This essay relates to the field of study which in an international context, since the 1970s has been termed controversial issues education. My essay deals with how controversial issues are handled within the teaching of social and religious studies at juvenile detention centres. The central questions are: 1. Which topics do the teachers identify as potentially controversial and in which ways do these relate to religion? 2. Which strategies for teaching controversial issues do the interviewed teachers use, promote, or reject? Previous research has indicated that there is a direct correlation between controversial issues in education and the health of a society’s democracy. Preceding research has also suggested that it’s common for teachers to avoid potentially sensitive subjects in their teaching, both in a Swedish and international context, and that it’s a typical trait for Swedish teachers to pursue neutrality in their teaching. Controversial issues education is a growing field of study in Sweden – though no prior studies have been done on these issues in relation to the education of detained youth, which is a gap this essay intends to fill. My research has been carried out through focus group interviews with teachers, and the material has been thematically analysed with support from field-oriented theories. Prominent results have been that intrareligious questions of interpretation are particularly related to controversy among these young men. As well as that the teachers rely on their relationships to the students on the one hand and on their own professional ability to fashion their teaching against their student base on the other. My results suggest that both potentially controversial topics, and the strategies that the teachers advocate differ in part from what prior research of controversial issues in Swedish education has suggested.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:sh-45921 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Broström, John |
| Publisher | Södertörns högskola, Institutionen för historia och samtidsstudier |
| 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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