Spiritual Experiences in Early Childhood Education
14 days return policy
Shipping & Delivery
Product details
- ISBN 9781138287044
- Weight: 249g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 18 Nov 2016
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Spirituality is frequently avoided in the public school classroom in an attempt to prevent controversy. However, by ignoring, preventing, or discounting spirituality, educators can also inhibit children’s spiritual development. Based on qualitative research and interactions with both children and adults, Jennifer Mata argues that educators should be responsible for addressing children’s spirituality in the classroom and for re-introducing these topics into early childhood education.
By surveying the existing literature on spirituality, Mata offers a working definition of spirituality as an essential characteristic of humanness, which helps connect individuals to themselves, others, and to the transcendent. The book portrays stories and descriptions of four kindergarten children in their classroom setting, exploring their different modes of expressing and experiencing spirituality. Finally, Spiritual Experiences in Early Childhood Education offers a review of pedagogical strategies to nurture spirituality, for both teachers to implement in the classroom and teacher educators to facilitate in teacher preparation programs.
Jennifer Mata, Ed.D., is Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education at the College of Education, DePaul University, USA. She received a doctorate in early childhood education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and has worked in the field of early childhood education since 1995. Dr. Mata has been an infant and toddler, preschool, and kindergarten teacher in both monolingual and bilingual settings in the U.S. and abroad, and was formerly Associate Professor at Universidad Metropolitana in Caracas, Venezuela. Her research interests stem from children’s spirituality and teacher preparation to moral development and bilingual and bicultural education.
