Maltese children’s experience of the Holy Week : turning symbols into resources

Abstract

The Maltese social calendar still follows the religious calendar and is thus marked by church, community and/or family traditions and festivities. The year is organized around three main moments: Lent and Easter, the village festa and Advent and Christmas. In this dissertation I intend to investigate the impact of Easter and the Holy Week on children. When I was a little girl, my parents used to take me and my sister to various Easter celebrations and events. This has always left a deep impact on my spirituality and emotions. Through this study I intend to delve into the subject’s of children’s spirituality, anthropology, social psychology and pedagogy. In particular I wish to get a better understanding on the children’s ability to interact with their environment and to construct meaning to metaphoric logic (Levine, 1999). I wish to understand if and how children use the narrative presented through art, pageantry, liturgy/rituals and music may help children deal with meaning. As a future primary teacher, I believe that this will help me understand better the impact of the context on children and how these experiences may be capitalised during formal learning.