Uppsatsens syfte är att analysera den mediala debatten kring konfessionella friskolor för att komma fram till hur diskursen kring de religiösa friskolorna konstrueras. Vilka teman är debatten uppbyggd kring, vilka utgångspunkter grundar sig den i och vilka begränsningar skapas det i talet om de religiösa friskolorna? Uppsatsen behandlar såväl olika syn på religion och dess betydelse, som integration, liberalistiska värden och hur makt skapas i samband med institutionaliserade diskurser.   Vidare kan man genom debatten även utröna diskussioner om vilken funktion skolan bör ha, hur mycket statlig styrning som är önskvärd och hur intolerans egentligen ska definieras. Genom analysen uppmärksammas det svenska svenska samhället och de sekulariserade samt liberalistiska värden som styr möjligheterna att utala sig som de religiösa friskolorna. Debatten kring de religiösa friksolorna kan bland annat ses som en sätt att försöka kontrollera och definiera religionen och dess alltmer påtagliga plats i det offentliga.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka kristna personers attityder gentemot sekularisering och modern andlighet. För att undersöka detta intervjuades medlemmar ur frikyrkliga svenska samfund; en intervju i fokusgrupp (med fyra deltagare) samt tre individuella intervjuer. Intervjumaterialet bestod av ett case uppdelat i fem sektioner, där respondenterna fick resonera fritt kring olika religiösa dilemman. Deltagarna uppvisade främst negativa emotionella attityder gentemot sekularisering och modern andlighet, främst riktat mot sambandet till individualiseringen av samhället. Respondenterna uppvisade förståelse för den subjektiva aspekten av tro, samt religionens brister och hur dessa står i samband till vissa sekulära yttringar. Respondenternas personliga tro upplevdes som oförändrad. Det kan därmed tolkas att kristnas attityder har påverkats av samhällets individualisering, men att detta inte står i samband till en eventuell förlust av tro och minskad religiös makt. Resultaten visade även att respondenternas attityder till modern andlighet generellt sett var negativa, även om en viss förståelse för fenomenet var inarbetad i deras attityder.

Before the autumn term 2011 the Swedish compulsory school adopted new syllabuses in relation to, inter alia, religion. Changes within the religion topic have historically been a heavily debated issue among decision-makers, interest groups and the church, where the role of the Christianity has been particularly controversial. The main purpose of this study is therefore to investigate how the Swedish compulsory school’s teaching of Christianity has changed over the years. I have in order to conduct this study applied a descriptive method as well as a content analysis. The Swedish compulsory school’s current and historical syllabuses in religion have served as basis for this study. The outcome of this study clearly shows that the Christianity has received less influence to the benefit of other topics. At the same time the content of the Swedish school’s teaching has to a large extent changed and put currently more focus on the religion’s impact on the society as well as the society’s impact on the religion. However, from a globalization and secularization perspective the changes are to a large extent self-evident and not very surprising, due to the fact that the Christian influence over the Swedish society no longer is of same importance and that modern society allows different religions within the same national boundary.

This bachelor thesis examines how three decades of textbooks in the subject religion for middle-school inform students about Jesus' life and to what level they conform to their decade's specific regulatory documents. The results are analyzed through an analysis schedule, showing if the texts are stating, explaining, analyzing, or normative in character and with the help of a secularisation theory determine if this is something that changes over time. The outcome of the analysis shows that textbooks written in the 1950s are both explaining and normative to their character and correspond well to the regulatory documents. This is also the conclusion for textbooks in the 1980s but these textbooks show an increasing amount of analyzing texts with just a few normative elements. Comparing textbooks from these decades to today's textbooks, the result shows that today's textbooks don't match the regulatory documents' requirements of emphasizing that students analyze and find their identity. Instead, these textbooks are to a wider range stating to their character but at the same time having no normative elements at all. An interesting result is also the fact that the textbooks from the three decades more or less include the same information about Jesus' life but, as written earlier, there are bigger differences over time in how the textbooks describe this information. The results support one interpretation of the secularisation theory, according to which a country's textbooks tend to be less normative the more secular the country is.

Undersökningens syfte är att utifrån jungiansk teori bilda en förståelse för hur assimilation påverkar muslimsk identitet och självförverkligande i en sekulär kontext. Detta genom en fenomenografisk analys av det empiriska materialet, vilket består av kvalitativa intervjuer med troende muslimer. Utöver detta problematiseras Jungs analytiska psykologi i och med hur väl applicerbara dessa teorier är på muslimskt identitetsskapande idag. Undersökningen visar att det svenska sekulära samhället skapar ett assimilationstryck som upplevs av respondenterna i olika grader. Dessa påtryckningar innebär dock inga märkbara negativa tendenser i religionsutövandet bland de medverkande i den utsträckningen att den muslimska identiteten drabbas. Däremot tvingas respondenterna hantera utsatthet baserat på okunskap, rädsla och hat som på intet sätt bör försummas. Slutligen visar sig jungiansk psykologi fungera relativt oproblematiskt i en analys av den här typen. Jungs teorier är dock i behov av viss modernisering för att bättre passa samtida religionsvetenskap.

This master thesis summarizes contemporary theories on secularization processes in the Western world, and compares these with the example of Sweden, which by many scholars is considered to be the most secularized country in the Western world. I do this by dividing the most influential theorists in five different groups. In each group I explain how the theorists formulate and motivate their positions. These groups are: 1) The secularization paradigm, where secularization always accompanies modernization. (Therorists: Steve Bruce and Peter Berger (in the 1960s) 2) The paradigm basically accepted, but revised to depend on existential security, rather than modernisation as such. (Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart) 3) Religion returned in the public sphere. (José Casanova) 4) The paradigm completely revised. (Peter Berger (after 1990), David Martin, Charles Taylor) 5) The post-secular society. (Jürgen Habermas, plus others) After this theoretical overview I compile empirical studies on the Swedish example, mainly using the scholars Eva Hamberg and Magnus Hagevi. Apart from these, I mainly use material from Sverigeräkningen – a study of all church attendances in Sweden at one weekend in 1999; plus recurrent studies from the SOM Institute at Gothenburg University as well as from World Values Survey. This essay concludes that there is good reason to think that the secularization paradigm is in need of revising. However, there still seems to be some truth in all these theoretical models, essentially because they do not necessarily contradict each other, as much as they deal with the issue from slightly different perspectives. The empirical studies of Sweden indicate that our country is indeed highly secularized. The reasons for this may be found partly in all of the theoretical models used in this essay. It is also argued that there may be good explanatory power in the market model, where secularization comes not only due to lack in demand, but also to a weakened supply of religion.

In this study emphasis was on pupils’ expectations regarding beliefs and conceptions of life among teachers within the school subject of religion. Additionally this study also concentrated on the consequences of teachers’ beliefs on their legitimacy and teaching. The study’s method was qualitative including semi-structured interviews in two separate schools. These interviews consisted of six pupils in the third grade of upper secondary education. The pupils were all aged 18 and selected mainly through a convenience sample. In this study the applied theory derived from four theoretical concepts legitimacy, discourse, stigma and secularization. These theoretical concepts were linked to create a theoretical model. This model was applied in analyzing the material from the interviews. The results showed that the majority of the pupils had expectations on teachers in the subject religion, regarding their beliefs. This meant that if a teacher had a religious belief this was regarded as a deviation from the norms that surrounded the pupils. Pupils were of the opinion that the teacher should keep his beliefs private in his class. The majority of pupils expected the teacher in the subject religion to be objective and neutral. If the teacher should fail to comply with the pupils’ expectations, it would have a negative effect concerning his legitimacy.

The tradition of a strong church ruling in the Swedish society ages back to the very first start of Christianity reaching the country.  Due to the separation between the church and state in 2000 in Sweden, there have been a lot of changes. No longer would the church be able to influence the politics as it had been able to do before. Since Sweden is a democratic country, the decision had to be made in a voting amongst the parties. The purpose with this paper is to understand the argumentation made by the Swedish parties Socialdemokraterna, Kristdemokraterna and Centerpartiet. This has been made using a text analysis, which studies the argumentations made by the parties in their motions. The parties’ motions show whether they support the proposition of a separation between the church and state, or choose not to. The result shows that two of the parties, Socialdemokraterna and Kristdemokraterna, fully support the proposition. Centerpartiet argues that a separation amongst church and state would be devastating for both parts and therefore they choose not to recognize the proposition.  Furthermore the result shows that there has been a movement of secularization made in Sweden. This is shown in the argumentation made by the parties, who argue for a state built on politics free from religious influence.

Syftet med denna undersökning är tredelat. Första delen använde vi oss utav litteraturstudie för att kunna redogöra från yogans utveckling från klassisk indisk yoga till den fysiska yoga idag som har blivit en populär träningsform i väst. I nästa del har vi intervjuat sex personer som utövar yoga regelbundet för att undersöka om forskningens bild av yoga stämmer överens med de sex yogautövarna. Vi ville även undersöka hur dessa sex yogautövare beskriver yogans påverkan på deras kroppar och själar. Vilken skillnad yogautövarna finner både fysiskt och psykiskt, samt vad är det som gör att dessa personer utövar yoga regelbundet.  Vidare redogör vi för vad Frisk (1998) skriver om sin modell för gemensamheter för nyreligiösa religioner.     Våra intervjuer beskriver att yogan gör intervjupersonerna avslappnade och yogan har varit ett hjälpmedel i deras studier. Våra intervjupersoner menade alla, utom en att yogan ses som en träningsform och inte som en religiös handling.   Vi reflekterar slutligen med hjälp av våra intervjuer kring möjligheten till att integrera yoga i skolan som en form av hälsoterapi för barn och ungdomar. Då våra intervjupersoner alla rekommenderade yoga till andra men också rekommenderade yogan som ett hjälpmedel till elever i skolan. Vi reflekterar även över hur yogan skulle fungera i en ämnesintegrerad undervisning.

Syftet med denna undersökning är att granska tidigare forskning som be-handlar historieämnets utveckling i den svenska skolan. Undersökningen kommer även att sammanfatta tidigare forskning som har behandlat relevanta påverkansfak-torer så som samhällelig sekularisering, politisk utveckling och didaktiska förändringar.