The author analyses two award-winning juvenile novels, "Bridge to Terabithia" by Katherine Paterson and "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy" by Gary Schmidt. Each novel portrays a deep friendship between a boy and girl who cross a stream (or river) into a world that includes fantasy, play, closeness to nature and animals, and a sense of the…

The present study begins by distinguishing between three kinds of "faith schools" (known as schools with a religious character) within England and Wales: faith schools that operate within the state-maintained sector and had their origin in voluntary church-related initiatives prior to the Education Act 1870; "traditional"…

The issues of faith and religion are frequently avoided by instructors in training institutes for fear of inciting divisive conversations in the context of the classroom. Within secular training institutes, however, there is a growing momentum to incorporate an understanding of the spiritual aspects of individuals, families, and communities into…

In Russia, people are once more coming to realize that it is fundamentally impossible to develop a genuinely civilized society unless people are taught national, patriotic, civic, legal, moral, cultural, ethical, and universal human values. Once again, leaders on different levels have begun to talk about the necessity of going back to the…

Women of color, especially Black women, are underrepresented in the extant literature and research of adult development and mind, body, spirit leadership. This in-depth qualitative portraiture study explored the lives of three Black women who have been leading their communities as adult educators of mind, body, spirit practices. This examination…

In Overeaters Anonymous (OA), the 12-step self-help program for compulsive overeaters, binge eating is regarded as a physical, spiritual, and emotional disorder. Consequently, the program proposes recovery through the adoption of a lifestyle that leads to physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being. A qualitative phenomenological study that…

The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) is a nonprofit national association representing more than 2,500 individual members as well as 685 graduate and undergraduate programs of professional social work education. Founded in 1952, this partnership of educational and professional institutions, social welfare agencies, and private citizens is…

The purpose of this study was to provide a rich description of what spiritual experiences look like in children in a kindergarten classroom, in which typically, spirituality is not considered a part of the philosophy or curriculum of the school. This study sought to first describe what constitutes a spiritual experience, to then describe how…

The purpose of this qualitative life narrative study was to describe the themes and patterns in which religio-spirituality influences the leadership process for four Black American principals. The study explored how these women leaders navigated intersecting oppressions as they engaged in social justice in their schools and the role of…

What does it mean to live in global times of terror? What are our responsibilities to children in such times? This paper draws attention to how war and terror are internal states that express themselves externally. With reference to Asian wisdom traditions, and specifically the "Bhagavad Gita", it suggests that spiritual insight into our…

Jesus's blessing of the "poor in spirit," who recognize their dependence on God, suggests that an awareness of human limitation is necessary for wise living. How can the Christian educator teach for spiritual poverty? Both Parker Palmer and Richard Kearney, from their different disciplinary and denominational perspectives, argue for the central…

Of all the individuals that we call Transcendentalists, Bronson Alcott was the most devoted to education and nourishing children's spirituality in that context. At the Temple school in Boston he held conversations with children on spiritual questions that drew forth the children's inner wisdom. This paper describes his work as an educator and…

This article details new material on the methodological procedure and the resultant data reduction of an investigation of what happens when Bible stories are told to children in the home. The wider material is written up in a book currently being published by Jessica Kingsley (in 2009), entitled "A child sees God". In this title, the…

This article is written from the perspective of a practicing headteacher as a contribution to the theory and practice of spiritual leadership in education. By using a conceptual map derived from personality type theory it seeks to articulate several distinct facets of spirited leadership, intended to denote what engages, enlivens and enlightens…

Spirituality is a fundamental, everyday life process involving a joy of living, sacrifice and love for others, and a connection to self, others, nature, and to a larger meaning or purpose. Distinct from moral or religious beliefs, spirituality engages interactively with the psyche, body, and sociocultural setting to influence human functioning,…