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This paper will came up with a content analysis of two course textbooks used in swedish high school. The question that will be used is as follows: "How are the selected key concepts in religions Hinduism and Buddhism explained in the course Religious Studies Specialization coursebooks " En människa, tusen världar "and" Religionskunskap 1: om mening, värde och tro". The key concepts in Hinduism are: trimurti, atman, samsara, karma, moksha, the varnasystem, dharma, important books, branches and the Indo-Aryans. In Buddhism there are: Buddha, the four noble truths, the noble eightfold path, karma, nirvana, directions, the three jewels, the three baskets, the bodhisattva and the temple life. " It should be said that "En människa, tusen världar" are written by Robert Tuveson and " Religionskunskap 1: om mening, värde och tro " are written by Olof Franck. The method I will use is content analysis. The conclusions reached by this bachelor's thesis are that Hinduism and buddhism chapter in the work "En människa, tusen världar" tells in more detail when it comes to the key concepts than Tuveson's chapters on Hinduism and Buddhism.

Religious education has been a well-debated subject throughout history. In our current, globalized and religiously pluralistic world the debate regarding the education’s non-denominational nature is a vital part of that debate. The aim of this study is to investigate how the meaning of the term “religion” is constructed in the current curriculum for the Swedish upper secondary school. Furthermore, the study will investigate how this construction relates to the rulings regarding the school’s non-denominational nature as well as what consequences the construction can lead to regarding the relation between Christianity and other religions. The results of the study show that the curriculum is strongly influenced by the Christian tradition and that the curriculum’s construction of the term religion may lead to the “othering” of non-Christian religions. Arguably, the curriculum also somewhat favours a secularistic/atheistic understanding of religion which results in a failure to meet the established demands regarding non-denominationalism.

This study explores how the Church of Sweden was impacted by the Spanish flu in 1918-1920 and how people affiliated with the church interpreted the pandemic theologically. The material analyzed is trade-magazines for people affiliated with the Church from the relevant years. During the current Corona-pandemic, the activities of religious organizations have been given a lot of media attention as potential risk-events for infections. The religious beliefs of those organizations are scrutinized to explain why they feel safe to gather. After gatherings, possible effects such as large-scale outbreaks are often the focus of negative attention. Historically, however, there seems to be few studies on how religious organizations handled ongoing pandemics and the theological beliefs that motivated their choices. This study tries to look at the people working for the Church of Sweden in 1918-1920: how were they affected by the pandemic, how did they interpret the events theologically and what did they do in response to it.

When The Satanic Temple was formed in 2013 they immediately sparked a debate in American media through their political activism. With a Satanic discourse they both confused and angered many people, especially persons from the Christian Right-Wing and other Conservatives. With themselves in focus, they also initiated a debate of what a religion is or should be, after starting to demand religious rights through their activism. The idea of using a Satanic discourse in order to emphasize Left-Wing politics is not a new idea though. Already the Romantic Satanists used a similiar strategy some 200 years ago, and The Satanic Temple is quite vocal about the fact that they see them as forerunners. But traces could also be found in the Anarchistic Satanists of the middle 1800’s and the Feminist Satanists around 1900. This essay shows the inheritence of the political Satanism of the 18- and 1900’s through a discourse analysis of these movements compared with The Satanic Temple. The essay also discusses what defines a religion, viewed through The Satanic Temple’s fight for the status of one and compared to academic research on the subject, mainly the idea of viewing religion as a discourse.

One of the criteriums for the course Religionskunskap 1 in upper secondary school is that the religious education should highlight how world religions express themselves for individuals and groups in the present, in Sweden and abroad. This study aimed to examine how two teaching textbooks that are used in religious education achieve this criterium. The representation and portraying of Hinduism and Buddhism in the textbooks has been analyzed in relation to the previously mentioned criteria. The theoretic framework for the study has been Robert Jackson and his interpretive approach. The study shows that the two textbooks are not enough to fulfill the criteria. Therefor teachers need to look beyond the textbooks to fulfill this specific criterium and use diverse and different teaching tools.

The purpose of the thesis is to analyze the arguments presented by the Center party (Centerpartiet) and the Moderate party (Moderaterna) in two motions regarding a ban on male circumcision. The public discussion about non-medical male circumcision surfaced in the autumn of 2019, when the Center party decided to strive a ban on male circumcision during their congress meeting.   The study's questions were: What arguments are used to legislate a ban on male circumcision? How can the motions be understood as a form of politicization of religion? Is religion portrayed as an object or subject? Is religion presented as a resource or a problem? Using qualitative argumentation analysis, the content of two motions, one from the Center Party and one from the Moderates, as well as opinions on these motions from district boards, federal boards and party leaders, were examined and analyzed based on the theory politicization of religion. The results showed that religion was mainly presented as an object, meaning religion was referred to but there was no dialogue with religious leaders, figures or communities. Based on the analysis, religion was presented both as a resource and a problem, however it was more frequently presented as a problem than as a resource.

The Swedish television series “Kalifat” premiered on January 12th, 2020 and quickly became heavily debated in the Swedish media for its portrayal of Islam and Muslim people. The aim of this research is to study the arguments and attitudes found in this debate and relate them to the theoretical framework of media dissemination and mediatization. The theoretical perspectives creating the foundation for this study is the formative, reflexive and representative media dissemination as presented by Hodkinson (2017). The mediatization theory will also be used to situate the debate and the series itself within a broader context. The empirical material used in this study consists of 10 Swedish debate articles published between January 19th and February 18th 2020.  A qualitative argumentation analysis has been used to identify the attitudes and arguments in the debate. In addition, these have been coded, categorized and structured in accordance with a systematic text condensation. The analysis shows that there are both positive and negative attitudes towards the series, with most of the arguments in the debate conveying a negative attitude towards the series and its portrayal of Muslims and Islam. These arguments are mainly related to stereotypification, prejudices and negative representation. Arguments related to a more positive attitude towards “Kalifat” is connected to the journalists view of what the series is trying to impart upon the audience, and its realistic representation of an important topic in society.   In relation to the three concepts of media dissemination the study has concluded that the different arguments relate to the interconnectedness of media and religion. The study shows that most of the arguments put forward can be understood in this context by implementing the understanding of media as conduits, language and environments. The study also concludes that both the debate and the series itself can be interpreted and understood in relation to all these media functions. The results found in the study also correlate with previous research on the subject.

This is a study that with critical eyes, studies schoolbooks that are meant for upper secondary school in the curriculum – Religion. I am studying how schoolbook authors portray Islam and its practitioners. Is there possibly any tendency towards orientalism to be found in them? Hopefully, none or very little. There are earlier studies that show how Muslims are portrayed as “the other”, the lesser, while Christians are portrayed as “we”, the normal. To be able to do this study I am using qualitative content analysis as a method. That way it is possible to systematically work through a larger text and cut it down to smaller themes. How are the authors portraying God? How is Islam´s view of man presented versus the Christian view of man? Finally, in what way has the representation of Islam changed over time?By using Edward Said’s theory of orientalism, I have been able to get the following result. It shows that the presentation of Islam and Christianity is still othering Islam and its practitioners, but differs on how easy you as a reader can see it. By using the theory of religious literacy, I have been able to identify how the author uses his/her language, if the author thought of conveying a deeper explanation and not just focus on small factual parts.

VOX developed out of the largest right-wing party, Partido Popular, and has since the announcement of their candidature 2013, acquired an increasingly stable support from the voters. Since the election 2018 they became the third biggest party in Spain. One of the core elements of VOX´s political discourse is the term Reconquista. Essentially this term is a historic religious term denoting the successive elimination of Muslim occupied area on the Iberian Peninsula and have through the Spanish history constituted a part of the Spanish identity and still do. This is the subject that I address in this paper, using a critical discourse analysis, I´ve examined how VOX interpret and use the term Reconquista on social media. The material used for this paper is constituted of three Instagram posts and three Youtube videos.   The results show that VOX interpret the term Reconquista as a source for the “true” Spanish identity. The analysis identified three themes that constitutes VOXS´s interpretation of the Reconquista, namely, the significance of places in the material, two contrasting world concepts, and lastly, War.  Through this interpretation VOX uses the term Reconquista as scale to construct a subjective “we” and “them” scenario. The term Reconquista is also used as a yardstick to measure how Spanish an entity is.