Encounters between students and religious believers is common in the subject of Religious Education in Swedish schools. For pedagogical reasons teachers arranging these encounters hoping that exciting things will happen. But which qualities and experiences arise out of these encounters? In this study representatives of eight different religious communities are interviewed who regularly receive pupils coming to their respective communities. The proposed theoretical framework is related to Phenomenology and Hermeneutics and the methodological approach is interpretive. The aim of the present study is to explore the experiences of the representatives. The research questions are: (1)Which aims do the representatives see as important with the study visits? (2) How do the representatives see their connection to the school? (3) What kind of knowledge and qualities are promoted? The results show four different aims with the study visits: First, where the existential dialog is in focus; second, where the experience and the perspective of the believer is at hand; third that focuses on understanding and coping with diversity and plurality; and forth, that focuses the cooperation with the schools and stresses the importance for the religious community to be a part of the daily life in school. To conclude, the level of the relationship between school and the communities seems to differ a lot between the representatives but are in general low. The questions that the pupils often prepare are important but could also distract from what the representatives see as the essential aims of the visit. The study shows that the representatives see dialog as an essential, part of a successful visit. / Möten med troende och samfundsföreträdare, ofta i form av studiebesök, är vanligt förekommande i den svenska kolan. Men vilken funktion kan dessa möten ha och vilka kvaliteter genereras hos eleverna i samband med dessa möten? I denna studie intervjuas åtta samfundsföreträdare från olika samfund och som regelbundet tar emot besök av elever. Den teoretiska ramen utgörs av hermeneutik och fenomenologi och intervjuerna tolkas enligt en hermeneutisk metod. Syftet är att undersöka samfundsföreträdarnas erfarenheter. Forskningsfrågorna är: (1) Vad ser samfundsföreträdarna som viktiga mål med skolbesöken? (2) Hur uppfattar samfundsföreträdarna skoluppdraget och sin relation till skolan? (3) Vilken typ av kunskap, insikt och kvaliteter genererar skolbesöken hos elever enligt samfundsföreträdarna? Resultatet visar på olika sätt att se på besökens syfte och mål: ett där det existentiella samtalet fokuseras, ett som betonar upplevelsen och inifrånperspektivet; ett som fokuserar förståelsen för andra kulturer och för religionen i den enskildes liv och ett samarbetsorienterat alternativ där samfundet blir en aktiv part i det dagliga skolarbetet. Studien indikerar vidare att relationen mellan samfundsföreträdare och skola ser olika ut mellan samfundsföreträdarna men att den oftast är liten. Elevfrågor ses som viktiga men kan också ta fokus från det som samfundsföreträdarna ser som besökens syfte och mål. Studien visar att samfundsföreträdarna ser ett dialogiskt och ett kommunikativt förhållningssätt som en grundläggande faktor för lyckade besök.

This study has a threefold aim:  to make a theological contextualisation of four medieval anti-Jewish motifs in Christian iconography represented in churches in Sweden and to study how these motifs has been described and contextualised in guidebooks and other material written for the interested public from post-war to recent years. The study also explores the role of heritagisation and musealisation of the church buildings in relation to how the motifs are described in the material. There is also an underlying, constructive aim: to suggest how The Church of Sweden can work with these motifs in theological reflection and historical presentations to the public concerning this part of the cultural heritage. The motifs analysed are The Judensau, Ecclesia and Synagoga, Cain and a motif illustrating a medieval legend about the funeral of the Virgin Mary. They were all painted in Swedish churches in a time when there were no Jewish settlements in the area. The study argues that the iconography can be interpreted as an expression of othering and that the four motifs can all be theologically contextualised by using Jesper Svartvik’s threefold typology of Christian anti-Jewish discourse. The study further shows that very few of the texts in the guidebooks and other books in the material describes the motifs and contextualises them theologically.  The study suggests that this can be related to the more than hundred years old heritagisation- and musealisation process in The Church of Sweden which has created a twofold and split role of the church as both manager of the religious mission and of the cultural heritage.   It has not been the primary aim of the church to theologically contextualise the cultural heritage. New questions concerning the motifs arise in today’s multicultural and multireligious society. The study suggests that the church can approach the part of the cultural heritage which today is seen as problematic from David Lowenthal’s concept of an informed acceptance and tolerance of the past in order to be able to take responsibility for the future in dialogue with others.