God Is Half White and Half Brown: Two Children's Metaphors for God

• In Event: 66.089 - Sheraton Roundtable Session 13 - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 66.089-8 - Race and Culture in Teaching and Learning

Abstract

Contrary to popular developmental theories that position children as incapable of abstract thought, this multi-modal presentation demonstrates that children are capable of co-constructing understandings of race and gender using religious metaphor. Grounded in critical sociocultural theory, I describe the ways in which my two children, aged six to ten years across the two year study, co-constructed images of God as metaphors for the ways in which they understood race and gender. I attempt to illuminate the sophistication of their conceptions of God by comparing them to McFague’s (1988) criteria for illustrative God metaphors, demonstrating that children are capable of purposeful abstract thought constructed through interactions with others within their own cultural contexts.

Author

• Rhianna Kay Thomas, University of Missouri - Kansas City