Spirit of the Child

David Hay is a zoologist and Honorary Senior Research Fellow of the Department of Divinity and Religious Studies at the University of Aberdeen. For the past 11 years he has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for the Study of Religion at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. David was formerly Reader in Spiritual Education at the University of Nottingham, where he directed the Children's Spirituality Project. He is also a former director of the Alister Hardy Research Centre in Oxford. Rebecca Nye is a child psychologist and a member of staff in the faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University.

• Preface to the First Edition. Preface to the Revised Edition. Part I: Orientation. 1. What is Spirituality and Why Is It Important? 2. The Social Destruction of Spirituality. 3. Children's Spirituality - What We Know Already. 4. A Geography of the Spirit. Part II: Investigation. 5. How do you Talk with Children about Spirituality? 6. Listening to Children Talking, by Rebecca Nye. 7. Identifying the Core of Children's Spirituality, by Rebecca Nye. Part III: Reflection. 8. The Naturalness of Relational Consciousness. 9. Nurturing the Spirit of the Child. 10. Developments Since 1998. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

The Spirit of the Child is a ground-breaking book providing a theoretical and practical text that attempts to offset the dearth of research and literature relating to children's spiritual experiences. Contrary to the increasingly prevalent view that religion is out of date and out of touch, this broader consideration of spirituality could be a valuable tool for developing young people's understanding issues of social injustice and the dynamics of becoming disenfranchized from society. This is an excellent publication that should be key reading for everyone in our education community.