Spiritual Development as an Educational Goal

Abstract

Purpose: To inform current international debates about educating for wholeness and purpose, this article gives a critical analysis of spiritual development as a goal of state-funded schooling in England and Wales. Design/Approach/Methods: The analysis follows a history of ideas approach. Relevant texts are examined to understand how notions of “spiritual” and “development” were first combined and introduced into mass education, and how they have changed over time. Findings: The concept of spiritual development blends scientific conceptions of human development with a holistic, but ambiguous formative principle. This expedient, even paradoxical ideal, has resulted in confusion among practitioners and allowed for some considerable shift in policy. Originality/Value: Spiritual development in the English context provides a paradigmatic case by which to explore the integration of formative goals in the curriculum. While in some respects the English tradition of spiritual development represents something of its time and its unique cultural context, its underlying assumptions resonate with renewed international interest for educating for meaning and purpose.

A Systematic Review of 10 Years of Research on the Development of Spiritually and Morally Resilient Youth

“…The TC studies predominantly informed about the overarching practices of spiritually and morally resilient youth across the globe. This developmental path has been regarded as the formative goal of education in England [9]. So, school students in England are encouraged to develop their morality and spirituality by familiarizing themselves with religions and worldviews and creative work or reflecting on math complex concepts as infinity and probability.…”

Implementing a Spiritual and Moral Education Program for Maths Teachers

“…Spiritual and moral education are intercultural phenomena. The problem of spiritual and moral education has been the focus of modern scientists from different countries: Croatia (Tokic, 2019), China (Kaili, 2012), Britain (Rodger, 2000;Rossiter, 2006;Moulin-Sto˝ek, 2020), Russia (Menshikov &Khokhlova, 2018), andSlovenia (SardoË, 2019). Benson (2004), Carr (1995Carr ( , 1996, and Wintersgill (2008) have contributed to addressing the spiritual development of adolescents in school, making a reasonable comparison between religious and spiritual development.…”

“…At the same time, it is believed that studentsí spiritual and moral education is the domain of humanities (Bahchieva, 2017;Belkin et al, 2015Belkin et al, , 2016Bazarova, 2019;Shirshov, 2020;Korolkov, 2006). However, natural and mathematical disciplines have significant potential to complement and enrich this process with their methods, techniques, and tools (Dvoryatkina et al, 2018;Halstead, 1994;Ptitsyn, 2019;Savvina & Melnikov, 2019;Moulin-Sto˝ek, 2020). Using such qualities of mathematics as the universal language and methods, beauty in aesthetic content, and in relation to the laws of nature, technical, economic, natural and humanitarian sciences, music, painting, architecture, and art can serve as the fundamentals of the individual with value-semantic guidelines and enrichment with spiritual and moral values.…”

Spiritual education as a subspecies of relational education?

“…Though the promotion of spiritual 'development' is a statutory requirement in state-maintained schools in England and Wales, it is neither clear what spirituality is nor how schools might educate in this area. In philosophical literature, one finds an array of divergent conceptions of spirituality and spiritual education (Moulin-Stozek 2020;Venkataraman and Konwar 2019). A sociological gaze finds a vast range of understandings and uses of the term 'spirituality' (Bruce 2017), as well as a wide range of people who self-define as 'spiritual' or as 'spiritual but not religious' (SBNR) (Parsons 2018).…”