ABSTRACT
Ronald Goldman interviewed 200 children aged between 6 and 15+ years. He showed three pictures: a child entering a church with adults, a child praying alone and a child looking at a mutilated Bible. Goldman found that children’s ability to think and understand religious concepts developed in a series of stages. Up to 7/8 years children’s thinking generally is marked by two main features: egocentricity and monofocalism. Egocentricity means that children’s judgments are made solely from their own standpoint. In 7/9 years the children have moved into operational thinking and have achieved levels of concrete thinking. The separation of religion from the rest of the curriculum in terms of children’s understanding is odd but persistent. In 1965 Goldman wrote a second book Readiness for Religion which attempted to interpret some of his findings for teachers and to consider implications for religious education particularly in the primary school.
