Syftet med denna kunskapsöversikt är att sammanställa vad forskningen säger om hur elever talar om religion samt hur talet påverkar undervisningen. Vår empiri består av vetenskapliga artiklar och myndighetsdokument primärt mellan åren 2011 till 2019 med fokus på en svensk och norsk kontext. Materialet analyseras och diskuteras i förhållande till den svenska skolan och lärarpraktiken. Resultatet visar bland annat att talet påverkas av en sekulär norm, av huruvida klassrummet upplevs som tryggt samt att konflikter lätt uppstår i friktionen då olika religiösa värderingar yttras.

I dagens samhälle diskuteras religion i olika sammanhang, i skolor, debatter, vardagslivet och arbetslivet. Religionskunskapsundervisningen har genom åren förändrats i takt med att samhället blivit allt mer mångkulturellt. I synnerhet kan det vara utmanande att inkludera alla elever i klassrum, som karaktäriseras av många religioner. Syftet med studien grundar sig i att undersöka och diskutera på vilka sätt och med vilka strategier en inkluderande religionskunskapsundervisning kan utformas på. Syftet grundar sig även till att undersöka och diskutera ifall begreppsparet safe space och brave space kan bidra till en diskussion om inkluderande undervisning i religion. Den metod som använts för att besvara dessa frågeställningar är en kvalitativ metod i form av semistrukturerade intervjuer. Intervjuerna görs med fem grundskollärare. Resultatet visar att religionskunskapsundervisning är en större utmaning än vad vi kunnat föreställa oss. Strategierna för skapandet av ett inkluderande klassrum, är olika beroende på lärare och dess elevgrupp. Vissa lärare följer endast läroplanen och det som framkommer i det centrala innehållet vid planeringar av undervisningssekvenser. Medan andra lärare anpassar det centrala innehållet utifrån elevgruppen. Dessutom kan begreppsparet safe space och brave space generera till ett inkluderande klassrum.

The term "safe space" has a long history of signifying a place of sanctuary or refuge, and of a potential site of activism, advocacy, and political action (Davis, 1999; Kenney, 2001; Harris, 2015; Crockett, 2016). In recent decades, it has been adopted by student groups and advocates for inclusion, diversity and social justice on college and university campuses, who also saw such places as providing safety, freedom, activism, and intellectual discussion (Crockett, 2016; White, 2016). But critics argued that such spaces have the potential to stifle academic freedom, intellectual growth and free speech, and act as cocoons for students (Crovitz, 2016; Will, 2016). Both advocates and critics use the term "safe space," but with different meanings. Using speech code theory, I analyze opinion-editorial essays and commentaries from five national news periodicals to examine how proponents and critics of safe spaces use the term and to explore the clash of meanings and contexts. / Master of Arts / The term safe space suggests a place of refuge and safety, where those who use it are free from harm. During the past 60 years, the term has taken on additional meaning as a potential site of activism and advocacy action as well as safety and freedom (Davis, 1999; Kenney, 2001; Harris, 2015; Crockett, 2016). Originally used by second wave feminists, Civil Rights activists and the LGBTQ movement, it more recently has been adopted by student groups and advocates for inclusion, diversity and social justice on college and university campuses. For them, safe spaces serve as places not only for safety, but for intellectual discussion (Crockett, 2016; White, 2016). Not everyone favors providing such spaces on campus. Critics argued that safe spaces have the potential to stifle free speech and interfere with students' opportunities to learn, and that such spaces can insulate students, allowing them to avoid dealing with uncomfortable ideas (Crovitz, 2016; Will, 2016). Using speech code theory, I analyzed 79 opinion-editorial essays and commentaries from five national news periodicals to examine how proponents and critics of safe spaces use the term and to explore the clash of meanings and contexts in their words.

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This study addresses the question of how an individual’s perception of the safety of his or her institutional space impacts on shame management skills. Shame has been widely recognised as a core emotion that can readily take the form of anger and violence in interpersonal relationships if it is unresolved. When shame is not acknowledged properly, feelings of shame build up and lead to shame-rage spirals that break down social bonds between people. Some might consider the total avoidance of shame experiences as a way to cut the link between shame and violence. However, there is a reason why we cannot just discard the experience of shame. Shame is a self-regulatory emotion (Braithwaite, 1989, 2002; Ahmed et al., 2001). If one feels shame over wrongdoing, one is less likely to re-offend in the future. That is to say, shame is a destructive emotion on the one hand in the way it can destroy our social bonds, but on the other hand, it is a moral emotion that reflects capacity to regulate each other and ourselves. This paradoxical nature of shame gives rise to the necessity of managing shame in a socially adaptive way. A group of scholars in the field of shame has argued that institutions can be designed in such a way that they create safe space that allows people to feel shame and manage shame without its adverse consequences (Ahmed et al., 2001). This means that people would feel safe to acknowledge shame and accept the consequences of their actions without fear of stigmatisation or the disruption of social bonds. Without fear, there would be less likelihood of displacing shame, that is, blaming others and expressing shame as anger towards others. The context adopted for empirically examining shame management in this study is workplace bullying. Bullying has become a dangerous phenomenon in our workplace that imposes significant costs on employers, employees, their families and industries as a whole (Einarsen et al., 2003a). Teachers belong to a professional group that is reputed to be seriously affected by bullying at work. Teachers from Australia and Korea completed self-report questionnaires anonymously. Three shame management styles were identified: shame acknowledgement, shame displacement and (shame) withdrawal. The likely strengths of these shame management styles were investigated in terms of three factors postulated as contributions to institutional safe space: that is, 1) cultural value orientations, 2) the salience of workgroup identity, and 3) problem resolution practices at work. The present thesis suggests that further consideration should be given to institutional interventions that support and maintain institutional safe space and that encourage shame acknowledgement, while dampening the adverse effect of defensive shame management. The evidence presented in this thesis is a first step in demonstrating that institutional safe space and shame management skills are empirically measurable, are relevant in other cultural contexts and address issues that are at the heart of the human condition everywhere........ [For the full Abstract, see the PDF files below]

abstract: This dissertation shares findings from a yearlong qualitative case study of Young Voices Rise (YVR), a diverse spoken word poetry group in the urban Southwest. The study examined the group's characteristics and practices, adolescent members' views of their writing and themselves as writers, and changes members attributed to their experiences in YVR. Data sources included interviews with six adolescent poets and two adult teaching artists, observations of writing workshops and poetry slams, collection of group announcements through social media, and collection of poems. Sociocultural theory guided the study's design, and grounded theory was used to analyze data. This study found that YVR is a community of practice that offers multiple possibilities for engagement and fosters a safe space for storytelling. The adolescent participants have distinct writing practices and a strong sense of writing self; furthermore, they believe YVR has changed them and their writing. This study has several implications for secondary English language arts. Specifically, it recommends that teachers build safe spaces for storytelling, offer spoken word poetry as an option for exploring various topics and purposes, attend to writers' practices and preferences, encourage authentic participation and identity exploration, and support spoken word poetry school-wide. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Curriculum and Instruction 2015

This thesis explores the experience of participating in a ‘hidden’ gender separatist forum for women and nonbinary persons on Facebook. It does so through a case study of a group called Växtgäris, which constitutes one link in a chain of gender separatist forums established on Swedish Facebook in recent years, whose names all end with -gäris. The aim of the research was to investigate what motivates people to participate in such groups, how members understand the separatist framework with regards to their experience of the forum, and how such online practices might relate to notions of ‘safe space’ and ‘mundane citizenship’. The study combines two (digital) ethnographic methods for collecting data: participant observations of the group’s discussion thread and in-depth interviews with eight members. In analysing the empirical material, the Roestone Collective’s re-conceptualisation of ‘safe space’ was combined with Bakardijeva’s theorisation of ‘mundane citizenship’ (and the related notion of ‘subactivism’) to address different segments of the data.Results show that participants in Växtgäris hold a variety of motivations for participating in the group, such as exchanging knowledge, connecting with other people interested in plants and to escape oppressive behaviour. Interviewees further described a variety of attitudes towards the group’s separatist element, ranging from very positive to more questioning standpoints. The study concludes that Växtgäris might provide a ‘safe space’ for sharing information, expressing feminist views, and ‘geeky’ expressions of love for plants. Finally, inconspicuous individual actions, such as referring to wider societal and political discourses and planting certain linguistic codes, might be viewed as expressions of ‘mundane citizenship’ and ‘subactivism’. The thesis adds to research investigating contemporary feminist expression, community formation and identity construction in online environments and further reveals how marginalised identities in Sweden might deal with oppression in today’s increasingly digital society.

I denna uppsats studeras de utmaningar som religionskunskapslärare möter i dagens mångkulturella skola i Sverige, specifikt inom högstadiet och gymnasiet. Denna analys tar sitt avstamp i religionskunskapslärarens uppdrag att undervisa om religionskunskap i en sekulariserad heterogen skolmiljö, där majoriteten av elever har olika bakgrunder, religioner och kulturer. Målet med denna  studien är att undersöka hur elevernas mångreligiösa och kulturella bakgrund påverkar  undervisningen i  religionskunskap. Studien innehåller två centrala frågeställningar som ska behandlas genom texten gång; Vilka utmaningar upplever religionskunskapslärare när det gäller att undervisa om religionskunskap i en mångkulturell skola i Sverige? Hur påverkas lärarens undervisningsmetoder och strategier av den kulturella och religiösa mångfalden i klassrummet? Studien belyser tre huvudområden; hantering av religionskritik, lyftandet av kontroversiella ämnen och frågor, samt representation och skapandet av ‘safe space’ i det mångkulturella klassrummet. Genom gedigen granskning av litteratur framkommer det att religionskunskapslärare i Sverige står inför flera utmaningar när det kommer till att undervisa om religionskunskap i mångkulturella klassrum. I studien blev det tydligt att läraren oftast var tvungen använda sig av olika undervisningsstrategier, för att  kunna undervisa i religionskunskap på ett givande sätt och samtidigt respektera elevernas varierande religiösa och kulturella bakgrunder. Avslutningsvis indikerar vår studie på att religionskunskapsundervisningen i Sverige står inför stora utmaningar.

This study begins with an understanding that immigrant experiences are complex and encompass the change of many factors for the person who moves from one country to another. While existing integration efforts focus on the practical aspects and needs of immigrants, some experiences never get to be expressed and emotional needs remain unvocalized. This study focuses on the emotional needs of immigrant women and the design of an environment where these needs can be vocalized or expressed. In the study we conduct an analysis of the factors which help in establishing trust and rapport with and between immigrant women and investigate how non-verbal tools can be used in eliciting emotional needs and bridging differences in an intercultural setting. This study consists of two design workshops, where the main tool used is embroidery, and individual interviews with all the participants. Nine immigrant women in total were recruited for the study, where each of them comes from a different country. Results show that the most important factors in building trust with the facilitators were the informal communication style, gender, and the spatial layout where the workshops were conducted. Furthermore, the most important factor in eliciting reflections was the use of the autobiographical timeline tool. Finally, the act of creating the embroideries together and the smaller size of the groups proved to be very important in bridging cultural and other barriers between the participants. / Denna studie utgår från en förståelse för att invandrarupplevelser är komplexa och omfattar förändringar av många faktorer för den person som flyttar från ett land till ett annat. Då befintliga integrationsinsatser fokuserar på de praktiska aspekterna och behoven för invandrare, kommer vissa erfarenheter aldrig att uttryckas och känslomässiga behov förbli okända. Denna studie fokuserar på invandrarkvinnors känslomässiga behov och utformningen av en miljö där dessa behov kan uttalas eller uttryckas. I studien utför vi en analys av de faktorer som bidrar till att skapa förtroende och relationer med och mellan invandrarkvinnor. Vi undersöker hur icke-verbala verktyg kan användas för att uttrycka känslomässiga behov och skapa kopplingar mellan individer med kulturella skillnader. Studien består av två designworkshops, där det huvudsakliga verktygetsom används är broderi, och individuella intervjuer med alla deltagare. Totalt rekryterades nio invandrarkvinnor till studien, och var och en av dem kommer från olika länder. Resultaten visar att de viktigaste faktorerna för att bygga upp förtroende med ledarna av workshopen var den informella kommunikationsstilen, könet av ledarna samt den rumsliga layouten där workshoparna genomfördes. Dessutom var den viktigaste faktorn för att framkalla reflektioner användningen av det självbiografiska tidslinjeverktyget. Slutligen visade sig skapandet av broderierna tillsammans i grupp samt den mindre storleken på grupperna vara mycket viktiga aspekter för att skapa kopplingar mellan dels kulturella, men även andra skillnader mellan deltagarna.

Thesis advisor: Christopher Higgins / The heightened use of “safe space” in educational settings has been the subject of polarizing contemporary controversy and protested by conservative and progressive camps alike, raising concerns about whether “safe space” remains an educationally viable concept. In response to claims that safety is conflated with “coddling” students, censoring unpopular speech, or reinforcing privilege, this dissertation argues that safe spaces signify enduring pursuits of diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education that are too important to be abandoned. Instead, this interdisciplinary, mixed methods project considers how safe spaces can be rehabilitated to best serve subaltern undergraduate students. Informed by the experiences of six of my former students, I investigate how predominantly White institutions (PWI), like Boston College, can be rehabilitated as places where risky, transformative education is possible. By integrating situated educational philosophy and participatory design research (PDR) that features artistic and embodied methods of relationality (self-portraits, walks, and interactive workshops), I offer a spatial turn in the safe space debates that reveals the ideologically laden ‘normative geography’ of university campuses. Attuning to safe space controversies as spatial struggles uncovers who and what is positioned as “in place” or “out of place” on campus, as well as subaltern students’ transgressive acts of place-making—the quotidian tactics of making a hostile place more habitable for themselves. My dissertation therefore culminates by proposing a risky model of higher education, inspired by Judith Butler’s proposal of ethical formation, that insists on a collective responsibility for inclusive campus place-making. In this iterative framework, safety serves not as a barrier to risk, but as a crucial, co-constructed threshold condition that makes educative risk-taking possible for all students. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2024. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teaching, Curriculum, and Society.