Keywords

Introduction

Catholic education currently finds itself in a contested space in Ireland. Much of the recent and contemporary research is based on adult and minority group perspectives of Catholic education. This chapter explores how the voice of children can be accessed in an inclusive manner, offering another lens through which to explore the conversation. It is widely recognised that children not only have their own views (de Sousa 2019; Harmon, 2018; O’Farrell 2016; Ipgrave 2004), but that their voices must be heard and respected (UN 1989). Arguing that young people should not be seen merely as objects of research, but as active participants therein, this chapter presents a rights-based approach to research with children, based on the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), Articles 12 and 14 (UN 1989). It explores the Lundy Model for Participation (2007) framework for research with children, ensuring that all children’s views are valued and respected. The chapter concludes by considering the implications emerging from recent research concerning aspects of the religious identity of a child in a Catholic school in Ireland.

Context of Student Voice

Children must be active participants in, not merely objects of, their education. This moves from schooling that is determined traditionally by adult concerns to education focused more on the life of the child (Fleming 2015; Dillen 2014). Qvortup (1994) states that children should be seen as ‘beings’, rather than ‘becomings’, and as active participants in their own lives. This is also true when it comes to conducting research with children. Accepting that children must be active participants influences how the research views the children and childhood influences, and how the children engage in the research process. It prompts a move from a view of children as objects of research to a group with views and perspectives that are valid and are worth hearing; and as rights-holders in society, entitled to having their views on their own lives heard (Christensen and James 2017). Fielding and McGregor (2005) highlight the importance of the voice being both dialogue and action, with discussion on issues that are relevant to all parties involved. In the present study, this refers to the children and their views on religion and Religious Education (RE).

Recent Irish policy and legislation support the rights of children: the passing of the Education act (1998) and the Children’s act 2001; the establishment of the National Children’s Office in 2001; the appointment of a Children’s Minister in 2008; and the Thirty-first amendment of the Constitution (children) act 2012—a constitutional imperative to strengthen the rights of the child in Ireland. Children are taking their place as valued members of society, with rights that must be listened to, considered and respected. The journey to this place where children’s voices are heard has been a long one and is well documented by Ruddock and Flutter (2000). Dewey’s Democracy and education (1916) applies the principle of democratic society to education, stating that education should have both an individual and societal purpose. He seeks to transform child voice, hitherto virtually silent, so that the role of the child as a co-constructor of knowledge becomes central to the progressive educational practice that he advocates (Dewey 1916). The twentieth century has been identified as the century of the child, with child-centred ideologies underpinning and informing legal, welfare, medical and educational policy.

The first formal Declaration on the rights of the child was in 1924. This, along with other significant movements, led to the UNCRC in 1989 (UN 1989). The UNCRC is composed of 41 articles, which seek to improve the life experiences of children throughout the world, including their living conditions and education. The UNCRC states, in Article 12, that children have the right to have their opinions considered and their views respected in decision-making that affects them (UN 1989). However, while inclusion of the voice of the child is articulated as a key principle in international education policy and practice contexts today, ensuring that the child’s voice is meaningfully included and, moreover, responded to continues to be a challenge in educational systems (Deegan 2015). Deegan questions whether educators are truly convinced of the value in their practice of the child’s voice. A democratic educational system acknowledges the importance of the child’s voice and recognises that prioritising ‘participation’ enhances children’s self-esteem and confidence, promotes their overall development, and develops their sense of autonomy, independence, social competence and resilience (Whitebread and O’Sullivan 2012). Deegan’s concern is addressed by Ring et al. (2016). Their study entitled An examination of concepts of school readiness among parents and educators in Ireland found that

‘young children can provide valuable insights into how they perceive their early years’ education experiences and underline the importance of embedding a pedagogy of voice and a pedagogy of listening for children from the beginning’ (Ring and O’Sullivan 2018 p. 6).

The principles of democracy and child voice are key focuses of the pedagogy of listening, articulated and embraced in the view of the children. The present study is particularly interested in the child’s opinions (UN 1989 Article 12) and their freedom of expression, thought, conscience and religion (UN 1989 Articles 13 and 14). Morrison (2007) notes that some schools use pupil or student voice, as it suits, to the advantage of their own agenda, and at other times, ignore it. This is mirrored by Fielding and Rudduck, who state that the ‘key issue is whose voice can be heard in the acoustic of the school, and by whom. Moreover, how what is said gets heard depends not only on who says it, but also on style and language’ (Fielding and Rudduck 2002 p. 2). Echoing Fielding and Rudduck, one of the criticisms of the UNCRC is the fact that children themselves were not involved in drafting it (Hill and Tisdall 1997). Notwithstanding this, the UNCRC endeavours to ensure that children are heard on issues that are relevant to them.

Methodology

A model to access this voice is offered by Laura Lundy at the School of Education, Queen’s University, Belfast. Lundy has developed a rights-based model of child participation that is beneficial to all education settings. It is therefore germane to the present study. Lundy’s model focuses on ensuring that all children’s views are valued and respected (Lundy 2007) (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

(Source Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DYCA 2015 p. 21)

The Lundy Model of Participation

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The Lundy Model of Participation, as above, highlights four components that are necessary to ensure that Article 12 of the UNCRC is achieved. The components are space, voice, audience and influence. Lundy (2007) suggests that children should be given space through the provision of safe and familiar location, in which they are

  1. (1)

    encouraged to express their views and are given opportunities to both form and express their views on what matters to them;

  2. (2)

    allocated a voice through being facilitated in expressing their views freely (this is not dependant only on their ability to form their position, whether it be mature or not);

  3. (3)

    assured of their voices being heard by an audience and given due weight, as they have a right to be heard by those who have power to make decisions;

  4. (4)

    assured of having their views responded to in order that they understand that their views have influence in their environment (Lundy 2007).

The children in the present study were co-researchers and not just data gathers—they were central to the analysis of the data and in shaping the finding. Three age-appropriate methodologies were used to access the voice of the children: namely, photovoice (photovoice is a powerful participatory action research method where individuals are given the opportunity to take photographs, discuss them collectively, and use them to create opportunities for personal and/or community change), scrapbooking and focus groups. All children, regardless of religious or belief tradition, were invited to participate. Thirty-five children, between the ages of 10 and 13, comprising of both girls and boy, and a variety of belief traditions engaged in the study. To protect anonymity and privacy of the children, the author has changed all first names and every effort was made to match these names with the cultural and religious backgrounds of the children.

Findings

The study report was presented narratively, according to three main themes that emerged during data analysis. One of the main themes that emerged was that of Religious Identity. The next section explores this theme in detail and its implications for Catholic education in a classroom setting.

Religious Identity

Religious identity is, by its nature, complex. Religious Education in a multicultural society REMC suggests that children’s religious identity can be quite fluid, since they can hold views similar to, or different from, those of their parents or other significant adults in their lives. It can also be influenced by the environment around them (ESRI 2010). It emerged that the religious identity of the young co-researchers of the present study was developed through the people they engaged with, and the places in their environment that they knew and frequented.

Religious Identity not a Priority

At the beginning of the semi-structured group interviews (focus groups), each child was asked to use five words to describe him/herself. No child referred to their religious identity or religious or belief tradition in their description. This was noted by the researcher and relayed to the children. Anne responded by saying, “Like it wouldn’t be the first thing that we would think of if we were describing ourselves.” Most of the participants agreed with this statement. Each child then identifies their religious or belief system (Fig. 2). All the children involved in this study professed to be part of a religious tradition. Interestingly, 2.8% of the school’s entire population described themselves as not following any religious belief system. The majority of respondents identified as Catholic. At 71%, this percentage is slightly higher than the 68% of the whole school population, who identified themselves as Catholic.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Self-identification of Religious and Belief Systems

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While all the children were aware of their traditions, some stated that they were uncomfortable talking about this aspect of their lives. Anne said she saw it as a personal matter and not something she would talk about publicly: “You can be judged if you say you’re some religion and some people don’t like you. A lot of people kind of shy away from it.” In contrast, Tijana informed the group that she was comfortable talking about her faith within the Christian Orthodox tradition. During the conversation on whether religion is, or should be, a public or private aspect of a person’s life, Doyle pointed out that in the past, people in Ireland could not always talk about their religious identity. Looking through the photographs from the earlier photovoice session, he showed the group the photo of the inscription on the statue of Daniel O’Connell in the town, reminding them that people in the past could not always practise their religion freely, or even speak openly of their religious identity.

Doyle stated that the statue is there to remind people of how O’Connell fought and won Catholic Emancipation in 1829. This gave Catholics the freedom to speak about their faith. He went on to emphasise that people should always feel free to talk about their religion and that they should respect the religious tradition of others. The children concurred with Doyle, highlighting the importance of respect for diversity.

Children Live in Blended-Faith or Blended-Belief Family

When the self-identification was further explored, the children began to move from one tradition to multiple traditions to describe themselves. Doyle described himself as a Catholic atheist and Hannah described herself as a Catholic Buddhist. When these new classifications were investigated, the children said that while they were Catholic, they wanted to respect the religious tradition of one or both of their parents. For example, as Hannah’s mother is a Buddhist, she tried to mix both faiths to describe herself: “I am a Catholic Buddhist.” It is not just parents in a family who can have differing beliefs systems. The children tried to navigate their own sense of religious identity: Ronald: “My parents … well, my dad’s atheist, my sister is Christian, my mother is Catholic, ‘cause they’re Armenian, so they’re really religious. Um, my brother I think he’s atheist as well. There’s a few atheists in my family but a lot of them are Russian Orthodox and Christian. I am Catholic, I think!”

Anne lamented the fact that her mother is an atheist, with no religious beliefs, and that she is judged on that by some people. Anne: “Like my mother, she don’t [sic] believe in anything. Her mother was Christian, and her sister is Christian, but she just doesn’t believe in anything. Just sometimes people are kind of like… and she is shunned by some people, like judged for not believing in anything.” This statement by Anne gives meaning to her earlier comment, that religion is private, and people are judged when they share their belief system. She is in fact speaking from the experiences of her own family. Noah was the only child who explicitly identified his male parent as religious. He spoke of how he liked to read and study religious materials with his father. The children who identified with religious traditions outside Catholicism did not report other belief traditions within their families. The majority of the children taking part in this research project (60%) lived in blended-faith families.

Influence of Grandparents on Catholic Religious Identity

It was revealed that grandparents were the most important group shaping and influencing the religious identity of most of the Catholic children involved in this study. Over 68% of the Catholic children cited their grandparents’ influence in the religious lives. Rose: “I go to Mass with my gran, she is very religious, she is the sacristan in the church;” Mia: “My nana has lots of lovely holy pictures and statues and we pray together; we do not pray at home, so I like that about my nana.” Those within the Orthodox tradition who were separated from their grandparents because they lived in different countries reflected on their influence. Tijana: “When I go to [Serbia] sometimes I go and visit my granny and I help out in the church there with the others and pray with her.” This is in comparison on only 20% citing their parents as their main influence.

Faith Practice and Family

Bradford (1995) emphasises the importance of allowing children to have an opportunity to link into and experience their faith communities. The findings of the current research suggest that not all children who took part in the study, especially those of the Catholic tradition, were afforded the chance to be in regular contact with their faith communities.

Catholic Children’s Minimal Connection with the Wider Faith Community

It was shown that most of the children taking part in the study from within the Catholic tradition (84%) had minimal contact with their faith community. They attested to attending only for major religious events. Ronald: “We especially go like the festival days of the religion like on Christmas, Easter, etc.” Mia: “We sometimes go to the Cathedral on Sunday for Mass−not all the time.” Interestingly, the Catholic children did not return any photographs of community gatherings as part of the photovoice session. Children from the Catholic tradition who spoke of attending events at their faith community appeared to attend mainly with their grandparents. Anne: “I go to Mass all the time with my granny; she is very religious.”

Importance of Community Worship for Orthodox and Evangelical Christian Children

The research revealed that the Christian Orthodox children who took part in the study did not have a local community with which to attend worship. Some recorded travelling up to 100 km to join with others of their tradition. Tjiana: “We just, like, book a spot in Ireland, because there’s like none of our churches here, and when we’re in Serbia, we go to our churches that we have.” The Christian Orthodox children spoke of the joy of the community and the amount of preparation that is done before they attend Mass. The children highlighted the making of the bread to be used for Eucharist in the community gathering as something very special in the home. These children contributed a variety of images from their faith community gatherings to the photovoice session.

The member of the Evangelical Christian community who took part in this research spoke of, and depicted, his faith community gatherings as part of the photovoice session. He talked about the importance of sharing his faith with the others when they gathered, and of praising Jesus in song. The community he described, and in which he took a very active part, was, according to him, vibrant and interactive. Noah: “Our community sings a lot and we praise Jesus, people sit around and are very happy, after about a half hour we move to Bible reading and people share their views and then more community worship”. In both cases, community gatherings were central to the lives of the children and gave them a definite sense of religious identity.

Religious Imagery in Granny’s House

Children from the Catholic faith tradition who took part in this study recorded few religious images in their homes. During the photovoice session, these children contributed many pictures of religious objects and practices within what appeared to be their home environment. However, some were quick to point out that the images were mainly from their grandparents’ homes, and it was in this environment, rather than in their own homes, that they most often engaged in prayer. Indeed, the presence of this imagery in their grandparents’ homes appeared to lead to shared moments of prayer with them.

Anna: “This is a picture at my granny’s house, it is of Mary and Jesus.”

Rose: “Well when I’m at my gran’s, I would [pray], and there’s like pictures everywhere of Jesus and stuff so you kind of are just like there like. Um, she has like a magnet with a prayer on it and it’s just on the fridge so like you know just eating your dinner or something, you’d casually be reading the prayer. I sometime say the Rosary with her in the evening.

The children identify a number of pictures of religious saints and altars in their environments and compare them within the different traditions.

Rose: “This is the statue of St Anthony at my nana’s house – she prays to him and I join her at times.” This once again demonstrates the influence that some grandparents have on the faith development of children within the Catholic tradition. In contrast, the children from the Orthodox tradition who took part in this research brought images of the altars that were in their own homes, and they spoke about prayer as part of their home lives. They attested to the traditional religious iconography in their homes and the prayer moments they experienced there.

Amy: “This is our altar at home. We are Christian Orthodox. We pray at home and sometimes study about our religion.”

Discussion on Religious Identity

The children highlighted the complexity of religious or belief identity in their lives. Some children demonstrated a very fluid understanding of their religious identity, which chimes in with REMC (ESRI 2010). Many identified their religious identity as being different from that of their parents and other members within their family. This further illustrates that in Ireland and within families, religious identity is no longer homogeneous (ESRI 2010 p. 40). By comparison with children in Flanders (Kuusisto et al. 2017; ESRI 2010), who struggled to describe the religious identity of their parents, all the children who took part in the present study were able to identify their parents’ religious identity or worldview. However, some of them were unable to explain what that identity or worldview really meant. Those who did not identify as Catholic were more definite about their religious tradition. This was most evident among the children of the Orthodox Christian and Evangelical Christian belief systems, which concurs with Mawhinney et al. (2010).

It is worth noting the diversity of faith present in 71% of the group who initially identified themselves as Catholic. Their responses and contributions suggest a fluid belief system, influenced in part by the heterogeneity of religious affiliation within their family units. While younger children are usually guided by adults and parents on the matters of religious identity (Kitching and Shanneik 2015), those of the age group involved in this research typically moved between Stages 2 and 3 of Fowler’s (1981) phases of faith development.

Documents prepared by the Catholic Church, for example, in the Irish context, Share the good news (2010), and researchers such as Darmody et al. (2014, 2012), claim that the parents and the home are the primary influences on the development of children’s religious identity. This situation is changing, as can be observed from the experience of this group of children, who, in many cases, came from multi-faith, multi-belief homes, and whose grandparents appeared to be the main influence in their religious lives. This concurs with Copen and Silverstein’s (2007) American study, which highlights the importance of grandparents (especially grandmothers) in the transmission of religious beliefs. While Francis et al. (2016) do not cite grandparents as the primary influence, they find that 90% of Irish Catholic girls recognise the importance of religion for their grandparents. In the Irish context, it appears that the place of parents is being replaced by that of grandparents in the development of children’s Catholic religious identity. While formerly they were simply regarded as “religious”, it appears that grandparents are now becoming the primary influence on Catholic religious identity.

The development of the community aspect of the tradition, where people gather to celebrate their faith, appears to be on the decline for Catholics in Ireland (Cragun 2017; Quinn 2017). The present study concurs with this. Bradford emphasises the importance of community practice as a way of developing religious identity, and outlines what should be on offer in a healthy community of faith (1999 p. 8). His idea of community practice concurs with Rolheiser’s (1998) non-negotiable contention that community participation must be part of Christian spirituality. Interestingly, Hay and Nye (2006) consider that the nurturing of a child’s religious identity is the responsibility of the teacher. They posit that it is their task to keep the mind of the child open to all possibilities and to encourage personal awareness and the development of a social spirituality, rather than placing it within a particular community. In many ways, Hay and Nye (2006) contest the importance of community participation as outlined by Rolheiser and Bradford. However, Hyde (2006) does not attribute the same level of importance to the community. He claims that children, given their ordinary and natural openness to religion, experience spirituality in many ways. Some simply describe an experience (Hart 2003), others express it through questioning (Hyde 2008), through wonder and awe, and these experiences are so profound within their development that they are carried into adulthood.

Literature emphasises the importance of children being free to express their thoughts and ideas and so to come to a safe place where their sense of the religious identity can be articulated and appreciated in a confident way. The idea of children finding their own way within a safe environment was something that was happening for some of the Catholic children involved in this study. Though they might not have attended faith community gatherings, they did find time to visit places of worship on their own, and in private. Doyle: “Um, I rarely go to the church, but I do pray at home, but I do sometimes do it at the church. But the last day when we had like this optional half day, me and a few friends, we weren’t busy, but we came back to school to see what’s going on, and I was like ‘Do you want to go to church to see what’s going on?’ We went in and it got serious all of a sudden, and then we all went to different parts of church lighting candles, thinking about people that we know and all that. And then like praying, kneeling down on the … the chairs and all that.”

Conclusion

The present study was about (a) giving children the opportunity to exercise their rights in having their voice heard in relation to issues of conscience and religion, as set out in Article 14 of the UNCRC (UN 1989), and (b) identifying their needs, in particular those of their religious lives. Coles also gives children an opportunity to exercise these rights (1990). He describes the children as pilgrims, who understood that life was a journey, and are anxious to make sense of it. He claims that they are interested in the meaning of life and questions of ultimate concerns. This study concurs with Coles, as we see children trying to make meaning of life and struggling to answer questions of ultimate concern to them and the people around them.

This voice of the children concurs with others (Darmody et al. 2012; ESRI 2010 p. 40) in affirming that their sense of religious identity is fluid, and that those who are living in blended-faith families have views that can be in conflict with what is being presented in school (ESRI 2010 p. 43). It also affirms that community practice of faith is absent for much of the time among Catholic children (Kitching and Shanneik 2015). This research accepts that some Catholics in Ireland are so-called ‘cultural Catholics’, who only attend the local Catholic Church for major feasts and events in their lives; and that these are in contrast with those of other faith traditions, who regularly gather as communities to pray and celebrate. Notwithstanding this, Catholic children enjoy certain parts of the faith practice and highlight private prayer with their grandparents and private non-directive prayer in a church setting. The children in this study attest to a clear sense of ‘being’ religious or having a belief system that is valued. Through using a rights-based approach, as articulated by Lundy (2007), and appropriate participator-based methodologies, the children were able to share their religious world view and learn from others in their class.