Whose Christianity? The influence of a majority culture in Swedish textbooks

ABSTRACT

Christian plurality is challenging for a religious education teacher in a classroom of students with different orientations of Christianity, not least due to immigration. As Christianity represents an essential component of the majority culture in many European countries, in this study we examine how it is represented in religious education textbooks used in upper secondary schools in Sweden. The purpose is to examine how liberal Christianity is shaped in the textbooks and the possible implications for educating citizens in a plural society. The selection of books is based on those used by religious education teachers in Sweden. The results show a tendency towards a modernised liberal Christianity, the implications of which are discussed in relation to the significance of religions and worldviews in education for social cohesion.

KEYWORDS:

• Christianity
• textbooks
• plural society
• social cohesion

Introduction

As in Norwegian and British religious education (RE), Swedish RE aims to strengthen a sustainable pluralism and social cohesion by means of a comprehensive study of different religions without bias. As researchers we are aware that representations of religion are never neutral but shaped by certain perspectives (e.g. Kittelmann Flenser 2015), many of which are related to majority conceptions. According to Berglund (2021), textbooks often tell us more about the country that produces them than the religions they describe. Further, knowledge about how religions are represented in textbooks ‘can teach us much about ourselves and the view of religion that dominates’ (p. 115). In order to gain more knowledge about the school system’s ambition to foster cohesion in a pluralistic society, a systematic study of textbooks was regarded as a fruitful approach. The textbooks were analysed using a practical-text-approach (Hellspong and Ledin 1997), as described below. Although the concept of ‘pluralism’ mainly relates to a social state, i.e. members belonging to different groups, the curricular representation of religions is an important prerequisite for how these groups are represented in the social context, since the textbooks’ messages are mainly related to the dominant representations of religions and their practitioners by the majority culture. In this paper we intend to bring such curricular representations to the fore.

Christianity consists of different communities with different orientations and heritages. This plurality is challenging for an RE teacher in a classroom of students with different orientations of Christianity (and non-Christian religions/worldviews). Immigration from countries inside and outside Europe, such as Latin America and the Middle East has meant that Christian plurality in Western Europe has affected the composition of school classes (Statistics Sweden 2020). Christianity represents an essential component of the majority culture in Sweden and in several other European countries.¹ As majority conceptions can influence the RE teaching content (Berglund 2021), educating citizens in social cohesion and including the majority and minority orientations of Christianity can prove challenging, in that minorities are often (more or less consciously) measured against majority conceptions.

In Sweden religious education (RE) is a non-confessional subject, i.e. RE is supposed to focus on different religions in a neutral way. The curriculum also includes a value base that is central to all school forms and should permeate all teaching levels, from elementary school to upper secondary school. The Swedish RE curriculum states that RE should support co-existence and cohesion in the plural society (Lgy-22/religion). In this paper, we understand social cohesion in a similar way to John Dewey (1916, 1923) – as cement in the social structure that is open for the promotion of any kind of difference and pluralism. However, we need to approach such curricular conditions critically to discern how the teaching content influences how religions are understood or whether and how their representations are taken for granted. In this contribution, we examine how Christianity is represented in RE textbooks used in the Swedish upper secondary school for students between 16–18 years of age. This study continues an earlier study of four authors of the lower secondary school (Years 7–9) that shows a strong tendency for protestant liberal Christianity (Liljestrand, Carlsson, and Thalén 2021), often through recurrent language patterns. Characteristic for this theological tradition is an attempt to bridge the gap between the inherited Christian tradition and a culture shaped by the scientific revolution, thereby creating a cultural synthesis. The synthesis includes a downplaying or removal of supernatural elements and an increased emphasis on the ethical content or other elements of an emotional or experiential nature that do not challenge reason. Distinctive to the synthesis is also an expanded space for the individual’s freedom within society and a belief in people’s ability to remake society (e.g. Hammar 1972). Different aspects within this characterisation may be actualised in textbooks, as will become clear from our examples. This tendency is stronger in the sections dealing with ethics and seems to reflect the general values in the national curriculum, such as equity between the sexes, solidarity, tolerance, and regulations against discrimination. We argue that teaching resembling liberal theology is more or less adapted to the majority context in which the books are produced (cf. Berglund 2013).

We discuss the implications of our results in relation to the significance of religion and worldviews in education for social cohesion and citizenship. One issue is how and whether dominant (Swedish) curriculum values influence the study of Christianity, or whether a more conservative Christianity should also be included in an ongoing discussion about what characterises Christian values in a modern society. The overall purpose is to examine how liberal Christianity is shaped in the RE textbooks used in the Swedish upper secondary school and the possible implications for educating citizens in a plural society. The relationship between majority and minority groups in this case could also shed light on the broader issue of RE’s contribution to social cohesion in pluralistic societies in general.

The disposition of the paper is as follows. An outline of the Swedish context is provided first. Second, research on RE textbooks is presented and related to our study. In the following method section, the approach to the selection and analysis is shown. The results, with examples from different books, follow in the next section. In the discussion we further elaborate on how majority conceptions could influence the education of citizens in a plural society.

The Swedish majority context

Even if the intention of most people in a majority culture is to embrace a pluralistic attitude to minorities, taken for granted features in the majority culture still provide contextual conditions for how the world’s religions are represented in school. In his study entitled ‘The Happy Philosophy’, Ola Sigurdson (2000) portrays how prominent Swedish thinkers and ideologists have participated in a process of change from a Lutheran homogenous society to a society characterised by secularism and consensus of values in what has been labelled as ‘the Swedish model’. A prominent example is Swedish professor of philosophy Ingemar Hedenius’ public fight against church theologians, which is often referred to in the development towards a secular society where the national church successively loses its dominant power over culture. Sigurdson’s historical portrayal shows how a former (more or less) Christian hegemonic Lutheran culture has been partially replaced by a secular hegemony, characterised by a belief in rational planning, consensus and secularisation. The emerging welfare state based on tax funding has also contributed to the marginalised role of the church as a provider of people’s welfare.

Due to an increased immigration, privatisation and post-secular tendencies, there are visible cracks in the picture painted by Sigurdson at the turn of the century. However, there are still historical reasons for believing that these contemporary developments set the scene for how Christianity is represented in the majority of Swedish schools. The World Values Survey² shows that Sweden is the country in which most citizens value individual freedom and where religion is hardly included as a central life value. Swedish professor of religion David Thurfjell (2015) points out that the majority of Swedes are still members of the Church of Sweden, even though they distance themselves from Christian beliefs or hesitate to call themselves ‘Christians’. The moral teaching of the church is also shaped by representatives who are elected by members, rather than the theological elite.³ Thus, in Sweden the majority culture is connected to the national church.

Reimers and Puskas (2021) investigated the Swedish preschool in which over 90% of children between the ages of 2–5 years participate. They found that preschool teachers generally avoid talking about religion, although festivals like Christmas and Easter are celebrated in the preschool. Vikdahl (2018) found that according to most pupils at primary and lower secondary levels, Christianity was the majority position in Swedish schools, as long as the traditional content was related to a culture (such as the Christian calendar and other non-belief practices) without any confession. Studies of classrooms (Kittelmann Flenser 2015) and students’ attitudes (Klingenberg 2019; Liljestrand 2018) seem to confirm a dominant image of religion as downplayed and foreign at a personal level, although present at a cultural level.⁴ However, that is not to say that Swedish majority culture should be understood as distinct from those in other Western societies. Nevertheless, its majority values could still be characterised by secularisation, individual freedom and a Christian, albeit sometimes invisible, Lutheran heritage. Berglund (2013) and Hvithamar (2014) advance the thesis that Lutheran majority Christianity affects how the school is woven into cultural practices, such as the Christian calendar. This image partly corresponds to how the Christian heritage is perceived in the curriculum in terms of Christian values (Liljestrand, Carlsson, and Thalén 2021), rather than Christian beliefs. Based on empirical observations and broad historical characterisations, we can regard the Swedish majority society as a post-Lutheran society (see also Thurfjell 2015).

Research background

Previous research has shown that regardless of subject, textbooks influence the content of teaching (Ammert 2011; Englund 2006; Selander 2003). This naturally also applies to religious knowledge (Broberg 2017; Jackson et al. 2010). In their study, Jackson et al. (2010) noted a reductionist tendency to present the Christian faith in terms of a belief in Jesus as a good man and teacher, rather than as God incarnate, and in the cosmic and salvific significance of his death and resurrection.

In Swedish schools the RE textbook has different functions. Vestöl (2016) compares how believing church members perceive school textbooks and shows how they locate Christianity in a global and national space as well as in a historical time (see also Thobro 2014). This is in contrast to how believers perceive Christianity as located in a local and personal space and in a personal time. Aldrin’s and Aldrin (2018) study of Christianity in Swedish textbooks for the upper secondary school shows how on the one hand the presentations assume a knowledge of Christianity yet on the other hand indicate that students are not fully familiar with Christianity. The authors’ approach to interpreting the teaching materials in a wider social context has inspired us in this study.

The ambition to specifically focus on Christianity as a majority religion in school has been critically elucidated in Norwegian and British contexts (Andreassen 2014; Bolton 1997). Andreassen argues that this also implies an assertion of Christianity as a hegemonic national culture (2014) and problematises the obvious by focusing on Christianity. Earlier studies of Christianity in RE have addressed problems about how Christianity is represented. Based in a research review of Christianity in RE, Fancourt (2017) concludes that more knowledge is needed about the presentation of singular religions, rather than religion in general. In relation to Christianity in British RE, Brown (1992) warns for nationalistic images of Christianity at the cost of other Christian traditions in different parts of the world. Hayward (2006) found that Christian pluralism was not present and was often presented out of time and place in British RE. Pett and Cooling (2018) explored a hermeneutical pedagogy for teaching Christianity that enabled students to be both insiders and outsiders. Models like this relate to other hermeneutical approaches, such as Jackson (2009) ambition to approach Christianity as experienced by its believers, rather than the abstract teaching that is often found in school textbooks. Thus, earlier research underpins further studies on RE textbooks and their relation to a (post-Lutheran) Christian majority culture, as well as the possibilities to include Christian voices in the school context.

Materials and methods

In this study the selection of textbooks is based on the actual use by RE teachers in two Swedish regions. Eight books by different authors comprise the material for our study. The authors contacted RE teachers by email in three upper secondary schools in two different regions: one in the northeast of Sweden and the other in mid-Sweden – to ask for information about the textbooks they used. In the first region, two teachers from each of the three schools responded (6 teachers in total). In the second region, one teacher from each of the three schools and two teachers from two of the schools responded (7 teachers in total). The sample includes two medium-sized cities that can be considered representative or constitute a national cross-section. As the number of textbooks used in Sweden is limited, it could mean that the majority of the books available at national level have been represented. Our assessment is that more cities would not have added to the results.

Based on this collection, the authors selected the parts in which Christianity occurred, i.e. in chapters dealing specifically with Christianity and those covering Christianity. After identifying various excerpts, the group shared and discussed the texts via email and in online Zoom meetings. The preliminary categorisation was done by the article’s main author and then reviewed by the others. The selections were based on whether alternative meanings of the excerpts were possible according to conventions in Swedish language use. If this was the case the excerpt was not selected. The selections were therefore based on the authors’ familiarity with the conventional use of the Swedish language. The identification of excerpts was based on general descriptions of Christianity that related to the authors’ knowledge about the theological variations of different themes, such as ethics or views of the Bible. Most excerpts in the books did not contain statements corresponding to liberal Christianity, although we were able to identify this pattern as more or less recurrent in the books.

In this study, a practical-text-approach (Hellspong and Ledin 1997) is applied in order to discern the (three) levels of implicit meaning and their internal relationships, namely the overall composition in which the excerpts occur, the intertextual links within the excerpts and the semantic content in the excerpts. Hellspong and Ledin (1997) also add the wider societal context in the analysis (see also Aldrin and Aldrin 2018 and above), which can be understood as the most distant level, while the semantic level represents the closer level to the excerpts. This approach facilitates the identification of excerpts with implicit meanings in a rigorous way.

The first step in the analysis was to choose excerpts and in the next step search for words that were central to the message in the excerpt. The semantic meanings, or the connotations of words, are dependent on a country’s cultural norms and how they are used in everyday life. However, the practical identification of semantic content may involve some vagueness, which the authors needed to reflect critically on before including it in the selection of excerpts. In some cases, excerpts had to be removed due to a lack of convincing arguments for including them. For example, one sentence reads, ‘Today, the idea of hell occupies a hidden place within the Christian tradition’ (Flennegård and Eriksson 2012, 262), which refers to the general temporal state of ‘today’ and the general location of ‘the Christian tradition’. If this sentence had been weaker and more porous, other words could have been used, such as ‘particularly amongst liberal groups, but also in many other Christian traditions the idea of hell occupies a hidden place’. However, in the above quote the more liberal position is attributed to Christians in general in both time and location.

The next step was to intertextually relate the words to the sentences and interpret their meaning. Again, using the sentence above as an example, the temporal and generalised description of ‘today’ is intertextually connected with the spatial metaphor of a ‘hidden place’, thus constructing the downplaying of belief in hell as a general belief within Christianity. The third step involved locating the words and sentences to the composition and overall context of the book, such as determining whether the sentence introduced a section below a heading, thereby framing the ensuing presentation. In the actual example, the first sentence is located directly below the heading ‘Hell or heaven – place state or metaphor?’ and thereby frames the issue highlighted in the heading.

In the last step, the excerpts’ meanings were related to features in Sweden’s majority society. The notion of majority society and the identification of its corresponding features is based on the dominant values described above, including the school curriculum, the teachings of the Church of Sweden and the section on Swedish majority culture. In the examples below, we specifically refer to these levels of interpretation in the practical-text-approach.

Results

The books selected for this study varied according to the frequency of statements expressing liberal Christianity. One book (Franck 2011) did not contain any excerpts, one book (Binkebo and Brolin 2016) contained one excerpt, two books (Björlin and Jämterud 2013; Tidman and Wallin 2008) contained two excerpts and four books (4/8) contained three or more excerpts (i.e. Flennegård and Eriksson 2012/4 excerpts; Ring 2013/3 excerpts; Thulin and Elm 2017/6 excerpts; Tuvesson 2022/3 excerpts). As all the books were published in Sweden and were used in RE education. The present study also confirmed the authors’ former study (Liljestrand, Carlsson, and Thalén 2021).

Seen from the perspective of the impact of Swedish majority society, such a connection is present. However, in this sample this connection was not always obvious because the different books varied in scope. In the following section we present a qualitative analysis of excerpts from four of the books in our sample and then follow up the issue of majority and minority views related to the aim of educating for pluralism and social cohesion. Four themes from four books have been chosen: a liberal view of the Bible, gender equality, secularised Christianity and salvation in society. These themes show a clear tendency towards liberal protestant Christianity and how such positions are constructed through language use in the context of Sweden’s majority society.

Example 1:

A liberal view of the Bible

In Religion and connections (Ring 2013), one of the headings reads ‘How should we read the Bible?’ The next heading, ‘Understanding the Bible’ is followed by three main positions: ‘The Bible is the word of God’, ‘The Bible is about God’ and ‘The Bible is an ordinary book’. The first alternative, below the third heading, ‘The Bible is the word of God’, contains the following characteristics and is also related to an identified religious group; fundamentalists:

Fundamentalists often claim that they read ‘what it says’ without interpreting it. The question is whether this is possible. The Catholic church views the Bible as the word of God but does not practise a fundamentalistic understanding of it. (pp. 85–86)

The next heading, ‘The Bible is about God’ is depicted as follows:

This understanding of the Bible is the most common among Christians in Sweden and has many names. One of them is an existential understanding of the Bible. (p. 87)

Compositionally, the second and more liberal understanding (‘The Bible is about God’) is located in a separately headed section from the first; a section in which the language is informative without value judgements, compared to the semantic choice in the first section (‘The question is whether this is possible’). The second understanding (The Bible is about God’) is attributed to a majority position in Sweden labelled as the ‘most common’, thus semantically normalising it as representing most Swedes (including the readers of the textbook). Intertextually, in the first quote the presentation of the different approaches positions fundamentalists and Catholics against the majority, but also separates Protestant fundamentalists from Catholics. This contrasting could be seen as a pedagogisation (Bernstein 1990) that makes the content easier to grasp for students.

The view of the Bible as the word of God is also questioned as a position that is difficult to achieve in practice. From the perspective of the Swedish context, the Church of Sweden often approaches the Bible in a similar way to Ring’s, ‘The Bible is about God’, which emphasises people’s existing ‘existential’ needs.⁵ Thus, in different ways the depiction of the Bible is flavoured by a liberal Protestantism rather than more conservative approaches.

Example 2:

Gender equality

An issue that is often addressed in relation to the scriptures concerns equality, and often gender equality. The following quote from En människa – tusen världar (One human – thousand worlds, Tuvesson 2022) is located after three hierarchical levels of headings: ‘Identity’, ‘Gender and sexuality’ and the ‘Gender’. The presentation of issues relating to gender equality is as follows:

Many Christians regard gender equality as an important intrinsic value and as part of the Christian emphasis on the equal worth of all people. Among other things, this can be motivated by the following Bible quotation:

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

(Galatians 3:28)

But based on traditionalist interpretations of the Bible, man and woman have different roles, and man is superior to woman, just as God is superior to man.

(p. 177)

Like the above example, the semantical choice of ‘many’ Christians indicates a majority view. Gender equality is also linked to the majority in Swedish society (and several policy texts), through the widely established concepts of ‘gender equity’ and the ‘equal worth of all people’. In the excerpt, the author’s preference for gender equality in Christianity is intertextually linked to the concepts through a bible quotation, which is not the case when a different position is introduced with the word ‘but’. This contrasted position, which is comparably shorter and less elaborated, compares men’s position to that of women with God’s position over humans: ‘just as God is superior to man’. In another example from the same book (e.g. p. 182), the message in the Bible is referred to as the Bible’s general approach to the issue of gender equality in terms of ‘among other things’. Thus, the most important message of the Bible, and the section on gender’, is related to equality and the equal worth of all people. Besides the reference to established concepts about equality, this section can also be related to the position of the Church of Sweden (see footnote 3).

Example 3:

Secularised Christianity

Christian groups relate to the secularisation of society in different ways. This is addressed in the book Religion 1 (Thulin and Elm 2017). The following excerpt is located under the heading ‘Life as a Christian’ in a section containing two sub-headings. The introductory text lacks a sub-heading, thus indirectly signalling the more general purpose for what is to come.

Being a Christian means following Jesus’ teachings as expressed in the New Testament, and primarily in the Gospels. Most confessing Christians live in the rich industrialised world. Therefore, Christian life has been affected by an extensive secularisation process. Several ideologies, such as communism, liberalism, humanism and materialism, have provided atheistic alternatives (you can read about these in Chapter 9). The Christian church’s rites and influence on individuals and social life have thereby decreased in importance. Many Christians try to live with Jesus’ teachings as ethical and moral guidelines in combination with a secularised lifestyle. But there are also groups that oppose secularisation and emphasise the importance of the church’s rites and cult. (p. 81)

The first three sentences frame how ‘Christian life’ is developed in the excerpt. The semantical choice of ‘most’ Christians in the second sentence intertextually frames the succeeding presentation of what Christianity means in today’s context, i.e. that most Christians live in the rich industrialised world (which is factually wrong). In the following sentence, the concluding ‘therefore’ (Shiffrin 1987) intertextually connects the initial two sentences with the conclusion that ‘Christian life’, formulated in the singular, is affected by an ‘extensive secularisation process’.

Further, when conservative groups are addressed, they are portrayed in the plural. These groups are also depicted in terms of opposition, i.e. resistance in contrast to the development of society in general. The first group (in the singular) represents the ‘Christian life’ and connects it with the section’s title. The excerpt connects to a strong tradition in liberal theology emphasising a Christian ethos – but also to notions common to several members of the church of Sweden that church doctrines are not necessary to embrace today (Thurfjell 2015). The second sentence locates Christians in a geographic area corresponding to the Swedish majority: ‘Most confessing Christians live in the rich industrialised world’, which normalises Sweden as a typical Christian country.

Example 4:

Salvation in society

In the Christian tradition, salvation has been understood in a variety of ways, such as salvation from eternal punishment, death or political oppression. The following excerpt from Söka svar (Searching for answers, Flennegård and Eriksson 2012) is located under the main heading ‘A walk towards the goal’ and followed by a sub-section with the heading ‘Salvation for the individual or the world?’ This is followed by an introductory text about a development that has occurred in the Christian world:

The idea of salvation is still strong in the Christian world. From having been more individualistic, it has increasingly turned towards the whole of humanity. Many Christians believe that the idea of salvation must be translated into social action. Individuals show their faith by the actions in their own lives and how they contribute to the salvation of the whole world. The main purpose of today’s salvation theology is to ensure that humanity as a whole is saved. It begins with the single individual and then continues with all humanity.

(p. 272)

The semantical choice of the expressions ‘increasingly’, ‘many Christians’ and the generalised ‘today’s salvation theology’ contributes to a normalisation of the position that humanity, regardless of religious belonging, needs to be saved. The phrase ‘translated into social action’ highlights the agency of humans, rather than the agency of God. Intertextually, the excerpt develops a transformation from an earlier notion of individualism to an actual responsibility for other humans. When in the excerpt salvation is related to a global reality like ‘the whole of humanity’ or ‘the whole world’, its transcendent meaning is reformulated from a divine to a secular reality and its human agents.

Compositionally, this section precedes the last section in the chapter that develops the theme ‘And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love’ (1 Corinthians 13:13). Despite the church’s abuse of power, the last section in the chapter describes Christianity’s basic mission as always having been love. In the chapter, the last section takes a stand against the historical shortcomings of the church from the perspective of love. The excerpt thus initiates an idea of an inclusive Christianity that is independent of the consequences of individual actions. In relation to the Church of Sweden (Liljestrand 2015), an inclusive approach of being part of the church as a Swedish citizen is common, as is a view of inclusive salvation.

From the outset the aim of our study has been to explain how the textbooks construct liberal majority Christianity. As shown in the analysis, language is a normalising factor that is in line with protestant liberal theology and the national Church of Sweden. Of the 21 excerpts studied, the Church of Sweden’s position was identified in 16 of them. In the scrutinisation of the excerpts it was clear that liberal theology is constructed on different levels, from the semantic to the dominating ideological context in Sweden. In the next section we discuss the possible implications for educating citizens for social cohesion.

Discussion

The purpose of this study has been to examine how liberal Christianity is shaped in the textbooks and the possible implications for educating citizens in a plural society. Methodologically, we have identified excerpts in relation to conceptions corresponding to a liberal tradition, described initially, and our familiarity with conventional meanings in the Swedish language, which we hope may also be sufficiently transparent for English readers. This study has not addressed the interesting issue of the reception of their message in the classroom context (e.g. Widholm 2020). In other words, we have focused on the meanings that are identifiable in the wider discourses in post-Christian societies like Sweden.

This study has confirmed Berglund’s thesis that majority conceptions are clearly present in national RE textbooks. The authors’ earlier textbook study (Liljestrand, Carlsson, and Thalén 2021) is also confirmed. However, in our studies there are signs of a stronger presence in the sample of textbooks used in Years 7–9 than in the sample from the upper secondary school. The official teachings of the Church of Sweden also appear in the Swedish majority conception of Christianity in 16/21 excerpts, as illustrated in the three given cases. This study is in line with Hayward’s (2006) British study that the plurality of Christianity is still of vital interest for RE. As Fancourt (2017) points out, research on particular religions is still important with regard to the RE curriculum.

In relation to Christian minorities in the RE classroom, the conditions for pluralism and social cohesion are also represented in the curriculum, since these Christian groups often embrace views that are more traditional than (protestant) liberal ones. Several textbooks seem to propose a thick value system with a broad set of values and views. Such an approach includes the values stated in the national curriculum. Swedish majority conceptions of Christianity thus have a stronger impact in the books than minority positions, such as those represented by Catholicism, Pentecostalism, Syrian Orthodoxy etc. When the conceptions and values found in these denominations are presented, they are generally juxtaposed as contrasting alternatives, or marginalised in relation to the standard interpretations of ‘typical’ Christianity. The presence of liberal values in the initial and general sections of the national curriculum may explain this bias as not only a result of individual book authors. As the national curriculum for RE also promotes values of pluralism, an inbuilt tension in the curriculum is linked to the content of the textbooks, which on the one hand promotes insights into plurality of different Christian traditions yet on the other fosters liberal values. Theologically, this tends to connect the liberal theologies in the books with the teachings of the Swedish majority church.

However, an interpretation of social cohesion in line with John Dewey (1916, 1923) – as cement in the social structure that opens for and promotes difference and pluralism – would imply that this curricular tension is brought to the surface. A ‘cement’ would include something that is common enough to connect students in the classroom without forcing them to adopt any particular values; a perspective that points towards more agonistic approaches to religion and education (Bergdahl 2010). In such a critical light, the tendency in the book presentations to contrast two opposing alternatives may also risk obscuring any dilemmatic positions that students may have about homosexuality, such as accepting it amongst their peers one the one hand yet embracing heterosexual relations as an ideal on the other. If teachers aim to foster students in liberal majority conceptions by teaching protestant liberal Christianity and Christian ethics, interpretations of lived Christianity outside the scope of liberal Christianity may stay hidden in the classroom rather than be included in the discussion.

Against this background, RE teachers need to guard against taking majority conceptions for granted. They also need to be aware of the inbuilt tensions in the different parts of the national curriculum and how to navigate them. Here, we believe that methodologies like the practical-text-approach can help to discern whether and how textbooks and the corresponding teaching favour un-reflected majority positions. A dialogic approach, such as that proposed by Jackson (2009), seems to require an awareness of the implicit and dominant majority conceptions in RE as well as how such conceptions could be negotiated in the RE classroom.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Johan Liljestrand

Johan Liljestrand is senior lecturer and reader in Educational Studies at the University of Gävle.

David Carlsson

David Carlsson is doctor in Religious Education and Dean of School at School of Education, Culture and Communication at the University of Mälardalen.

Linda Jonsson

Linda Johnsson is doctor in Educational Studies at School of Education, Culture and Communication, Division of Education at the University of Mälardalen.

Peder Thalén

Peder Thalén is professor in Religious Studies at the University of Gävle.

Notes

1. Swedish RE aims to include all the world’s religions and some secular world views but prioritises Christianity in terms of scope. Thompson and Watson (2010) point out in the British context that as the teaching of Christianity is the mainstay of religious education it is very important that it is kept under review.

2. http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp

3. As expressed in central documents (e.g. www.svenskakyrkan.se and Bishop´s Letters)

4. Some scholars interpret such culturalization of Christianity as a consequence of liberal forces within the Scandinavian majority churches (Buchardt 2015).

5. For example, the Church of Sweden presents this understanding on its official website: ‘One reason why theology and liturgy are characterised by superiority and inferiority is that the biblical stories were written at a time that was steeped in hierarchy and patriarchy. These are texts written by men and for men’. [Quoted and translated from the Swedish on 27 April 2023, https://www.svenskakyrkan.se/kristentro/feministisk-teologi].