week 8: students, religion, and faith identity Flashcards
include lecture slides but NOT review notes (missing readings, cases, in class notes) (14 cards)
3 topics in this lecture?
- World Religions and Childhood
- Parenting and Faith Traditions
- Faith-Based Schools and Children’s Rights
Why is it important to know about various religions and how they relate to childhood?
Religious is now the experience of every society and all societies have children, therefore there is greater involvement between the two parties (Marcia Bunge)
How does religion view childhood?
Totally depends on the faith identity and relgiion at hand.
How does Indignity view childhood?
“Children are a gift from the Creator, on loan to us from the spirit world” (National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health, 2013, 2).
How does Judaism view childhood?
“Judaism as a religion is organized around precepts that dictate the way every man and woman should conduct their everyday lives [including] … procreation, childrearing, education” (Browning & Bunge, 2009, 15).
How does Christianity view childhood?
“Christians have held … children as uncorrupted gifts from or images of God … [but also] as uncivilized brutes … incarnating Adam’s original sin” (Browning & Bunge, 2009, 85-86).
How does Islam view childhood?
“Arabic has a rich vocabulary to designate not only childhood but also the various subdivisions and the many phenomena that made up this gradual process … [including] specific terms that expressed ideas and rules of conduct to help channel parental instincts” (Browning & Bunge, 2009, 155).
How does Hinduism view childhood?
“The idea of the child as ‘ritually formed’ as [they] go through the various stages of becoming an adult … and the idea of the child as closer to the divine” (Browning & Bunge, 2009, 218).
How does Buddhism view childhood?
“Though Buddhism was, and still is, rightly depicted as a religion organized around winning nirvana, … [it still contains] life-managing doctrines and practices [the Buddha’s story offers insights into preciousness and enlightenment]” (Browning & Bunge, 2009, 218).
What was Helen Racanellli’s view on parenting and faith traditions?
Racanellis view on parenting and faith traditions is that she needed to be raised in a religion and then free to choose her own way, as opposed to always being free to choose her own faith and religion. She believes being raised without faith was a mistake, and she made the decision to raise her own son as a catholic. Her son will have the opportunity to be involved in the church and community, which the author believed is the greater value and importance of being raised religious; a sense of belonging.
What is the relationship between faith-based schools and children’s rights?
Some may aruge that faith based schools violate children’s rghts.
Peter Hemming challenges the notion that faith based schools violate children’s rights. What articles of the UNCRC does he identify to back up his argument?
Article 12: Right to Express Views
Article 14: Freedom of Thought, Conscience, Religion
“If children are taught particular religions ‘truths’ without alternatives, then this amounts to indoctrination. Indeed, British Humanists have drawn on the UNCRC to argue against the existence of faith schools in favour of inclusive community schools” (Hemming, 2018, 156).
“Assertions regarding indoctrination often seem to assume that religious indoctrination is the only type that can exist within education. Yet schools are in the business of nurturing a range of values and beliefs” (Hemming, 2018, 156).
“Article 14 represents an unresolved tension between the developing capacity of children to exercise freedom of thought, conscience and religions and the right of parents to provide directions an guidance in this regard” (Hemming, 2018, 156).
The assumption that “children are always willing to be indoctrinated … effectively constructs childhood through a developmental lens, viewing children as passive and unable to make their own decisions” (Hemming, 2018, 157).
“Whilst faith schools could in theory be promoting problematic values and practices that do restrict children’s rights, there is no reason to assume they are inevitably doing so. Indeed, the extent to which individual schools with or without a religious character respect children’s autonomy and rights, could vary considerably due to the diversity present within both the faith schools and non-faith school sectors” (Hemming, 2018, 157).
What does Bruce Collet argue about faith-based schools and childrens rights?
“Schools certainly can address acculturation challenges [through] … [respectful and tolerant] dress codes, spaces for student prayer, holidays, and religious education [as well as through being a community hub where] connect[ions] with the wider ethno-religious communities [can meet]” (Hemming, 2018, 157). <- why did it say hemming instead of collet?
Do faith-based schools violate childrens rights? What does the author use to express this? (might actually be on test)
He uses article 12 and 14 to deterine that faith-based schools do not violate childrens rights, or indoctrinate them at least anymore than public schools do. Faith-based schools nurture a range of beliefs, and people are just assuming that because of this nurturing of beliefs, children have no agency and they are viewed as passive. The bigger issue from the authors point is not giving them agency. f you think children are being indoctrinated by faith-based schools, you are ignoring article 12 and 14 on the UNCRC.
