Silence and Liminality

: An Examination of the Experiences and Expressions of Children’s Spirituality among School Students in England

Abstract

The research is set within the context of evidence for deteriorating mental health among young people in the U.K. and the link between this and societal recognition and support of child spirituality. The initial thrust of the research was an investigation into the importance of access to silence in supporting child spirituality and spiritual experience. The research consisted of two sets of audio-recorded half-hour largely child-led interviews with a total of 39 school children aged 12-14 years in four schools (secular, Catholic, Quaker and Steiner) situated in a variety of locations in England. Prepared questions, derived partly from previous research in the field of child spirituality, were expanded to include aspects of solitude and silence. Following the course of the initial data analysis, prior to the second interview set, it became evident that silence (as a binary) was less important than anticipated. The children seemed to be describing a space that better corresponded to the concepts of liminality, and occasionally communitas, as expounded by, for example, anthropologists Edith and Victor Turner. Adopting an approach similar to grounded theory, I amended the second interview question-set to include these concepts. The subsequent data analysis indicated that the majority of children interviewed, when speaking of a spiritual experience, described entering a liminal or ‘threshold’ state that was often formative and memorable. Silence, when conceived of as non-binary might be subsumed within the framework of liminality. I suggested that this enhanced framework represented an inclusive, coherent and non-reductive schema that supported the understanding and support of child spirituality.

Date of Award	13 Jul 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Winchester
Supervisor	Alasdair Richardson (Supervisor) & Kate Adams (Supervisor)