Religion & spirituality in the spaces of the primary school : social & political explorations

This thesis explores the issue of religion and spirituality in the spaces of the primary
school through the employment of a mixed-method, qualitative approach. It includes a
comparison between two case study schools - a Community primary and a Roman
Catholic primary - both in multi-faith areas of an urban location in the North of England.
By using a spatial and child-centreC! focus, the research investigates the social and
political role and significance of religion, and spirituality for children, parents and
teaching staff in the study schools .. This is achieved through attention to four different
spaces and their interconnections with institutional space. The first is the nation, where
the thesis explores how the two different schools advocated distinct types of religious
citizenship and approaches to accommodating religious minorities on an everyday
basis. The second space is the community, and the various ways in which the schools
promoted social cohesion through the encouragement of positive encounters between
children from different religious backgrounds, and the development of a sense of
embodied togetherness. The third spatial focus concerns the extent to which religion
inhabits public or private space in school ethos. The caring nature of school ethos in
the two different contexts is also explored and the consequences for child participation
in school life. The fourth and final space is that of the body within informal school
spaces, where the focus is on the role of children's embodied religious and spiritual
practices for re-envisaging understandings of school ethos and practice. The thesis
makes original contributions to theoretical, methodological and empirical knowledge,
including the significance of emot,ipns .and spirituality, understandings of children's
agency, the use of child-centred methods as part of a mixed-method approach, and the
role of religion in secular space, education and wider society.