<p>The Hard Lesson of Life: A Study of /Re/construction of Life in School from a Religious Educational Perspective</p><p>The overriding aim of this dissertation is to examine the understanding of life that young people /re/construct, and in this sense learn, in the discursive practices of school, and to describe how such a /re/construction takes place.</p><p>The theoretical frame of the study is a critical theory perspective. Potentially problematic aspects and findings are therefore given priority over good examples. The three main concepts used were generated through the interaction of theory and empirical material. These conceptual tools are: ‘understanding of life’, ‘discursive practice’, and ‘language’. The first concept refers to the young learners’ collectively /re/constructed perceptions of how life works and of what gives life value and meaning. Discursive practice is the concept used for the context and the way in which learning takes shape. Language is an important resource in the shaping of the collective interpretation, negotiation and /re/construction of an understanding of life.</p><p>Two empirical studies are presented, a main study and a complementary one. The main study, which is regionally limited, is a group interview with 51 youths from five schools divided into ten groups. The second is a study of the most frequently used high school Religion textbook, Religion and Life, and the analysis draws on the results from the group interview study.</p><p>The institutional frames, the large-sized schools, and the tasks of school to educate pupils and to differentiate between them, are risk factors that may lead to stereotypical, instrumental, and competitive relationships in education. The group interview study indicates that there are grounds for concern since it shows that victimization works as a teaching tool in the /re/construction of a hegemonic discourse of understanding life. The empirically identified hegemonic discourse of understanding life is termed “Life as adjustment for the benefit of individual competition”. Victimization is shown to be both the cause and effect of this discourse. The hegemonic life discourse also lends contextual legitimacy to victimization. The study of the school textbook suggests that the subject Religion may reinforce such a hegemonic understanding of life if it fails to balance the book’s objective and descriptive accounts of abuse of power.</p>

The Hard Lesson of Life: A Study of /Re/construction of Life in School from a Religious Educational Perspective The overriding aim of this dissertation is to examine the understanding of life that young people /re/construct, and in this sense learn, in the discursive practices of school, and to describe how such a /re/construction takes place. The theoretical frame of the study is a critical theory perspective. Potentially problematic aspects and findings are therefore given priority over good examples. The three main concepts used were generated through the interaction of theory and empirical material. These conceptual tools are: ‘understanding of life’, ‘discursive practice’, and ‘language’. The first concept refers to the young learners’ collectively /re/constructed perceptions of how life works and of what gives life value and meaning. Discursive practice is the concept used for the context and the way in which learning takes shape. Language is an important resource in the shaping of the collective interpretation, negotiation and /re/construction of an understanding of life. Two empirical studies are presented, a main study and a complementary one. The main study, which is regionally limited, is a group interview with 51 youths from five schools divided into ten groups. The second is a study of the most frequently used high school Religion textbook, Religion and Life, and the analysis draws on the results from the group interview study. The institutional frames, the large-sized schools, and the tasks of school to educate pupils and to differentiate between them, are risk factors that may lead to stereotypical, instrumental, and competitive relationships in education. The group interview study indicates that there are grounds for concern since it shows that victimization works as a teaching tool in the /re/construction of a hegemonic discourse of understanding life. The empirically identified hegemonic discourse of understanding life is termed “Life as adjustment for the benefit of individual competition”. Victimization is shown to be both the cause and effect of this discourse. The hegemonic life discourse also lends contextual legitimacy to victimization. The study of the school textbook suggests that the subject Religion may reinforce such a hegemonic understanding of life if it fails to balance the book’s objective and descriptive accounts of abuse of power.

I den här vetenskapliga essän undersöker jag relationerna mellan olika former av materia, både mänsklig och icke mänsklig, i ett utbildningsrum. Syftet är en ökad förståelse för hur mening och tillblivelse möjliggörs och begränsas utifrån mitt agerande inom ramen för den materiellt-diskursiva praktik som utbildning utgör. Utgångspunkten är en gestaltande berättelse utifrån olika möten mellan mig, en matta och några kursdeltagare i ett utbildningsrum under en ledarskapsutbildning. Essäns teoretiska ramverk består av tankar från filosofen Martin Bubers dialogfilosofi och den posthumanistiska kvantfysikern, Karen Barads, agentiella realism. Utifrån den posthumanistiska analysmetoden, diffraktion, samläses teorier och insikter genom varandra för att söka fram emot ett tydligare artikulerande kring vad det innebär att agera utifrån mitt yrke och vad som är min praktiska kunskap. / In this scientific essay, I explore the relationships between different forms of matter, both human and non-human, in a training room. The purpose is to increase the understanding of how meaning and becoming are made possible and limited based on my actions within the material-discursive practice that education entails. The starting point is a narrative story based on different meetings between me, a carpet and some participants in a training room during a leadership training. The theoretical framework of the essay consists of thoughts from philosopher Martin Buber's philosophy of dialogue and the posthumanist quantum physicist Karen Barad’s, agential realism. Based on the posthumanist method of analysis, diffraction, theories and insights are read through one another to seek a clearer articulation of what it means to act on the basis of my profession and what is my practical knowledge.