When Children Draw Gods - A Multicultural and Interdisciplinary Approach to Children's Representations of Supernatural Agents

This open access book explores how children draw god. It looks at children's drawings collected in a large variety of cultural and religious traditions. Coverage demonstrates the richness of drawing as a method for studying representations of the divine. In the process, it also contributes to our understanding of this concept, its origins, and its development.
This intercultural work brings together scholars from different disciplines and countries, including Switzerland, Japan, Russia, Iran, Brazil, and the Netherlands. It does more than share the results of their research and analysis. The volume also critically examines the contributions and limitations of this methodology. In addition, it also reflects on the new empirical and theoretical perspectives within the broader framework of the study of this concept.
The concept of god is one of the most difficult to grasp. This volume offers new insights by focusing on the many different ways children depict god throughout the world. Readers will discover the importance of spatial imagery and color choices in drawings of god. They will also learn about how the divine's emotional expression correlates to age, gender, and religiosity as well as strategies used by children who are prohibited from representing their god.

List of contents

Chapter 1. Integrative model of children's representations of god in drawings (Pierre-Yves Brandt, Zhargalma Dandarova Robert, Grégory Dessart, Hanneke Muthert, Hanneke Schaap-Jonker).-  Chapter 2. Anthropomorphizing and de-anthropomorphizing supernatural agency: From conceptual strategies to their theological implications( Grégory Dessart, Zhargalma Dandarova Robert, Pierre-Yves Brandt).-  Chapter 3. Gender-typing god representations: Socio-normative constraints and ontological significance ( Grégory Dessart, Zhargalma Dandarova Robert, Pierre-Yves Brandt).- Chapter 4. Where gods dwell? Spatial imagery in children's drawings of gods( Zhargalma Dandarova-Robert, Christelle Cocco, Grégory Dessart, Pierre -Yves Brandt).- Chapter 5. The colour of god(s): Early processing mechanisms of an all-powerful entity as depicted through colour choices in drawings of gods (Christelle Cocco, Christine Mohr, Domicele Jonauskaite,  Zhargalma Dandarova-Robert, Pierre-Yves Brandt).- Chapter 6. Numerical analyses of children's drawings of god(s): an approach based on computer vision and mathematical methods (Christelle Cocco, Raphaël Ceré).- Chapter 7. Emotional expression in children's drawings of God according to age, gender and religiosity (Richard P. Jolley, Grégory Dessart).- Chapter 8. Different attachment styles in relation to children's drawings of God: a qualitative and quantitative exploration, (Hanneke Muthert, Hanneke Schaap-Jonker).- Chapter 9. Iranian children's drawings of God: demographic and contextual considerations (Mohammad Khodayarifard, Reza Pourhosein, Shahla Pakdaman, Saeid Zandi).- Chapter 10. The first discoveries and the challenges of researching representations of gods in a continental country such as Brazil (Alberto Domeniconi Küntgen-Nery, Camila Mendonça Torres).- Chapter 11. Representing the gods of ancient Israeland Judah (Thomas Römer).- Chapter 12. The representation of God in Islam and its prohibition: strategies used by Iranian children in drawings of God (Zahra Astaneh).- Chapter 13. Natural and supernatural agents: children's representations of gods and dead entities (Ramiro Tau).- Chapter 14. Shaping digital tools, equipping children drawings (Dominique Vinck, Pierre-Nicolas Oberhauser).- Chapter 15. An innovative open-access database: "Drawings of gods" ( Olga Serbaeva).- Chapter 16. Children's drawings of gods: the dynamics and challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration (Frédéric Darbellay).- Chapter 17. Contributions and limitations of the methodology of drawings for studying children's representations of god (Pierre-Yves Brandt, Zhargalma Dandarova Robert, Dominique Vinck, Frédéric Darbellay).

About the author

Pierre-Yves Brandt is Professor of the Psychology of Religion at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. His interests include children¿s representations of God, psychological construction of religious identity, religious coping among seniors and patients with schizophrenia, and spiritual care in hospitals and care homes. He is the President of the Fondation des Archives Jean Piaget (since 2001) and of the International Association for the Psychology of Religion (IAPR ; since 2015) and the chair of the Institute of Social Sciences of Religions, Faculty of Theology and Sciences of Religions, University of Lausanne (since 2016).

Zhargalma Dandarova-Robert is lecturer in psychology of religion at the University of Lausanne. Her current research focuses on two areas of psychology of religion: 1) children¿s representations of the divine and 2) the relation between religion/spirituality and health/well-being.

Christelle Cocco, is senior SNSF researcher at the University of Lausanne (UNIL) in the Institute for Social Sciences of Religions. Her research focuses on data mining and data analysis applied to digital data coming from human and social sciences projects, using methods from various fields, such as image processing, computer vision, computational musicology and computational linguistics.

Dominique Vinck is full Professor at the University of Lausanne (UNIL). He is member of the Social Sciences Institute and director of the Revue d¿Anthropologie des Connaissances. His research interests are in the sociology of science and innovation with a focus on the engineering of digital humanities and cultures. His publications include among others: Pratiques de l¿interdisciplinarité (PUG, 2000), Everyday Engineering. An Ethnography of Design and Innovation (MIT Press, 2003), The Sociology of Scientific Work (Edward Elgar, 2010), Ingénieur aujourd¿hui (PPUR, 2015), Sciences et technologies émergentes : pourquoi tant de promesses ? (Hermann, 2015), Humanités numériques : la culture face aux nouvelles technologies (Le Cavalier Bleu, 2016), Critical studies of innovation: Alternative approaches to the pro-innovation bias (Edward Elgar, 2017), Les métiers de l¿ombre de la Fête des Vignerons (Antipodes, 2019), Staging Collaborative Design and Innovation: An Action-Oriented Participatory Approach (Edward Elgar, 2020), Handbook on Alternative Theories of Innovation (Edward Elgar, 2021).

Dr. Frédéric Darbellay is Professor of Inter- and Transdisciplinarity at the Centre for Children's Rights Studies (University of Geneva) and Head of Inter- and Transdisciplinarity Unit. His main areas of interests are Inter- and Transdisciplinary research and teaching, Epistemology, Creativity, Higher Education Studies, Children¿s Rights and Digital Humanities. His research focuses on the study of interdisciplinarity as a creative process of knowledge production between and beyond disciplines. He is author of several publications on the theory and practice of inter- and transdisciplinarity through multiple scientific fields in higher education

Product details

Assisted by	Pierre-Yves Brandt (Editor), Christelle Cocco (Editor), Christell Cocco et al (Editor), Zhargalma Dandarova-Robert (Editor), Frédéric Darbellay (Editor), Dominique Vinck (Editor)
Publisher	Springer, Berlin
Languages	English
Product format	Hardback
Released	05.01.2023
EAN	9783030944285
ISBN	978-3-0-3094428-5
No. of pages	569
Dimensions	155 mm x 34 mm x 235 mm
Illustrations	VIII, 569 p. 153 illus., 123 illus. in color.
Series	New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion
Subject	Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories

Product details

• Assisted by: Pierre-Yves Brandt (Editor), Christelle Cocco (Editor), Christell Cocco et al (Editor), Zhargalma Dandarova-Robert (Editor), Frédéric Darbellay (Editor), Dominique Vinck (Editor)
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 05.01.2023
• EAN: 9783030944285
• ISBN: 978-3-0-3094428-5
• No. of pages: 569
• Dimensions: 155 mm x 34 mm x 235 mm
• Illustrations: VIII, 569 p. 153 illus., 123 illus. in color.
• Series: New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion
• Subject: Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories