Children's Spirituality Summit 2024

This paper addresses the issue of children's spirituality in an innovative way by highlighting the implications that the adoption of a specific definition of spirituality has on the inclusion or exclusion of several children's voices from the research design and therefore from the reserch results. In order to critically address the inclusive and exclusionary potential, the paper starts by presenting the broadest definition of the term and progressively adds specific nuances in order to reach a more complex and inclusive one. The aim of the article is certainly not the utopian one of providing an all-inclusive framework, but rather to show how, in any research, it is crucial to reflect on the children who, due to factors such as personal characteristics or cultural affiliation, will potentially be included in the research design and those who, on the other hand, run the risk of being overlooked. Hence, this session aims to be a useful self-analysis tool for both academics and professionals engaged in research on spirituality.