The aim in this bachelor thesis is to describe and analyze ritual performance and transference of religious traditions in some Hindu homes in Varanasi (India). In particular from the children?s perspective. The curriculum of Religious Education in the Swedish schooling system focuses on religious life, expression and practice. Thus, this thesis is about ?lived Hinduism?, ritual performance and religious practices.

Den du är, inte den du förväntas vara ? en kvalitativ studie av läroböcker i religionskunskap och dess behandling av kön, sexualitet och etnicitet (Who you are, not who you are expected to be - a qualitative studie of textbooks in religious studies and the treatment of gender, sexuality and ethnicithy) is a qualitative study with the primary focus to examine textbooks as a resource for the teacher. Focus is put on how gender, sexuality and ethnicity is portrayed in textbooks for religious studies in upper secondary school. The textbooks are also examined as a resource based on their usefulness. To do this a hermeneutic approach was taken and the textbooks were studied based on the knowledge they provided and their readability.

Freedom of religion or belief is indisputable in Human rights discourse, more discussed is exactly what it is that is included in the concept of freedom of religion or belief (in Swedish: religionsfrihet). This thesis focuses on the freedom of religion or belief in a European context, in particular on the European court of human rights and article 9 in the European convention for human rights. Some criticism has been directed against the Court to the effect that its practice and verdicts don't answer to the pronounced desire to develop a pluralistic and inclusive form of freedom of religion or belief.My aim is to examine, analyse and test three different theories, which all try to develop alternatives to the expression freedom of religion or belief, in relation to six verdicts from article 9 in Europe convention. My basic purpose is to try to find new ways of talking about freedom of religion or belief that might lead to a more inclusive, pluralistic and equal interpretation of that concept.The three theories wich I use are elaborated by Richard Amesbury (associate professor at Claremont school of Theology); Hugo Strandberg (TD at Åbo Akademi) and Eberhard Herrmann (professor in philosophy of religion at Uppsala University); and Martha Nussbaum (professor of law and ethics at the University of Chicago). The six cases from the European court are: X v.

Johanna Petrén, a prospective teacher of religion, has examined how a couple of students view Christianity as it is presented in a Religious Education classroom. Furthermore, how this image matches their experience of Christianity outside of school. The key questions of this essay are: How do the students generally describe Christianity and what it means to be a Christian based on the image they have acquired from outside of school, or from Christian friends, confirmation or their own faith? How do the students describe Christianity according to what they learn in Religious education at school? What potential differences do the students perceive between the image of Christianity conveyed by the school and the image they have of Christianity from outside of school? Does the school's teaching influence the credibility and interest in Christianity? The questions have been discussed in focus group interviews, in which the students way of reasoning and talking about religious matters were analysed based on previous research. References used in the analysis includes research on topics such as science of religious history, religion in multicultural and postcolonial rooms, secularism and discourse analysis have.

This study aims to deepen the understanding of how belonging and community is created in one of the aesir faith communities in Sweden. The study examines the aesir faith communities ability to develop the community members religious identity as well as their understanding of the importance of cultural heritage and how it affects the members in their practices of their aesir faith. The main argument in this study is that cultural heritage creates a sense of community that makes the members want to stay and develop their religious identity together with the other members of the aesir faith community. I have used cultural heritage, symbols and rituals, belonging, community and religious identity as concepts in order to answer my research questions. The methods used in this study are participant observation during the group's public activities, as well as interviews with the members of the aesir faith community in order to confirm the analysis I made during the participant observation.

The purpose of this study is to examine how different religious traditions are portrayed in teaching materials based on news reports. The main question concerns the way in which religious practices and holidays are described and in which contexts religion is presented. The method includes a both quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The study concludes that certain religious practices are presented in a way that describes the practitioners as more faithful and homogenous than others. This was especially prominent among Muslims and to a certain extent Hindus.

I have conducted a qualitative study were the aim was to understand how the freedom of choice act in eldercare is handled at a municipality level as well as a national level and the effects that can occur. The methods I have used for this study is a document analysis and semi-structed interviews.     I have conducted semi-structed interviews with three professionals in the eldercare organization in a large municipality in the south of Sweden, I have also conducted a phone interview with a representative from Socialstyrelsen. The professionals that I chose for my study was a chief of staff, an aid case worker and a person who worked in the municipality with the implementation of freedom of choice act.     The study shows that the work quality is expected to rise with the freedom of choice as a consequence of the customer and performer model and will give the caretakers a higher level of influence. The study also shows that the municipality will get a greater responsibility and the aid case workers will get extended tasks though they will have to inform the caretakers regarding the options and they will also be mediate between the caretaker and the performers. However the study also show concerns regarding rough traders whose aim is to make money and does not have the same rehabilitation agenda.     There are also concerns for those who can´t chose for them self though they will not be able to be a part of the freedom of choice act in the same way and that is something the municipality needs to work out a system for.

This report is an attempt to clarify how religious and non-religious views-of-life [livsåskådningar] are created through the collaboration and opposition of religious and scientific elements/ideas. This with the hope of reaching a fruitful result related to the solution of world-view related conflicts, such as the ones existing between science and religion, on an individual and societal level.This is accomplished with the help of two assertions: (1) Mankind has a need to explain its existence and surroundings. (2) Religion and science has their origins in the same seed and aim to serve the same purpose, or function. Together these two assertions lay the theoretical foundations of this report which implies that all humans have an innate need of sustaining a stable world-view.The result of this report is that a final solution to world-view related conflicts are beyond reach as our mental and physical nature limits us. However there are strategies for minimizing world-view related conflicts effect on society..

In this thesis I have done a discourse analysis of the documentary movie A Jihad for Love. A Jihad for Love came out 2007 and is directed by Parvez Sharma. The documentary movie is about homosexual Muslims and their jihad, struggle, for love and to be accepted in a world where they are barely recognized as a group. My aim of the thesis was to see how the movie portrays the persons who are in the film and their relationship to Islam and who gets access to the religion. I have also analyzed if Islam can be used to strengthen the sexual identity or if it works in the opposite way.

This thesis aims to explore the representations of musicians and soundscapes on the column of Trajan in Rome. While many different parts of the column have been explored thoroughly, the musicians are not such a part. As such, this thesis aims to explore this gap in research as well as explore how the soundscapes have been represented on the column. By sorting and grouping scenes with musicians into different groups, this thesis has been able to find patterns of representation such as musicians being represented in religious scenes more often than in military scenes and the fact that there seem to be some compositional overlap between the different groups in how the musicians are represented. Grounding the thesis in a theoretical approach that uses the presumed audience and their experiences as a guide for how to represent different scenes, it is argued that part of the reason for musicians being more present in religious scenes than in military ones is because the roman audience were more aware of the actual religious soundscapes.

I wanted to focus this essay on the operative?s perspective of running religious organizations in the city of Karlstad and to see positive and negative aspects of their day-to-day life working with their organization, following up with a comparison of the difference and the similarities between those groups. After delimitating which groups I was going to examine, I implemented a qualitative study of four people, from two different religious groups, whom I performed interviews with. My method of performing these interviews and understanding the perspective of the informants, I had a semi structured interview guide along with a recent study that was opting for similar conclusions, only in a different county and with different input perspective. The result of my study showed a difference in establishment of their region but with a lot of similarities in problems with their religious and structural premises.

AbstractSweden has had a long tradition of freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Today the judicial area is regulated by the constitution of the press and the constitution of speech. The purpose of the two constitutions is to secure the right for every Swedish citizen to express their thoughts, opinions and feelings.The constitutions are designed to regulate the techniques with which the information is distributed and not to regulate the information in itself. This fact has caused a debate to arise on the subject whether the constitutions are still suitable to regulate the judicial area when the technical development causes the constitutions to get out of date and in need of constant updating. As a rule the usage of social media is not regulated by the constitution of speech the information distributed through these webpages can be included by the protection given by the constitution but very few of these webpages fulfill the criteria?s demanded by the constitution.The purpose of this essay is to ask the question whether the constitution of speech should be reformed to better regulate the technical development in the future.

The previous research in the field of new religious movements has mostly focused on the spectacular parts where phenomena such as ?brainwashing? and the ?charismatic leader? have attracted both media and the scientific studies of religion. Professor Liselotte Frisks has done several enquiries about sects and new religious movements in Sweden. One of her main conclusions is that the relation between these new religious movements and the rest of society has changed; a relation that used to be characterized by conflicts and tension is now becoming more open as both parts are changing.This study does not focus on the spectacular parts. Instead I have studied something more common and general.

Faith is a phenomenon that engages the individual into emotional, social and daily manners.Religion tends to engage the individual in different levels in the daily life. In the church communion, there is a belief to the traditional and the repeteated behaviour. This shared group is strength by ceremonies and rituals and people in this collective somehow experience another type of reality. This study has a social - psychological perspective and the purpose is to study people?s know-how of faith and why they seek religion in today´s secularized society.

In this textual analysis I have examined the book Att följa Jesus by Ulf Ekman and information from Word of Life's official website. The aim of this study is to see how a religious leader is shaping the identity of the groups members after a certain pattern that differs from the surrounding, secular society. The research focus  of this essay includes several aspects:  how a culture is formed in a religious minority in contrast to the prevailing cultural context; how the material can be explained by Paul Pruyser?s theory on the psychological worlds; how what Ulf Ekman writes about distinguishing themselves from the environment differs from how other religious minority groups distinguish their identity;  and,  how the psychological world, expected behavior, and context of Word of Life can be structured by Valerie DeMarinis? model of assessment. I have placed Word of Life in a realistic illusionistic world developed from Paul Pruyser?s theory of psychological worlds.