In this book, Alexander von Gontard, a child psychiatrist, uses the language, thought and imagery of Buddhism to explore the spirituality of children. The book begins by exploring the Buddha's own childhood and the 'divine child' in Buddhism, a key archetype in Jungian psychology. The author defines the spirituality and religiosity of children and adolescents and identifies manifestations of spirituality in children, such as experiences of awe and wonder, and favourable conditions for spirituality, such as silence, nature, extreme conditions and mindfulness. Drawing on his own experience working with children in therapeutic practice, von Gontard discusses the parallels between spontaneous spirituality seen in childhood and the Buddha's teachings. Revealing how the spiritual insights and experiences of children and adolescents can uncover a deep and wise understanding of human life that is compatible with the Buddha's teachings, this book will be of particular interest to professionals and academics in psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, education and religious studies.

Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality: Perspectives from the World's Religious Traditions provides a forum for prominent religious scholars to examine the state of religious knowledge and theological reflection on spiritual development in childhood and adolescence. Featuring essays from thinkers representing the world's major religious traditions, the book introduces new voices, challenges assumptions, raises new questions, and broadens the base of knowledge and investment in this important domain of life. It specifically and intentionally focuses on theological and philosophical perspectives from within religious traditions, creating space for the religious traditions to find their voices. Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality is firmly grounded in the language and priorities of religious studies, and helps stimulate explorations of whether and how religious communities are tapping their own wisdom and strengths in nurturing today's young people in a complex and changing world. Nurturing Child and Adolescent Spirituality will set the stage for new waves of scholarship and dialogue within and across traditions, disciplines, and cultures that will enrich understanding and strengthen how the world's religious traditions, and others, understand and cultivate the spiritual lives of children and adolescents around the globe.

How does coding change the way we think about architecture? This question opens up an important research perspective. In this book, Miro Roman and his AI Alice_ch3n81 develop a playful scenario in which they propose coding as the new literacy of information. They convey knowledge in the form of a project model that links the fields of architecture and information through two interwoven narrative strands in an “infinite flow” of real books. Focusing on the intersection of information technology and architectural formulation, the authors create an evolving intellectual reflection on digital architecture and computer science.

Focuses on the developmental process of religion and spirituality across the human life span.This encyclopedia joins a recent trend in research and scholarship aimed at better understanding the similarities and differences between world religions and spiritualities, between expressions of the divine and between experiences of the transcendent.

Eight of the world's most practised religions are discussed: Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Bahai religion, Chinese popular practice, Hinduism, and North American Native spiritual belief. The purpose is to see where the religions positively support the UNCRC and where they criticize or disagree with the ideas of the Convention. Each religion has very clear notions as to the functioning of the child in the context of the family.

From recent sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, to arguments about faith schools and religious indoctrination, this volume considers the interconnection between the actual lives of children and the position of children as placeholders for the future. Childhood has often been a particular site of struggle for negotiating the location of religion in public and everyday social life, and children's involvement and non-involvement in religion raises strong feelings because they represent the future of religious and secular communities, even of society itself. The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion and Childhood provides a rich resource for students and scholars of this interdisciplinary field, and addresses wider questions about the distinctiveness of childhood and its religious dimensions in historical and contemporary perspective. Divided into five thematic parts, the volume provides classic, contemporary, and specially commissioned readings from a range of perspectives, including the sociological, anthropological, historical, and theological. Case studies range from Augustine's description of childhood in Confessions, the psychology of religion and childhood, to religion in children's literature, religious education, and Qur'anic schools. - Religious traditions covered include Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, in the UK and Europe, USA, Latin America and Africa - An introduction situates each thematic part, and each reading is contextualised by the editors - Guidance on further reading and study questions are provided on the book's webpage

TCSE-Smith, blurb (final 9 August 2013) There are 400 million Buddhists in the world. Buddhists in Australia make up 3% of the population. So why have Buddhists had so little to say about educating youth? And, can Buddhism survive in Australia without educating youth? Sue Smith in Buddhist Voices in School answers why Buddhists are reluctant to ‘go public’ on education, and how Buddhism has much to offer the critical area of enhancing the wellbeing of young people. Here she distinguishes spiritual education from religion. Using case studies of Buddhist classes in primary schools Smith shows how a community adapted Buddha-Dharma to fit with contemporary education. The book describes how Social and Emotional Learning, inquiry and experiential approaches to education fit well with the intentions of Buddhism. In these classes students learned to meditate and explored ethics through a lively selection of Jataka tales. Voices from a Buddhist community, state school teachers, parents and also students inform the narrative of this book. It is the students themselves that reveal over time how they have developed calm, focus, kindness, resilience and better ability to make choices through their participation. The author concludes that the principles and techniques used in this program make potent contributions to current pedagogy. This book will be of great value to educators, academics and all those who have interest in Buddhism and who care about how children are educated.

This volume consists of 12 essays published by the author between the years 1997-2007, a thirteenth paper read at a conference in 2006, and a long introduction prepared specifically for the collection. All of the essays deal with epistemological issues attendant on conceptualizing and defining religion, understanding what is likely to be involved in studying and discussing beliefs, and attempting to explain religion and religions by drawing on the contemporary cognitive and evolutionary sciences. The problem of how best to understand and represent the cultural sensitivities of others is addressed by considering the works of three predecessors, Edward Burnett Tylor, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, and A. Irving Hallowell.

This book, written with hospital spiritual care providers in mind, investigates how to expand the field and scope of compassion within the hospital context, for the spiritual care and safety of transgender patients. Written by a law-educated pastoral counselor, it advocates for chaplain legal literacy, and explains the consequences of spiritual care providers not knowing more about the law. It explores the current political and legal situation transgender hospital patients find themselves in, and especially how these new policies put transgender people at risk when they are in a hospital setting. Pamela Ayo Yetunde offers Buddhist-Christian activist interreligious dialogue methods to promote deeper understanding of how spiritual practices can cultivate empathy for transgender patients.

Children's spiritual development is currently a hot topic in Christian circles, as well as in other fields and disciplines such as educational psychology, medicine, developmental psychology, education, and sociology. The key question for Christian scholars and educators is How do Christian beliefs and practices uniquely interrelate with children's spirituality? In 2003 and again in 2006, a national conference entitled Children's Spirituality Conference: Christian Perspectives examined children's spirituality from a distinctly Christian standpoint. This book is a collection of the best materials from the 2006 conference. The first half of the book addresses definitional, historical, and theological concerns related to spiritual development in children. The second half explores best practices for fostering spiritual growth among our children--in our homes, families, churches, Christian schools, and among special populations of children--from a wide spectrum of Christian scholars and practitioners. The volume closes with John Westerhoff's moving keynote address and Catherine Stonehouse and Scottie May's eloquent, culminating plenary address. Nurturing Children's Spirituality provides a rich cross section of the current research and writing by Christian scholars on children's spirituality. Contributors: Holly Catterton Allen, Michael J. Anthony, Stacy Berg, Chris J. Boyatzis, MaLesa Breeding, Marilyn Brownlee, Linda V. Callahan, Jane Carr, Mara Lief Crabtree, Karen Crozier, James Riley Estep Jr., Jeffrey E. Feinberg, Stephanie Goins, Judy Harris Helm, Dana Kennamer Hood, Sungwon Kim, Kevin Lawson, Scottie May, Marcia McQuitty, Heidi Schultz Oschwald, Donald Ratcliff, Pam Scranton, Timothy A. Sisemore, Catherine Stonehouse, La Verne Tolbert, T. Wyatt Watkins, John H. Westerhoff III