Children and Imagination: Envisioning and Creating Change TogetherTanya Eustace (Discipleship Ministries)Research Interest Group. [
Paper] Imagination is a divine gift. This paper presents data collected from a qualitative research study with children that reveals imagination as a tool children use to engage, recognize, claim, and respond to God’s presence in their lives. Suggestions are made for a pedagogy that encourages the use of imagination in order to develop creative and critical thinking, self-discovery, and awareness of others. This opens a space for compassion and understanding, inviting children to engage in the world around them with empathy and creativity as they seek to be voices that connect, disrupt, and transform.
Children, Prayer, Religious Imagination and Ontological WholenessMary Ellen Durante (Fordham University)Research Interest Group. [
Paper] This paper considers how children are imaginative and full of wonder and how these qualities are foundational in developing their religious imaginations when teaching children how to pray. Imagining the possibilities life holds can help them construct and reconstruct a sense of the meaningfulness of their lives and the world they live in. The author looks at how parents and religious educators can invite children to engage their imaginations and form a religious imagination leading them to becoming more ontologically whole.
