quality crucially depends upon the practitioners who work with our young children, and their deep understanding of how children develop and learn. This book makes a vital contribution to this understanding, providing authoritative reviews of key areas of research in developmental psychology, and demonstrating how these can inform practice in early years educational settings. The book′s major theme is the fundamental importance of young children developing as independent, self-regulating learners. It illustrates how good practice is based on four key principles which support and encourage this central aspect of development: - secure attachment and emotional warmth - feelings of control and agency - cognitive challenge, adults supporting learning and children learning from one another - articulation about learning, and opportunities for self-expression. Each chapter includes: - typical and significant questions which arise in practice related to that area of development - an up-to-date review of key research, including insights from observational and experimental work with young children, from evolutionary psychology, and from neuroscientific studies of the developing brain - practical exercises intended to deepen understanding and to inform practice - questions for discussion - recommended further reading. This book provides an invaluable resource for early years students and practitioners, by summarizing new research findings and demonstrating how they can be translated into excellent early years practice. David Whitebread is Senior Lecturer in Developmental Psychology and Early Years Education in the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.




Developmental Psychology and Young Children's Religious Education


Book Description

Developmental Psychology and Young Children's Religious Education sets out to identify the conceptual pre-requisites for young children's religious education learning and clearly highlights the challenges that children and their teachers encounter in the RE educational process. Based on a study with 431 children aged 5 to 7 years from different schools, faith and non-faith, and 47 teachers from the same schools as the children, this book offers an insightful look into younger children's religious education, providing statistical evidence to dismantle the belief that young children lack the ability to conceptualise God in abstract terms. The information obtained from these children and their teachers reveals a major discrepancy between the teachers' perceptions of young children's conceptual abilities for RE learning, on the one hand, and children's actual abilities revealed in their responses throughout the study, on the other. Based on the evidence described in the volume, Petrovich argues that teacher-training courses for primary RE need to be designed to include a substantial component of contemporary developmental research that is of direct relevance to children's conceptual abilities and understanding of abstract concepts. Developmental Psychology and Young Children's Religious Education is essential reading for students and researchers in developmental psychology, Religious Education, teacher education, Education Studies and cultural anthropology.




Children's Spirituality


Book Description

An introduction to the increasingly popular topic of children's spirituality, showing how choices made in churches and homes can stimulate or stifle a child's spiritual development. Suitable for anyone who works with children.




From Neurons to Neighborhoods


Book Description

How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.




Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8


Book Description

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.




Natural-Theological Understanding from Childhood to Adulthood


Book Description

It is commonly assumed that young children only begin to think about God as a result of some educational or cultural influence, perhaps provided by their parents. Natural-Theological Understanding from Childhood to Adulthood asks if there is anything about God that children can know independently of any specific cultural input; does their knowledge of God simply come from their everyday encounters with the surrounding world? Whilst children’s theoretical reasoning in biology, physics and psychology has received considerable attention in recent developmental research, the same could not be said about their religious or theological understanding. Olivera Petrovich explores children’s religious concepts, from a natural-theological perspective. Using supporting evidence from a series of studies with children and adults living in as diverse cultures as the UK and Japan, Petrovich explains how young children begin to construct their everyday scientific and metaphysical theories by relying on their own already advanced causal understanding. The unique contribution that this volume makes to the developmental psychology of religion is its contention that religion or theology constitutes one of the core domains of human cognition rather than being a by-product of other core domains and specific cultural inputs. Natural-Theological Understanding from Childhood to Adulthood is essential reading for students and researchers in cognitive-developmental psychology, religious studies, education and cognitive anthropology.