Preschool and Elementary School Studies

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Children's Spiritual Styles for Knowing God: A Qualitative Research

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Allame Tabataee

2 Allame Tabataba'i

Abstract

 
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine children's spiritual styles for knowing God. In reviewing the literature, no studies were found examining the children's spiritual styles for knowing God in Iran. For this purpose, we use qualitative research techniques through mosaic approach. The population of this study is all of 3 to 6th grade elementary students of Tehran which is the capital of Iran. We use purposeful sampling method to select 20 students for our sample. Methods of collecting qualitative data were interviewing with the child, interviewing with her parents and child's drawings.  In order to analyze the data, we use the content analysis method. The results showed that there are four ways for knowing God, which are action-centered approach, emotion-centered approach, word-centered approach and symbol-centered approach. In sum, we can say that there are different preferred styles for children in knowing God. Within this diversity, however, four vital spiritual avenues were demonstrated.

Keywords

References
 
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Preschool and Elementary School Studies
Volume 2, Issue 5
August 2016
Pages 69-83
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