Abstract Religion and social work has a historical connection. A lot of social work comes from religious roots. In my career as a social worker I have wondered why religious aspects of social work are marginalized. The aim of this paper is to discuss how religious dimensions can be included to develop culture competence in social work with youth in Sweden The research questions asked are: -       What views on religion held by young people are presented in the text “Främmande är skrämmande”? -       How can this be analysed based on theories of the functioning of religions in the lives of young people? -       What approaches in previous research may be relevant to pay attention to religious dimensions to develop understanding of cultural competence in social work?   The method I used was qualitative thematic analysis and the theories for the analysis were deprivation theory and socialization theory. The conclusion shows that the young people in the text differentiate their own view of religion and others' views on religion. Clearly, they describe the views of others on religion on the basis of a functional religious definition where religion becomes the explanation model for devastating behavior, for example in the media's production of perpetrators in terrorism councils and the like. The work shows that earlier research examples of the introduction of religion in social work would also be possible approaches for attending to religious dimensions in order to develop the understanding of cultural competence in social work in Sweden today. This in terms of education, method and approach.

What religion does for its followers and how people use religion in their lives is something that is of interest from a historical perspective as well as from a contemporary perspective. The purpose of this essay is to analyze and interpret how functional aspects of world religions are presented in textbooks. To perform this content analysis I will be using functional definitions of religion, that I will explain and interpret and then use as tools in the content analysis of the textbooks. Based on the results of the content analysis, I will compare similarities and differences in how the functional aspects of world religions are presented in the textbooks. I discovered that the similarity in its presentation of the functional aspects of the religions is that they are based on social systems which include the creation of social representations and perception of reality. The main difference in their presentation is that Christianity is described from a Swedish perspective and in relation to the Swedish context, while the other world religions are described in a more common way. The functional aspects of these religions are described in a basic and generalizing way, for example, that there is only one kind of Judaism and one Buddhism.