Previous research has indicated a decreased use of textbooks among religious education teachers, while students with a religious background perceive themselves as a vulnerable minority in classrooms. It also points to a post-Christian society where schools now take responsibility for knowledge about the Christian faith and how it should be understood. Simultaneously, secularization is increasing in society, and people express a secularist attitude towards religion. The aim of this essay is to examine the representation of Christianity in religious education textbooks for upper secondary school based on secular and secularist discourses, and analyze how the results can be interpreted in terms of the concepts of alliance, othering, positive essentialism, and negative essentialism. The theories that were utilized included modified secularization theory, discourse theory, and essentialism in religious education. These were combined with the methods of discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis. The conclusion from this study is that in the selected books, positive and negative essentialism occurred to varying degrees, indicating a lack of objectivity. There were also numerous alliances and instances of othering, which in several cases suggested secular and secularist discourses.

Sweden is a member of the European Union and Sweden’s turn-out in the elections to the European Parliament is low compared to its own national elections. Earlier research in the field of didactics in civics regarding the EU have mostly focused on aspects of civic education such as which subject content teachers teach and what knowledge they test their students on. Even today, textbooks are an important part of shaping education. This study has focused on how the EU is presented in textbooks for civics in Swedish upper secondary school, specifically the course “Samhällskunskap 1b”. The aim was to research the political knowledge about the EU presented in textbooks and research how the presented political knowledge can contribute to political participation.  The study utilizes two different theories, the first is Maria Jarl’s definition of the participatory democratic process and the second is a categorical instrument constructed by Peter Wall used to analyze political knowledge. The method used is both a qualitative content analysis and a comparative analysis. The categorical instrument used stipulates that political knowledge contains three dimensions, polity, policy, and politics. Each dimension has several variable categories attached.  In the study, four textbooks written for the civics course “Samhällskunskap 1b” were analyzed, in accordance with the developed methodological framework. The results of the study found that each of the textbooks contained all three dimensions of political knowledge. However, the dimensions were not equally present in the content with an imbalance favoring the polity dimension which encompassed more than half of the observed variable categories in each of the textbooks. The politics dimension was also found to be relatively non-existent in each of the textbooks with coverage as low as 2% in one of the textbooks. Thus, the conclusion is that the political knowledge regarding the EU in the textbooks is far too one-sided to provide a satisfactory contribution to political participation. We also confirm that a similar focus on the polity dimension regarding the EU exists in textbooks which can also be found in the content teachers teach. This might have several implications for future political participants in Sweden and thus also Swedish democracy.

Den här läromedelsgranskningen fokuserar på det algebraiska arbetsmaterialet i två läromedel i årskurs 4, 5 och 6. Granskningens syfte är att undersöka vilka strategier som presenteras för att lösa algebraiska uppgifter och hur läromedlen är uppbygga för att förenkla övergången från aritmetik till algebra. Genom att utgå från det sociokulturella perspektivet analyseras materialet i fyra kategorier: förekomst av representationsformer, övergång från aritmetik till algebra,lösningsstrategier samt progression och stödstruktur. Resultatet visar att läromedlen erbjuder olika former av stöttning och lösningsstrategier. Strategierna skulle dock kunna förtydligas ytterligare för att göra det enklare för eleven att följa de olika stegen som presenteras. I samtliga läromedel finns en tydlig stödstruktur som ger utrymme för eleven att arbeta och utvecklas utifrån egna förutsättningar. / This textbook review focuses on the algebraic teaching materials in two textbooks for grades 4, 5, and 6. The purpose of the review is to investigate the strategies presented for solving algebraic tasks and how the textbooks are structured to facilitate the transition from arithmetic to algebra. Based on the sociocultural perspective, the material is analyzed in four categories: the presence of representational forms, the transition from arithmetic to algebra, solution strategies, and progression and support structure. The results show that the textbooks offer different forms of support and solution strategies. However, the strategies could be further clarified to make it easier for the student to follow the different steps presented. In all textbooks, there is a clear support structure that gives the student the space to work and develop on their own terms.