PHD-Philosophy and Religious Studies

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Browsing PHD-Philosophy and Religious Studies by Subject "Child Socialization"

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    A Comparative Analysis of Aembu and Anglican Rites of Passage for Child Socialization in Kigari Archdeaconry Embu County, Kenya
    (Kenyatta University, 2023-08) Muriithi, Elizabeth Nancy; Josephine Gitome; Humphrey Mwangi Waweru
    The main objective of this study was to have a comparative analysis of the Aembu and the Anglican Church‟s rites of passage for child socialization in order to come up with Afro-Christian mores for instilling moral virtues among children that can prepare them for their future roles as adults. Child socialization is geared towards addressing teen issues in order to help them cope and fit in the 21st Century community as truly African Christians. The study sought to find out how virtues such as obedience, honesty, respect, temperance or hard work are instilled in children to bring out morally upright people in the society. The study examined various ways of improving child socialization programs in the Anglican Church of Kenya Kigari Archdeaconary in order to curb moral challenges facing the children. The statement of the problem responded to questions on what can be put in place to improve socialization programs in the ACK Kigari Archdeaconry to curb moral challenges being faced by her children. The study was guided by the following specific objectives: To analyse the socialization processes offered through rites of passage in Aembu community, to evaluate the Anglican Church of Kenya‟s (ACK) child socialization programs and to interrogate the similarities between socialization processes in Aembu culture and Anglican Church of Kenya. The study was carried out in Embu County, in the Anglican Church of Kenya, Embu Diocese, Kigari Archdeaconary. The literature was reviewed thematically under the following sub- topics: Analysing the socialization processes offered through rites of passage in Aembu community, evaluation of the Anglican Church of Kenya‟s child socialization programs and interrogation of the relationship between socialization processes in African culture and Anglican Church of Kenya. Niebuhr‟s (1894-1962) Christ and Culture Theory and Religious Socialization theory whose major proponents are Myer (1996) and Sherkat (1998) guided the study. The study used descriptive research design which allowed the researcher to use in-depth interviews, questionnaires and focus group discussions to gather factual information systematically. The study respondents were parents, youth members, church elders, the sages, god-parents, evangelists, vicars and the Bishop. They were selected using purposive and simple random sampling methods. Primary data was collected through questionnaires, interview schedules and focus group discussions (FGD) while secondary data was gathered through published and unpublished resources. Data analysis used descriptive statistics, narratives and verbatim citations. Qualitative data analysis was used whereby data was synthesized thematically according to the objectives of the study. The findings revealed that there are socialization platforms in both Aembu and the Anglican Church of Kenya‟s forums for child socialization and that in both; children are socialized in order to make them fit in the society. However, due to social and globalization changes, the Anglican Church of Kenya socialization has been affected to an extent that the youth being socialized are battling with different moral issues, which are in turn affecting the society. It was observed that doing away with the traditional puberty rites in modern society has resulted in creating a wanting child socialization gap, which has resulted in plunging the contemporary society into a crisis with regard to management of moral issues, which translates to threatened survival of the society. Therefore, since the Aembu and Anglican Church of Kenya‟s socialization have merits, there is need to integrate them and come up with Afro- Christian mores through Integrated Rites of Passage (IRP) for both boys and girls in order to socialize the Anglican Church of Kenya‟s youth members more effectively and curb most of the youth moral issues.