This book explores how and if the mandate for children to worship in schools can be justified within the context of declining church attendance and increasing nonreligious identification in British society. Shillitoe asks what place compulsory worship has in an increasingly diverse and plural society, and what the answer means for the relationship between religion, the secular, and education more broadly. Through in-depth ethnographic fieldwork from across three schools in southwest England, the book reveals how examining the significance of children’s experiences expands our understanding of both collective worship in schooling and religion in social life more broadly and demonstrates that adult-centric anxieties and assumptions in this area do not always reflect the experiences of children.
Table of Content
1. Introduction.- 2. Adult Anxieties and Generational Blind Spots: Re-centring Childhood in the Sociology of Religion.- 3. On Concepts and Agency: Negotiating Religion and Nonreligion in School.- 4. The School Family: Rituals of Solidarity, Belonging and Cooperation.- 5. Doing Good’: Children’s Ethical Formation through the Everyday.- 6. On Silence, Candles, Jelly Timers and Enya: Creating Sacred Spaces in Collective Worship.- 7. Conclusion.
About the author
Rachael Shillitoe is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Birmingham, UK.
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