The Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence

Eugene C. Roehlkepartain, Pamela Ebstyne King, Linda Wagener, Peter L. Benson

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9780761930785
• eBook ISBN: 9781483384849
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Psychologie du développement

"With sixty-seven scholars from four continents and many diverse disciplines contributing as authors to the volume; with fourteen scholars from around the world serving as editorial advisors; with financial support provided by the John Templeton Foundation via Search Institute; with frequent conversations occurring with colleagues at Fuller Theological Seminary; and with the careful attention of editorial work provided by Sage publications, this handbook provides a remarkable contribution toward those ends." 

                                                                                  —JOURNAL OF YOUTH AND THEOLOGY

"Research into spiritual development during childhood and adolescence has . . .  yearned for the stimulus of integration, cross-fertilization, and internationalization, across conceptual boundaries, methodological divisions, religious traditions, and local interests.  The Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence sets out to meet this need and does so with skill and with authority, by identifying the key themes and by drawing on the best minds to address those themes.  Research communities and faith communities have been well served by this pioneering initiative."  
- The Revd Professor Leslie J Francis PhD, ScD, DD, University of Wales, Bangor, UK     

The Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence breaks new ground by articulating the state of knowledge in the area of childhood and adolescent spiritual development. Featuring a rich array of theory and research from an international assortment of leading social scientists in multiple disciplines, this book represents work from diverse traditions and approaches – making it an invaluable resource for scholars across a variety of disciplines and organizations.  

Key Features:

• Presents a wealth of interdisciplinary theory and research, as well as proposals for future areas of inquiry, to help move spiritual development into a mainstream field of learning
• Provides the first comprehensive collection of social science research on spiritual development in childhood and adolescence to introduce the topic engagingly to students
• Features the works of scholars from around the world in multiple disciplines (psychology, sociology, anthropology, medicine, and educational philosophy) to present a diversity of traditions and approaches
• Includes introductions to the volume as well as to each section that provide overviews and syntheses of key concepts

The Handbook of Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence is a key resource for academics, researchers, and students in departments of Psychology, Family Studies, and Religious Studies. It is particularly useful for courses in Developmental Psychology, Human Development (especially child and adolescent development), Psychology of Religion, and Sociology of Religion. It also will be invaluable for professionals working with young people, including educators, religious leaders, and health practitioners.

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SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE: MOVING TO THE SCIENTIFIC MAINSTREAM

EUGENE C. ROEHLKEPARTAIN

PETER L. BENSON

PAMELA EBSTYNE KING

LINDA M. WAGENER

Around the world, there appears to be a growing concern with spirituality in the general public as well as among scholars. Whether one looks at the list of best-selling books, searches the Web, watches contemporary movies or TV shows, or reads general-interest magazines, one quickly finds evidence of this trend. And one sees religion and spirituality (mixed with nationalism and ethnic tensions) playing defining roles in most major geopolitical conflicts in a world that is becoming both smaller and more fragmented.

While spirituality in general has considerable currency, there is additional focus on the spiritual development of children and adolescents. The source of this interest varies considerably. For example, some people—particularly those within religious communities—worry that the beliefs, narratives, and commitments of the world’s religious traditions are not adequately taking root in young people’s lives (e.g., Lindner, 2004). As Wuthnow (1998) puts it, “When the sacred no longer has a single address, people worry that it may disappear entirely” (p. 10). Other observers contend that the world’s religious heritage is “tainted by an incriminating record of injustice, tribalism, violence, and the violation of fundamental human rights” (King, 2001, p. 2). Instead, they say, the urgent need is to engage young people in new ways of seeing, knowing, and discovering, since “a simple return to or retrieval of past spiritualities is no longer enough to meet urgent contemporary social and personal needs” (King, 2001, p. 2). Still others note that children are, too often, at the center of major conflicts, terrorism, and the trauma of war, all of which point toward spiritual pathology or pain (see Wagener & Malony, chapter 10, this volume). Finally—and perhaps most germane to this handbook—there is an emerging sense among developmental scholars that something has been missing in the scholarship, and that domain is spiritual development (Benson, chapter 34, this volume; Coles, 1990; Lerner, Alberts, Anderson, & Dowling, chapter 5, this volume).

Although this appears to be a “moment” in the public imagination when things spiritual have gained attention, there has been little consensus in the scientific community about the nature and scope of this dimension of life. To be sure, there are consistent strands in the social sciences, such as the subfields of psychology and sociology of religion, that have, for more than a century, built a growing knowledge base of theory and research. To this point, however, most of this knowledge base has been dispersed into textbooks, journals, conferences, and interest groups focused in a particular discipline, geographic area, or religious tradition, with little overlapping scholarship or dialogue. Much of the work finds its “home” in the psychology of religion. This field interfaces more with social psychology and personality than it does with developmental psychology (Spilka, Hood, Hunsberger, & Gorsuch, 2004). Furthermore, the psychology of religion is quite insulated from anthropology and sociology. Spiritual development cannot be understood without significant conversations across these and other fields.

For the first time, 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. In doing so, this volume presents a rich and diverse array of theory, qualitative and quantitative research, and proposals for the future that are designed to move spiritual development from a sidelight in the academy to become a mainstream, accepted, and sustained field of inquiry and learning.

The editors of this volume share two goals, one short term and one long term. The short-term goal is to synthesize the research on spiritual development in a way that encourages and guides additional scholarship. The long-term goal is to help position spiritual development as a central and mainstream issue in the social sciences, including psychology, sociology, and anthropology, which have had a tenuous relationship with this domain. The lack of full engagement with this domain in the mainstream social sciences has limited our capacity to fully understand the person in its entirety at all points in the life span and within its multiple social, cultural, and national contexts. This volume is an effort to fill this gap.

To set a context for the book, this introductory chapter first examines some of the history of how the mainstream social sciences have neglected this area of inquiry; then it highlights some of the challenges and approaches to defining spiritual development. Next, the chapter looks at the major theoretical traditions that have informed and shaped the current scientific understanding of spiritual development, particularly in developmental psychology and the psychology of religion. Growing out of those theoretical underpinnings, we then articulate several themes and assumptions that guided the development of the handbook.

MARGINALIZATION IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

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Although pioneers in the social sciences such as William James, G. Stanley Hall, J. H. Leuba, Edwin Starbuck, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim considered religiousness and spirituality to be integral to their fields, the study was marginalized throughout much of the 20th century. Through the years, many scholars have documented the relative lack of attention to issues of religion and spirituality in the social sciences in general (Davie, 2003; Gorsuch, 1988; Paloutzian, 1996; Weaver et al., 1998; Weaver et al., 2000) and, more specifically, in the study of adolescence (Benson, Donahue, & Erickson, 1989; Bridges & Moore, 2002; Donelson, 1999; Kerestes & Youniss, 2003; Markstrom, 1999; Wallace & Forman, 1998) and childhood (Hay, Nye, & Murphy, 1996; Nye, 1999). The scientific study of religion began reemerging in the 1960s and, by the new millennium, Hill et al. (2000) concluded that “the state of the discipline today can be characterized as sufficiently developed but still overlooked, if not bypassed, by the whole of psychology” (p. 51). Today, this subfield of psychology of religion is struggling with how it relates to notions of “spirituality,” with some arguing that the subdiscipline should be renamed “psychology of religion and spirituality” (Emmons & Paloutzian, 2003; Pargament, 1999).

The inattentiveness to spiritual development in the mainstream social sciences can be graphically illustrated in the study of developmental psychology. Benson, Roehlkepartain, and Rude (2003) searched six leading developmental psychology journals (Child Development, Developmental Psychology, International Journal of Behavioral Development, Journal of Adolescent Research, Journal of Early Adolescence, and the Journal of Research on Adolescence) to ascertain the frequency of citations to religion, religious development, spirituality, or spiritual development. Of 3,123 articles published between 1990 and July 2002 having to do with children or adolescents, only 27 (0.9%) referenced one or more of these key words. And only one article explored issues of spirituality in childhood and adolescence. Content analyses of other journals and publications have reached similar conclusions, though some have documented somewhat higher proportions based on other search criteria (Weaver et al., 1998; Weaver et al., 2000).

A variety of explanations have been given for the historic marginalization of religion and spirituality in the social sciences. Almost all have to do with the academy’s biases about religion. And because religious and spiritual development share conceptual space, the former has affected the reputation of the latter. Wulff (1997) identifies some of the more prominent obstacles. Among them is the pervasive personal rejection of religion by social scientists, a fact supported by several studies of academics’ attitudes toward religion (Bergin, 1991; Campbell, 1971; Larson & Witham, 1998; Shafranske, 1996). Another is the view that religion, like art or music or politics, is a discretionary human activity and not a core, fundamental dynamic of human life. The area may also be shied away from because it is “politically sensitive and philosophically difficult” (McCrae, 1999, p. 1211).

In addition, Smith (2003) documents reductionist thinking among sociologists that dismisses religious or spiritual phenomena as expressions of something else. “What appears to be divine or spiritual or transcendent or pious or sacred are really only about social class, race, gender, ethnicity, nationalism, solidarity, social control, and so on” (p. 19, italics in original; see also Wuthnow, 2003). And, although there are exceptions, many anthropologists have concluded that religion or spirituality is “a by-product of cognitive adaptations selected for ‘more mundane’ survival functions” (Alcorta & Sosis, in press; see also Atran, 2002).

Recent years, however, have seen a marked growth in scholarship related to spirituality and spiritual development. A number of reviews of the literature in child and adolescent religion and spirituality provide access to the knowledge base in multiple disciplines (see, for example, Benson, Donahue, & Erickson, 1989; Benson & King, in press; Benson et al., 2003; Bridges & Moore, 2002; Donahue & Benson, 1995; Donelson, 1999; Hay et al., 1996; Kerestes & Youniss, 2003; Markstrom, 1999; and Smith, 2003). In addition, several special issues of peer-reviewed journals have been published that address spirituality or spiritual development, including Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Review of Religious Research, Journal of Health Psychology, Journal of Personality, and American Psychologist (special section). Mills (2002) documents a substantial increase in medical journal articles that address religion or spirituality and health (also see Thoresen, 1999). Though the word spirituality did not even appear in the MedLine database until the 1980s, “in recent years, every major medical, psychiatric, and behavioral medicine journal has published on the topic” (Mills, 2002, p. 1), fueled, in part, by the pioneering work of Harold G. Koenig and the late David B. Larson (e.g., Koenig, McCullough, & Larson, 2001). This work has not focused specifically on children and adolescents, but it has generated significant attention in the public and media to this domain of life.

In addition to this growing attention to the broad domain of spirituality, a number of recent contributions in mainstream developmental science publications have also focused specifically on children and adolescents. Reich, Oser, and Scarlett (1999) have compiled a volume titled Psychological Studies on Spiritual and Religious Development, uniquely featuring European scholars. A major article on spiritual development appeared in Developmental Psychology in 2004 (King & Furrow, 2004). The Journal of Adolescence published an issue focused on adolescents and religion (1999), and a special issue of Applied Developmental Science on spiritual development was published in 2003. For the first time since it began publication in 1946, the Handbook of Child Psychology includes a chapter on spiritual development in its sixth edition (Oser, Scarlett, & Bucher, in press). And, in addition to this volume, Sage Publications has released the Encyclopedia of Religious and Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence (Dowling & Scarlett, in press), which offers brief introductions to hundreds of topics.

DEFINITIONAL ISSUES

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Although there is evidence of increased attention to this domain, there is no consensus about what “this domain” really is. Indeed, a fundamental challenge in compiling scholarship on “spiritual development” is a definitional issue, knowing that how the subject is defined not only sets boundaries on the areas of scholarship but also influences whether it is deemed legitimate in the academy. What is meant by spiritual development? How is it different from spirituality? And how it is it different from religious development—the domain with which it has been most closely associated? Despite a number of helpful explorations of these definitional issues (see, for example, Hill et al., 2000; King, 2001; MacDonald, 2000; Marler & Hadaway, 2002; Oser et al., in press; Reich, 2001; Slater, Hall, & Edwards, 2001; Stifoss-Hanssen, 1999; Wuthnow, 1998; Zinnbauer et al., 1997; and Zinnbauer, Pargament, & Scott, 1999), there has yet to emerge any consensus. As Zinnbauer and colleagues (1997) write: “The ways in which the words [religiousness and spirituality] are conceptualized and used are often inconsistent in the research literature. Despite the great volume of work that has been done, little consensus has been reached about what the terms actually mean” (p. 549).

There are several ways to think about the terms spirituality and spiritual development, all of which are reflected in various contributions to this handbook. First, they have been described by many scholars as a particular dimension of the religious experience. Wulff (1997) has suggested that this situation has been necessitated by a change in the use and meaning of the term religion. William James (1902/1958), he notes, recognized that religion had several intertwined dimensions. There are both institutional aspects to religion, including belief systems and rituals that one inherits when choosing to be part of a religious tradition. At the same time, there is an experiential dimension, which is more direct and immediate.

In Wulff’s view, the meaning of religion has evolved to focus more on the first of these two, with religion “becoming reified into a fixed system of ideas or ideological commitments” (p. 46). This has led to the use of the term spirituality to convey the more subjective and experiential aspects of religion. According to Zinnbauer and colleagues (1997): “Spirituality is now commonly regarded as an individual phenomenon and identified with such things as personal transcendence, supra consciousness sensitivity, and meaningfulness.… Religiousness, in contrast, is now often described narrowly as formally structured and identified with religious institutions and prescribed theology and rituals” (p. 551). In fact, some models now subsume religiousness as a category within spirituality (see, for example, MacDonald, 2000).

This bifurcation of religion and spirituality has both proponen...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence: Moving to the Scientific Mainstream
• PART I FOUNDATIONS FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE
• PART II DESCRIPTIVE APPROACHES TO SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
• PART III SPIRITUALITY AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: EXPLORING CONNECTIONS
• PART IV THE ECOLOGIES OF SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
• PART V DEVELOPMENTAL OUTCOMES OF SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
• PART VI TOWARD THE FUTURE IN PRACTICE, POLICY, AND RESEARCH
• Author Index
• Subject Index
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors