This study examines the portrayal and representation of Islam in Swedish textbooks for religious education in grades 4–6. Through both a quantitative and qualitative image analysis, the aim is to investigate how five textbooks in religious education at an elementary school level present Islam. A qualitative analysis is conducted on the first image in each chapter of every textbook, which is supplemented by a quantitative survey of the remaining images. The research questions addressed in this study are: How are the different aspects of gender, clothing, and environment of Islam portrayed and represented in Swedish educational materials? Are there any similarities and differences in how Islam is portrayed in the various educational textbooks? Are there any specific Images or stereotypes about Islam that educational materials can contribute to reinforcing through Orientalist perspectives? The results have shown that more men are portrayed than women in the analyzed textbooks. Additionally, women are consistently portrayed in oriental clothing which are completely covering, as well as wearing veils, and hijabs. The men tend to wear a more balanced style between Western clothing and occasionally, but less frequently, oriental clothing. Furthermore, the results indicate that the Eastern world is the dominant environment portrayed in all textbooks, with the Western world appearing significantly less. All five textbooks were vastly similar in this regard, with only a few differences, such as one textbook portraying men in oriental clothing to a greater extent than Western clothing. Apart from this instance, there were mostly similarities between the textbooks. This indicates that these textbooks may contribute to the reinforcing of stereotypes about Islam through the representations they provide of gender, clothing, and the environment of Islam. In this study, I will mainly base my analysis on Edward W Said’s theory of Orientalism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:kau-100737 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Dedorson, Nazrin |
| Publisher | Karlstads universitet |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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