Abstract
The purpose of this article is to introduce the recent trends in the study of children’s spirituality （CS）. The first part discusses part of the reason for the growing concern of CS: recognizing the significance of focusing on meaning of life and sense of connectedness, and arguments against stage theory of development. Then the second part is to review the brief history of the contemporary study of CS; these studies attend to（ a） children’s spiritual experience as typified by religious experience and peak experience in the last decades of the 20th century,（ b）“ relational consciousness”（ Hay & Nye, 2006）in recent years; these depend on qualitative study such as retrospective method for adults or interviews with children. The third part introduces skeptical views of CS from traditional psychology. The last part describes the definitional and methodological issues in this area and future direction in Japan such as making a careful selection of qualitative research methods, developing measures, and literature study of the Eastern view of children.
