During spring 2012, an elementary and middle school, Östermalmsskolan, located in Stockholm, was accused of having religious elements intertwined in the existing school education. The school had during the spring term of 2012 started a collaboration with a company named Skolyoga. The purpose of this collaboration was that an educated yoga teacher practiced yoga with the students. The yoga practice was motivated as a way for the children to become relaxed and train their focus. The yoga practices were in the eyes of Östermalmsskolan, along with the yoga-teacher and the company Skolyoga, not religious. However, the one who reported Östermalmsskolan to the Swedish school inspection claimed that the yoga practices indeed were of religious nature. The report on Östermalmsskolan, was a very debated dispute in media during 2012 and the discourse displayed the two counterparties’ arguments in articles as well as in TV. The discourse in these media source also offered the reader two different adaptations off yoga: one religious and one non-religious. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the discourse in chosen media material from 2012 that described the dispute and report on Östermalmsskolan and the Skolyoga company, with the aim to show what kind of arguments were presented regarding this specific yoga practice as a religious or nonreligious. This essay also seeks to display how these arguments regarding Skolyoga as religious or non-religious relate to Ninian Smarts seven dimensions of religion. The results show that by relating the argumentations shown in the media discourse, regarding Skolyoga as religious or non-religious, to Smarts religious theory, several different adaptations of yoga are to be found. The result of the analysis is that the practice of yoga by Skolyoga at Östermalmsskolan 2012, which was described in the discourse, was non-denominational. The result also shows that the perception of yoga as religious, which is too found in the discourse, is made with a valid point. Yoga is a word and practice that can be full of religious aspects and training, but it can also be stripped of its religious aspects completely. The dispute regarding Skolyoga at Östermalmsskolan 2012 is in large a matter of opinion on what one estimates as religious or non-religious.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hh-39316 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Löfvenius, Johanna |
| Publisher | Högskolan i Halmstad, Akademin för lärande, humaniora och samhälle |
| 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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