The multidimensional nature of spirituality in primary education: an analysis of duality, transcendence, and immanence

This article analyzes how subject-object duality shapes existential tensions that influence human search for meaning, belonging, and unity, examining transcendence and immanence in educational processes and primary school children’s spiritual experiences. Focusing on the interconnected perspectives of duality, transcendence, and immanence in education, this study employs a theoretical and interpretive approach, drawing upon academic literature disciplines of cognitive science and the author’s pedagogical reflections working with primary school children at a Latvian music school. Particular attention is given to children’s questions concerning life, death, belonging, morality, identity, and the future. The analysis suggests that duality underlies spiritual challenges, such as identity insecurity, uncertainty and fear of death. Transcendence emerges in children’s orientation towards the ‘beyond’, while immanence arises in everyday values, virtues, relationships, and inner experiences.