Preface

All but one of the articles in this Special Issue were contributions by scholars to the Fifth International Conference on Children’s Spirituality, which took place at Bishop Grosseteste College, Lincoln, UK, in July 2004. This Fifth Conference in the series took place against a background of very serious social, economic and religious conflict in the world. Many of the papers at the Conference reflected this situation by addressing spirituality from diverse national, anti-consumerist and politically radical stances, in addition to a continuing interest in the nature and praxis of spirituality and spiritual pedagogy and a revived interest in addressing spirituality with integrity and truthfulness about contextual factors such as oppression, diversity and the power of markets.