A cross‐cultural study of pre‐adolescents' moral, religious and spiritual questions

A cross‐cultural study of pre‐adolescents' moral, religious and spiritual questions

• Tirri, Kirsi University of Helsinki, Finland
• Tallent-Runnels, Mary K. Texas Tech University, USA
• Nokelainen, Petri University of Tampere, Finland

British Journal of Religious Education, 27(3), 207-214, 2005

Routledge

2005

• P Social Context of Education
  • PB Comparative Education
• B Human Behaviour
  • BB Interests, Attitudes & Values

Elementary School Students Foreign Countries Cross Cultural Studies Preadolescents Moral Issues Religious Factors Beliefs Comparative Education Intelligence Differences Academically Gifted Inquiry Questioning Techniques Scientific Attitudes Knowledge Level Finland Hong Kong Bahrain

• Hong Kong
• Finland
• Bahrain

• 1997.7 onwards

• Primary Education

This study investigated differences across four countries in the amount and nature of above-average ability and average-ability pre-adolescents' everyday life, scientific, moral, spiritual and religious questions. The participants (N = 975) of this study were fifth-and sixth-grade elementary school students from different schools in Finland (N = 367), the USA (N = 164), Hong Kong (N = 169) and Bahrain (N = 275). Approximately half of the students in each country came from special programmes or schools serving above-average-ability students. The results showed that above-average-ability students from each participating country asked more scientific and moral questions than their average-ability peers. This finding was not found to be gender-related. Furthermore, in each country the average-ability students asked more everyday life questions than their gifted peers. The Christian influence in the Finnish and US data, and Muslim influence in the Bahrain data were seen in the spiritual and religious questions asked by pre-adolescents. Additionally, in all the data sets girls asked more spiritual and religious questions than boys. The results point to the need for teachers to discuss moral, religious and spiritual questions influencing pre-adolescents' futures.
[Copyright of British Journal of Religious Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01416200500141181]

• English

Journal Articles

• 01416200

• 10.1080/01416200500141181

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/en/bibs/4607801e

2010-09-06