Methodist childhoods: The education and formation of the young Methodist in Australia and Fiji, 1900-1950

Drawing on examples from British world expressions of Christianity, this collection further greater understanding of religion as a critical element of modern childrens and young peoples history. It builds on emerging scholarship that challenges the view that religion had a solely negative impact on nineteenth- and twentieth-century children, or that secularization is the only lens to apply to childhood and religion. Putting forth the argument that religion was an abiding influence among British world children throughout the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries, this volume places religion at the center of analysis and discussion. At the same time, it positions the religious factor within a broader social and cultural framework. The essays focus on the historical contexts in which religion was formative for children in various British settings denoted as Anglo or colonial during the nineteenth and early- to mid-twentieth centuries. These contexts include mission fields, churches, families, Sunday schools, camps, schools and youth movements. Together they are treated as sites in which religion contributed to identity formation, albeit in different ways relating to such factors as gender, race, disability and denomination. The contributors develop this subject for childhoods that were experienced largely, but not exclusively, outside the metropole, in a diversity of geographical settings. By extending the geographic range, even within the British world, it provides a more rounded perspective on childrens global engagement with religion.