Existential configurations: a way to conceptualise people’s meaning-making

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces existential configuration as a concept possibly used to describe, talk about and discuss peoples’ meaning-making, not least in religious education classrooms. The article builds on an interview study of 21 Swedish young adults from 19 to 29 years of age. Many of these young adults displayed complex methods of meaning-making that challenge some established ways of conceptualising it. Findings showed that the young adults did not all share a single political, philosophical or religious outlook on life. Some had religious beliefs and some did not, but this does not mean that the latter group did not interpret and/or desire to understand their existence. The article argues that a person having any specific outlook on life cannot be assumed if the concept is understood as a cognitive decision in relation to life questions. Based on analysis of empirical material, the article suggests the concept of existential configuration as an alternative way to conceptualise people’s meaning-making. Concepts suggested here are potentially of value for religious educators in helping open classroom dialogue on issues of existential meaning and for enabling deeper understanding of how individuals interpret and understand life in relation to others.

KEYWORDS:

• Existential configuration
• outlook on life
• world views
• worldviews

Introduction

Elin: So I am baptised and I have had my confirmation, but I am not a believer at all. Or I believe in something, but it’s like … I cannot say that I belong to a religion or something. But I am a Christian, but I am not a believer.

A 22-year-old woman, Elin made the statement above as part of her answer to the question of whether she had been baptised (Gustavsson 2013, 123). The answer illustrates that Elin, who had been baptised and confirmed,¹ has complex understanding of concepts such as faith and religion. To Elin, there is no traditional connection between baptism–confirmation–faith or between religion–faith–Christian.

Elin’s perspective on the relation between concepts discussed in an interview, along with those of 20 other Swedish young adults from 19 to 29 years old who participated in this study, raises questions about how researchers conceptualise people’s meaning-making. Her perspective also raises questions about the assumption that people share an outlook on life at all. Such a notion is reflected in the concept ‘outlook on life’, commonly used in Swedish religious education in an ‘inclusive’ school context (Skolverket 2011b; Jackson 2015, 9).² Should we assume that Elin shares a Christian outlook on life because she describes herself as ‘a Christian’? Or should we consider that this not the case, because she also says that she is ‘not a believer’ at all? Answers to these questions depend on what meaning we give ‘outlook on life’ and whether we assume, in that sense, all people share an outlook on life.

Concepts we use to talk about meaning-making have implications in a number of areas, among them religious education. We need to consider their impact if we are to develop mutual understanding among younger as well as older students, along with tolerance of differences, and to mirror diversity and complexity in relation to ‘religious and non-religious convictions’ (Jackson 2014, 67). Unlike religious education in many other countries, the Swedish subject is non-confessional, and students are taught together regardless of background. Students may have different perceptions about and relations to the subject; this diversity of views and experiences among students and teachers characterises discussion of the subject (Kittelman Flensner 2015). Karin Kittelman Flensner and others have shown that religious education classroom practices in Sweden sometimes do not contribute to mutual understanding or respect for individuals (2015, 267). Instead, difficulties can be seen in achieving the subject’s aims in relation to diversity and tolerance – as expected in the curricula (Kittelman Flensner 2015, 257).

Concepts we use can either open or close classroom conversation to shared understanding, and raising awareness among active teachers and teachers-to-be that concepts can communicate different meanings is important. This is especially important if these concepts are to serve as a basis for possible, and deeper understanding among students of their own interpretations and understandings of life.

Elin’s answer, presented in the introduction, raises the question of how teacher training, as well as school contexts inclusive of religious education, can discuss people’s meaning-making in a way that communicates with those in the classroom, but does not become a discourse only about ‘the other’ (Risenfors 2011; Kittelman Flensner 2015; Holmqvist Lidh 2016). The same theme has been discussed in contexts other than Sweden (see, e.g. Miedema 2007; Sagberg 2015; Jackson 2015, 2016).

This article argues that we cannot assume that students or other people have an ‘outlook on life’ if the concept is understood as a cognitive decision made in relation to life questions. The Swedish concept livsåskådning, or ‘outlook on life’, is shaped by rationalistic discourse in which a person is more an observer than a participant. Outlook on life exemplifies tension when we try to include both theoretical and conscious cognitive aspects as well as social and cultural contextual influences. Outlook on life is an understanding of human formation that needs to be thoroughly challenged. Because broadening understanding of existing concepts is not enough, the concept needs to be changed. As Peder Thalén writes, ‘already the choice of a language is involving philosophical and theological positions’ and should be ‘undertaken with caution’ (2006, 57).

Based on this foundation, the article suggests the concept of existential configuration as an alternative for conceptualising people’s meaning-making. This concept’s value is that it captures, on a personal level, interpretations of life on which people reflect less. The concept also provides space for personal agency and is open to social and cultural contexts’ significance in understanding of human formation.

In the following, I draw on a hermeneutic tradition inspired by Ricoeur (1984, 1985, 1988, 1993). His description of the relationship between mimesis I and mimesis II has been important for my understanding of narrative as visualisation of the individual’s conception of life in a social and cultural context (Ricoeur 1984, 57, 67ff). Too, Berger and Luckmann (1966) have been important for my understanding of socialisation and the concept ‘institution’, the latter important for my use of the concept mind institution presented in this article (Berger and Luckmann 1979, 70).

The article builds on the thesis Existential Configurations: On How the Understanding of Life is Constituted in a Social Context (Gustavsson 2013), and it begins by presenting a historical perspective on outlook on life. Next, it summarises the study method and findings that became the starting point for developing the concept of existential configuration. In the article, meaning-making is seen both as content and an example of a process of understanding that people live and present themselves in a dynamic relationship with their social and cultural contexts (Gustavsson 2013, 2). People are, as Merleau-Ponty puts it, ‘condemned to meaning’ and on-going interpretation in a desire to make life comprehensible (1962, xxii). According to Berger and Luckmann’s terminology, a person is also born predisposed to sociality (1979, 153).

Other concepts related to existential configuration are presented, including existential themes, shared configurations and configuration space. The article concludes with reflection on how existential configuration can contribute to religious education’s classroom practices among younger and older students in school and among teachers in training.

Outlook on life concept in a historical perspective

The question of how to describe and discuss people’s understanding of life relates to ongoing discussion in religious studies since the 1960s in Sweden (Bergström 1976, 1996; Jeffner 1976b; Philipson 1984; Hartman 1985; Kallenberg 1987; Selander 1994; Bråkenhielm 2001; Westerlund 2002; Lindfelt 2003; Osbeck 2006; Martinson 2010; Risenfors 2011; Gustavsson 2013). This question can also be seen in a broader Nordic and European context (Kurtén 1997; Lindfelt 2003, 2013; Heimbrock 2004; Heelas and Woodhead 2005; Gunnarsson 2008, 2009; Tirri and Quinn 2010; van der Kooij, de Ruyter, and Miedema 2013; Wallis 2014; Sagberg 2015). In Sweden, despite criticisms of Jeffner’s use of the outlook-on-life concept, it has dominated in academic contexts, official texts and everyday language (Skeie 2002). For example, the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) uses the term livsåskådning to describe people’s meaning-making, a tradition going back to Anders Jeffner (1976a, 1988). The document’s English version Curriculum for the compulsory school, preschool class and the recreation centre, 2011, on religious education states that children shall learn about ‘religions and other outlooks on life’ (Skolverket 2011a). Another important concept in discussions about concepts is livstolkning, here translated as life interpretation, a concept that goes back mainly to a tradition related to Sven Hartman (1985, 1986, 2000, Hartman and Torstenson-Ed 2007).

The concept Jeffner developed was intended to preserve connection between the term’s general usage, while at the same time introducing a fruitful scientific concept (Jeffner 1973, 18, 1976a, 18, translation by the author):

By a person’s outlook on life is meant the person’s central value system and basic attitude, and the part of what the person considers he or she knows about him- or herself and the surrounding world, which affects this central value system or basic attitude in a way that the person is prepared to accept.

Jeffner stresses that the individual has a kind of conviction and theoretical standpoint, which also determines the importance of life questions.³ This theoretical orientation of the concept can be seen among researchers who followed in the Jeffner tradition (Bråkenhielm, Essunger, and Westerlund 2013, 16). From that perspective, a life question is one that the individual answers within the framework of an outlook on life (Jeffner 1988, 7).

Sten Philipson (1984), Kjell Kallenberg (1987) and Carl Reinhold Bråkenhielm (2001) have argued that outlook on life has a more practical or life-regulating function than Jeffner states. The theoretical assumptions remain in the foreground, however, and, despite the critique, their concept ‘is fundamentally dependent on Jeffner’s formulations’ (Lindfelt 2003, 182). The critique shows what can be considered problems in Jeffner’s position, but these critics have not succeeded in reformulating Jeffner’s understanding of the concept (Lindfelt 2003; Gunnarsson 2009, 60f).

In recent years, some have critiqued Jeffner’s philosophical understanding. In particular, this critique is of Jeffner’s few examples of contextual questions and his lack of interest in what an outlook on life can mean for a person’s individual life or in a given context (Westerlund 2002; Martinson 2010). Although Jeffner and Martinson’s thinking differ on the basis for people’s positions, Martinson builds on the assumption that people take a theoretical position in relation to life questions in the way that Jeffner once did. In Westerlund’s writing, contextual understanding of a person’s meaning-making and space for personal agency is often described in terms of life interpretations, a conceptual choice that in itself can be interpreted as an example of limitations of the outlook-on-life concept (Westerlund 2013, 43f).

In contrast with the Jeffner tradition, Sven Hartman discusses meaning-making as a process. Initially, Hartman distinguished between personal and other outlooks on life that could be regarded as doctrines (1986). Other researchers, for instance, Jacomijn van der Kooij, de Ruyter, and Miedema (2013), have distinguished similarly, but used the term ‘worldview’. In recent years, however, Hartman himself has chosen to talk about individual understanding of life as life interpretations (2000).

In his understanding of the concept, Hartman refers to a definition used during the work with 1990s school curricula (2000, 72, translation by the author).

Life interpretation is a way of organizing one’s world of experience: it gives people patterns for making sense of existence and for relating to it. Developing life interpretation is a process that continues throughout life.

Also in contrast with Jeffner, Hartman highlights the process’s significance and people’s less reflected-upon experiences. According to Hartman’s definition, an individual’s understanding of life can be seen as a relationship between process and content, and something lived and changed in dynamic relation to new life questions (Hartman and Torstenson-Ed 2007). While the Jeffner tradition talks about life questions answered within the framework of an outlook on life, Hartman stresses that people develop life questions because they reflect on themselves and their situations and want to understand and find meaning in life. Hartman emphasises that life questions can also be formulated other than through direct questioning and exemplifies this through games, images or other personal expressions and provocative statements (Hartman 1986, 28, 170ff; Hartman and Pettersson 1980, 32). However, the social and cultural context’s meaning is not pronounced in Hartman’s definition.

Over time, Nordic discussions have shifted the meaning of various concepts from emphasis on content and a relatively substantial cognitive philosophical perspective, to a more functional emphasis with space for process as part of interpretation of life (Gunnarsson 2009, 37). In the Swedish context, Christina Osbeck exemplifies this with the concept ‘understanding of life’ (2006, 389). In addition, Gunnar Gunnarsson, an Icelandic scholar who conducted his doctoral research in Sweden, uses life interpretation (2008, 88ff). At the same time, strong preference continues to be seen for outlook on life in, for example, school curricula. Although attempts have been made to develop the concept further since Jeffner, understanding of it still relates to his understanding.

Young adults and interpretation of life

In the thesis on which this article is built, young adults such as Elin were interviewed with the primary aim of interpreting how they described and understood their lives (Gustavsson 2013, 5, 160). Interviews were semi-structured and deep (Bryman 2002, 127) and conducted with the goal of not ‘imposing any a priori categorisation that may limit the field of inquiry’ (Fontana & Frey 1994, 366). Their main focus was an invitation to describe ‘important events’ in their lives, something they had been informed about before the interview took place. Results contained examples of powerful, exciting, enjoyable, and difficult experiences (for methodological choices, see Gustavsson 2018).

Altogether, 21 young adults from 19 to 29 years of age – anonymised – were interviewed. Interviewees were contacted primarily through various schools. Some were still in high school, some at university or college, some worked, and some were unemployed. The main strategy in collecting the sample was to obtain as much variety as possible. With respect to gender, the goal was to have an equal number of men and women, but gender itself was not an analytical category. Of the 21 interviewees, 13 were women, and eight were men. Of the 21, eight described themselves as Christian believers, and the rest talked about themselves as non-believers in the Christian tradition. The sample did not include young adults who related to religious traditions other than Christian, and therefore the study could not examine various religions and their distinctive significance for interviewees’ understanding of their lives.⁴

Results revealed that young people’s creation of meaning and their exploration and development of understanding are at once an individual process and socially shared. The theoretical point of departure is Berger and Luckmann’s theory about reality’s social construction (1966). The theory shows how people understand themselves and their lives in interaction between individuals and their social and cultural context. The thesis used concepts such as plausibility structure and socialisation as analytical tools.

The approach was hermeneutical, and the interpretation process alternated between interviewees’ reflected experiences and thoughts, an experience-near interpretation and their understandings of life in relation to more theoretical frames, an experience-distant description (Geertz 1993; Gustavsson 2000, 55ff).

Conceptual understanding

Many of those interviewed displayed complex ways of making meaning, which is difficult to fit into a term like outlook on life when it was understood as having a theoretical or cognitive aspect and as an individual conviction in relation to life and existential conditions (Bråkenhielm, Essunger, and Westerlund 2013, 16; Jeffner 1976a, 15). Many of the young people did not share an outspoken political, philosophical or religious outlook on life, and many of their statements seemed quite spontaneous and not consciously thought through. As I was analysing material, it became clear that I needed a concept leaving room for questions and themes as a part of the process of understanding one’s life. I also needed a concept that would allow space for the social and cultural context’s significance. Based on empirical material’s analysis, I argue that the theoretical concept of existential configurations captures understanding of life that is perhaps not quite conscious, but personal – an understanding of life that can change over time.

The reason for using existential configurations is also based on the observation that, while interviewees did not talk about their understanding of life in terms of given traditions, they had distinct interpretations of important events in their lives, interpretations that might best be described as different figures. During the analysis, I could see how interviewees shaped their interpretations of individual events and at the same time saw their experiences as part of a larger whole. The way they seemed to combine different figures into a whole suggested use of configurations, with the prefix con- showing that figures had been joined. Interviewees expressed their views of individual events and existential themes as their more-or-less conscious desires to make their lives understandable in relation to people around them and contexts they shared. This was more important to them than answering specific life questions. On a more generalised level, they interpreted life with a desire to understand their existence and to create meaning. They seemed to combine their experiences into a meaningful whole in light of ideas shared in a community that included significant others with whom they shared a plausibility structure and in relation to those with whom they could feel ontological security (Berger and Luckmann 1966; Giddens 1991).

Existential configuration is a theoretical concept and therefore not something people perceive themselves as having. In everyday language, existential configuration can be understood as closer to life interpretation than to outlook on life. Existential configuration summarises the individual’s understanding of him- or herself, in terms of both process and content, and it has a social as well as a personal side. Existential configuration expresses understanding of life that takes shape through human experience and finds its expression in relation to, and in communion with, other people (Gustavsson 2015, 54). Related to existential configuration are existential themes, shared configurations and configuration space.

Existential themes

This study suggests that the concept of existential themes can be used as an alternative to concept-of-life questions to understand individuals’ meaning-making. According to the Jeffner tradition, an individual presents answers to life questions as an outlook on life (Bråkenhielm, Essunger, and Westerlund 2013, 16; Jeffner 1988, 7). Examples of such life questions are those dealing with the ‘meaning of life’ and ‘death’, ‘guilt and innocence’, and ‘the urge to reject oneself’ (Jeffner 1988, 7).

Interviewees’ remarks about their experiences in relation to death can be interpreted as examples of life questions, according to the Jeffner tradition. Yet these young adults’ comments on death and the meaning of life indicate that key questions were not central for them. The term existential themes emphasises openness towards answers that do not fit within a specific outlook-on-life tradition. The concept of existential themes is closer to concept-of-life questions as used by Hartman than to that used by Jeffner. Hartman describes life questions as expressions of a need to process and formulate experiences and as driving the meaning-making process (1986, 28).

Existential themes are defined as content in relation to existential configurations, but they can also be understood as issues or forces that drive interpretation. As content, they emerged through interviewees’ reflections, but that does not mean that existential themes indicate an obvious answer. Issues themselves can be central to the understanding of life taking shape. In a more or less conscious way, interviewees wanted to relate to themes central to their descriptions of their lives. Their existential themes did not occur in a vacuum, but rather in social and cultural contexts in which people shared configurations.

Shared configurations

Among respondents who described themselves as Christian believers, consistency can be understood in light of an interpretive framework shaped by a Christian outlook on life. Interviewees referred to a common interpretive framework that seemed to inspire their choice of key existential themes and the way they understood their experiences. This does not mean they all related in the same way to existential themes, but rather that they related to the same interpretive framework.

Generalising from this, arguing that Christians’ shared outlook on life – interpreted and understood as part of their shared social and cultural context – is possible. The Christian religion, like other outlooks on life, provides examples of shared configurations. By talking about a Christian outlook on life as a shared configuration, understanding a believer’s existential configurations as coherent both personally and communally or socially is possible. The Christian outlook on life represents an interpretive framework and a reference point against which Christians’ experiences and existential themes can be tried; the concept of shared configurations captures this dynamic.

The term shared configurations also makes it possible to capture the importance of outlook on life as a reference point for those who do not describe themselves as believers, but refer more indirectly to a discrete tradition or heritage. This heritage can appear through concepts such as those of paradise and heaven; some concepts had strong symbolic significance for interviewees even if they dismissed conventional metaphysical beliefs.

Analysis of interview material revealed consistency among those who identified with Christianity regarding how they related to existential themes and portrayed their experiences. The same was seen among interviewees who did not share a political, philosophical or religious outlook on life. This indicates that understanding of life can be based on a more general approach that cannot be described as an outlook on life, but rather as a taken-for-granted perspective.

Taken-for-granted perspectives

Taken-for-granted perspectives exemplify consensus as to how participants related to existential themes and consistency observed in smaller interviewee groups. At the same time, and perhaps more important, taken-for-granted perspectives emerged as far less reflected upon, not explicitly articulated, and consistent in comparison with outlook on life. The same tendencies have been seen in religious studies in which concepts such as ‘vicarious religion’ (Davie 2013, 143) and ‘moralistic therapeutic deism’ (Smith and Denton 2005, 169) have captured views that cannot be described in traditional religious terms.

This study argues that no distinct border exists between taken-for-granted perspectives and other perspectives. On the contrary, some shared configurations make greater impact than others, and an individual can simultaneously display more than one taken-for-granted perspective. Compared to traditional outlook on life, this suggests that searching for intrapersonal consistency in how interviewees understood their lives is problematic. From the young people’s perspective, it seems that a person’s understanding of life can be rather complex, fragmentary and contextual.⁵

However, all respondents shared a third configuration, here called mind institution.

Mind institution

Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s concept of institution (1966) inspired the concept of mind institution (tankeinstitution). Study results showed that participants seemed to share a mind institution – that I call individual project. Analysis of personal configurations showed that almost all respondents accepted the individual’s importance and what can be interpreted as an example of the individual project. This idea serves as an organising principle for young adults’ basic understanding of life and themselves. The individual project can be understood as influenced by social control, in which people anticipate each other’s actions on both personal and social levels (Berger and Luckmann 1966).

In an everyday sense, the challenge to understand others and ourselves was the same for the young people who shared an outlook on life and for those who did not. As results show, these young adults understood their lives in light of a mix of three interpretive frameworks: outlook-on-life traditions, taken-for-granted perspectives and mind institution.

One way to imagine how shared configurations work in a person’s life is to think of configurations as providing examples of various degrees of conscious reflection within a person’s way of understanding the world and him- or herself. On a completely unproblematic level, we share mind institutions that constitute a basic and less-reflected upon shared configuration – one that depends on social and cultural contexts in a broad sense. If people are asked about these shared configurations, mind institutions appear obvious because they merge with the built-up image of reality. Taken-for-granted perspectives are just that – taken for granted – but some of the approach’s aspects can be awareness and reflection, for example, in relation to the concept of death. Shared taken-for-granted perspectives should primarily be understood as being less conscious and reflective than what one can choose to talk about in terms of outlooks on life, which are reserved for shared, conscious, personal attitudes about overall existential themes such as death and the meaning of life (Gustavsson 2013, 4).

Shared configurations are therefore of central importance to existential configurations’ formation. In this sense, personal configurations are considered social because they cannot take shape independently of social and cultural contexts.

Existential configuration space and re-figuration

Young adults also provided examples of personal agency. This indicates that space for changed understanding of life becomes possible when people meet those with whom they can share alternative frames of interpretation and challenge their earlier shared understanding.

Dynamics that personal configurations illustrate are to be understood in light of both shared configurations and personal agency that these young adults exemplified. In this context, an important concept is configuration space – space available for an individual to form personal configurations (Gustavsson 2013, 131ff). However, the space is influenced by others through configurations maintained in the shared community.

A change of interpretation, or re-figuration, is possible when the individual can share both a plausibility structure and ontological security in a new community (Berger and Luckmann 1966; Giddens 1991). The study illustrates how individuals can find themselves in a dilemma between the possibility of realising their personal configuration and of maintaining configurations shared earlier with their families. Young adults seem to develop strategies, so they can handle the dilemma existing between their re-figuration project and their families’ ontological security (Gustavsson 2013, 136).

Existential configurations and related concepts provide room for people’s multiple identities and their belonging to multiple communities, offering a way of analysing and better understanding.

Conclusions

In this article, the concept of existential configuration and related concepts such as existential themes, shared configurations and configuration space, have been presented as ways to conceptualise people’s meaning-making. The article argues for use of these concepts in religious education classrooms because we cannot assume that students share an outlook on life in a cognitive way. During the interview study, young adults reported that even if they did not all share a distinct political, philosophical or religious outlook on life, this did not mean that they did not interpret and wish to understand their existence. All human beings are involved in meaning-making, but they do not always present manifest, conscious positions in accordance with a discrete outlook on life. I have argued that existential configuration also allows for interpretations of life that, in comparison with the Swedish concept livsåskådning, or outlook on life, are less reflected on at a personal level.

As mentioned, Sweden has an on-going debate over which concepts to use to describe people’s meaning-making. Some similarities can be detected among researchers who have been criticising, or at least challenged, the Jeffner tradition. One is the method used; more importantly, however, we have – in different ways – tried to shift focus from emphasis on content and on a relatively substantial cognitive philosophical concept to a more functional concept with space for process as part of an interpretation of life (Gunnarsson 2009, 37). Use of concepts introduced here helps clarify the shift.

Concepts we use can either open or close classroom conversation to shared understanding. In this article, I argue that if teachers use existential configuration, they can focus on people’s meaning-making instead of defined ‘interpretive frames’ such as religions.

In her thesis, Karin Kittelman examines how religious education can be socially constructed in classroom practice in the contemporary, pluralistic context of Sweden. Her study shows that a ‘we-and-them mentality’ in which ‘we’ was characterised by identity based on anti-Muslim-ness, rather than on a Christian identity, was discernible in classrooms (Kittelman Flensner 2015, 267).

RE [religious education] can, in a worst-case scenario, contribute to creating, reproducing and maintaining stigmatizing beliefs about people with different backgrounds and thus contribute to segregation and intolerance. Dealing with this stereotyping of “others”, I maintain, is one major challenge for RE (Kittelman Flensner 2015, 267)

I argue that livsåskådning, or outlook on life, tends to maintain the we-and-them dichotomy and obstructs intercultural religious education’s work by making invisible the meaning-making of students who do not relate to religions and other outlooks on life.

Concepts of existential configurations and shared configurations make it possible to understand Elin’s introductory statement in a context in which young people have access to different and competing modes of living and do not rely on patterns of action or traditions held by society’s established religious institutions (Sjöborg and Lövheim 2009; Sernhede 2006; Woodhead and Heelas 2000).

In the classroom, use of these concepts provides a linguistic opportunity and an invitation to talk about the context, culture and tradition that have influenced students’ understanding of themselves and life, without dichotomising organised and personal worldviews or outlooks on life. Questions that can include everyone in this conversation are: What shared configurations characterise our time, culture or family history? What experiences have influenced understanding of concepts such as religion, science and ethical issues historically and currently? What common point can we take during encounters with the ‘other’?

How teachers define concepts such as belief and religion is important in RE, and so is how they develop concepts to discuss less conscious understandings of life and ways these might relate to established traditions. At its best, RE should offer students possibilities of finding ‘room for “conversation” and “negotiation”’ across ‘religious and cultural divides’ (Jackson 1997, 91, 2014). The meaning teachers ascribe to different concepts determines the space students feel they have for understanding how they interpret and understand life. As demonstrated, some concepts are more useful than others for developing mutual understanding among younger and older students, along with tolerance of differences, and for mirroring diversity and complexity in relation to ‘religious and non-religious convictions’ (Jackson 2014, 67). These should include all students, both those describing themselves as religious and those who have made no conscious decisions in relation to religion or other outlooks on life. The RE subject needs ‘a general loosening of established approaches’ (Jackson 1997, 69). Existential configuration, with other suggested concepts, can help religious educators open classrooms to issues of existential meaning and invite all students into the conversation on equal terms.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Caroline Gustavsson

Caroline Gustavsson is Associate professor in Religious Education and Lecturer at Stockholm University. She defended her thesis Existential Configurations: On how the understanding of life is constituted in a social context in 2013 at the Department of Education, Stockholm University.

From 2013 to 2015, she completed her postdoctoral research at the Swedish Church research unit. This project resulted in her book A crisis in terms of involvement: A pedagogical challenge in relation to the Sunday Worship (Artos förlag 2016).

The overarching themes of Gustavsson’s research relate to questions about the importance of the social and cultural context in which people’s understanding of life takes form. A special interest can be seen in relation to how people perceive the Christian faith today and its relevance when they interpret their own lives.

Notes

1. Attendance of confirmation has decreased rapidly in Sweden during the last decade, and when Elin had her confirmation, less than 50% of whom made it. In one document, the Swedish church writes that confirmation has probably lost its function as a rite of passage to the adult world (Svenska kyrkans statitstikdatabas, 2017). Today the Swedish church meets only about three of ten 15-year-olds in their confirmation work.

2. In the Swedish version of Curriculum for the compulsory school, preschool class and the recreation centre 2011 (Skolverket 2011b), the term livsåskådning is being used. In the English version of the same document, however, the term used is ‘outlook on life’ (Skolverket 2011a). This is a possible, but not obvious translation of the term livsåskådning. The translation in England could be ‘life view’ or ‘life stance’. The translation in the United States would probably be ‘worldview’ (Bråkenhielm, Essunger, and Westerlund 2013, 25).

3. The concept’s expressed theoretical orientation can also be seen among later researchers following in the Jeffner tradition (Bråkenhielm, Essunger, and Westerlund 2013, 16).

4. Other studies on younger people’s religious and spiritual lives can contribute to this understanding and to reflection on the importance of the social and cultural context for meaning-making in our time (see, e.g. von Brömssen 2003; Smith and Denton 2005; Risenfors 2011; Day, Vincett, and Cotter 2013).

5. Later researchers in the Jeffner tradition have come to focus more on this in a goal to widen the outlook-on-life concept (see, e.g. Bråkenhielm, Essunger, and Westerlund 2013, 19; Lindfelt 2013, 154).