The Church of Sweden often states that children have a special position in the church, and this statement is the basis of this essay. This essay evaluates the special position that children is said to have in the church and what role children’s religious and cognitive understanding have in this special position. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the Church of Sweden’s knowledge of children's cognition and how they apply this knowledge in their work with children. To analyze this special position I use material created by the Church of Sweden, such as propositions for the church meeting, episcopal letter, statements and other publications made by the Church of Sweden. This essay looks at how the church is run on a national level, and on the level of the diocesans and the parishes. The data collected on how the Church of Sweden runs its operation regarding their education of children are then analyzed based on theories from the Psychology of Religion. These theories are from Jean Piaget, Ronald Goldman, David Elkind, James W. Fowler and Justin L. Barrett. This essay also examines the ages of children that the different parishes in Umeå uses to select when children should receive their first children’s bible, and how different theories on cognitive development relate to these ages. There is an awareness, within the Church of Sweden, of how theories and methods from the psychology of religion can help with the teaching of Christian faith. To date, there has been a lot of talk and wishes from the Church of Sweden to make the change needed to provide better education to children in regards to their cognitive understanding, but the implementation of this change has so far been moving slowly.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-203341 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Holmlund, Nina |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för idé- och samhällsstudier |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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