The Swedish state and educational system are secular, so to say they do not depend on the former protestant state church anymore. Many people in Sweden are also secular. Even so, in school teachers meet students with a religious faith. The purpose of this study is to examine how teachers without a religious belonging experience the encounter with religious students. The method used was semistructured interviews with five teachers in a upper secondary school in a multicultural suburb of Stockholm. In this school, most students have a religious faith and the majority are Muslims or Christians. The prevalent discourses about religion and secularism in Sweden today are found through the teachers speech about the teachers and the students living in two different worlds. The dichotomy is more clearly expressed by the less religious teachers. The meaning of the double assignment of the curriculum is interpreted differently by the different teachers and the teachers have experienced conflicts of values regarding the following subjects: freedom of speech, sexuality (including homosexuality and gender equality), antisemitism and intolerance. The teachers use discussions and debates to handle the conflicts. In their statements, the teachers place the conflicts of value in a public sphere, not in an individual, which means they do not hesitate to act against unscientific approaches and/or antidemocratic views. Thus, the conflicts of values can be used as tools to foster democracy, tolerance and human rights. The teachers believe that they have the assignment to change the students religiously anchored values, but not to influence them to become secular.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:sh-18067 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Kriisa, Elaine |
| Publisher | Södertörns högskola, Institutionen för livsvetenskaper |
| 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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