CONNECTING: TEENAGE BOYS, SPIRITUALITY AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
By Kath Engebretson, St Pauls, $29.95
Reviewed by Br Brian Grenier CFC
BOOKS that focus on the educational growth of teenage boys are commonly deficient in one very important particular � they pay scant attention to their spiritual development.
Kath Engebretson (Associate Professor at the School of Religious Education, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne) has filled this lacuna competently and, I believe, with considerable success in the aptly titled work under review.
The book, which is based on the responses of more than 1200 Australian teenage boys to two well-constructed and wide-ranging questionnaires, has many strengths.
It sets out its material in orderly fashion; explicates key concepts (including, and most importantly, ‘spirituality’); demonstrates a comprehensive grasp of relevant secular and religious writings in the field (listed in a comprehensive bibliography); presents and briefly analyses pertinent sociological data; and draws credible conclusions from the boys’ replies to questions about their hopes, their sources of personal inspiration, their friendships and family relationships, their values and masculine ideals, their approaches to prayer, their agreement with Catholic Christian beliefs, and other matters.
The inclusion of a generous selection of these responses gives parents and other educators firm grounds for hope and adds vitality to a fine volume which succeeds in being both scholarly and very readable.
In her concluding pages, Kath Engebretson stresses that this is not just another book about boys’ problems.
Having ‘sought to discover and find ways to develop the real spirituality of the teenage boys who attend Catholic schools in Australia’, she distils from their reports and stories seven characteristics of that spirituality.
I warmly recommend this helpful and practical resource to all who have any responsibility for nurturing faith in teenage boys.
Teachers especially should welcome the well-conceived ‘guidelines for religious education’ which conclude each of the chapters.
I hope that the pressing need for such a book will translate into an equally pressing demand.
