Religiosity and Prosocial Behaviour in Elementary School Age Children

This thesis deals with religosity and religiousness in elementary school age children in context with manifestations of prosocial behavior. The main aim of the thesis is to describe differences between children from religious families and children from non-religious families. Whether children from religious families behave more prosocially. The partial aim is to find out if the children consider themselves to be believers, or how they describe their beliefs. The theoretical part contains information about the development period of the elementary school age, description of the terms "religiosity" and "prosocial behavior" and introduction to previous research on this topic. Practical part consists of documentation of qualitative and quantitative research, description of its methodology and presentation of results. The research group is the 5th grade children. The research consists of observation of children in the natural environment (school class), a questionnaire survey and a semi-structured interview with selected pupils. This research has proven that religious children considered themself as more prosocial than non-religious children. Also the results of observation and teachers evaluation has shown religious children as more prosocial than non-religious. Furthermore result suggested the differences in prosociality between boys and girls. Differences has also shown between the different kind of elementary schools. In the qualitative part have been discovered different perceptions on religion between religious and non-religious children. For religious children is more important emotional and social dimension of religion. Non-religious children spoke about religion primaly on cognitive level