This essay examines the 1962 Swedish parliamentary debate preluding the proposition to introduce a uniform compulsory education for all Swedish children. The proposition aimed at ending the previously heterogeneous educational system and replace it with a more equal and democratic system.A widespread debate ensued, regarding the status of Christian religious education (kristendomskunskap) and its new emphasis on scientific objectivity. This essay will examine the relative position of Christianity within the new uniform school system, as it was articulated by the members of the Swedish parliament. This analysis will be achieved through the use of a discourse analytical study of the parliamentary records, the recorded motions and bills. From these records a substantial disparity in the parliamential members articulation of the concept of Christianity can be ascertained, even within the discourse of an educational regime.

This thesis treats lending figures of literature on religion at libraries in Vårgårda and Lerum.Formulated hypotheses are: The use of literature on religion is higher at the library in Vårgårdathan at the one in Lerum; In Lerum the most literature on religion is used by highly educatedpeople; Ethnic groups and librarians have an influence on the stock.The Christian literature has other patterns than other literature regarding selection criteria,reviews and distribution. The conclusions are: The fact that there are many members ofChurch and Chapel in Vårgårda, does reflect the number of loans of literature on religion in apositive way; Education does not influence, but distance between school and library; Thelibrarians' interest and therefore knowledge regarding religious topics has an impact on theirtreatment of religious books, while ethnic groups do not effect stock and use in either Vårgårdaor Lerum..

Alevism as such is both contested and difficult to define, despite the fact that nearly a quarter of the Turkish population can be said to identify with it (See egMarkussen, 2005; Sirin, 2013). Discussions regarding whether alevism should bedefined as a religious minority or not is going on both in the research communityas among the Alevis themselves. Also the meaning of Alevi religiosity as such isdebated and can be simply described as a discussion of whether alevism should beregarded as a part of Islam. The purpose of this discourse study is therefore to examine the construction of Alevi religious identity in two English-language Turkish newspaper, namely the Hürriyet Daily News and Today `s Zaman. With the overarching aim to achieve adeep understanding of the conditions that are given the Alevi group to form their own identity.

This essay is a work on Mircea Eliades's interpretation of the religious human understood as "homo religiosus" and the role of the shaman from the Eliade perspective. In Eliade human existence consists of a dichotomy between the sacred and the profane. The question is whether one can understand the concept of Eliades ?axis mundi?, center of the universe? Can we create an understanding of human existence with Eliade? Can one use  phenomenology of religion as perspective for the exploration of ?reality?? Furthermore, this paper aims to understand the role of the shaman has religious worldviews. Shamaism  is through an ecstatic technique traveling to other cosmic plane, in order to gain knowledge that would otherwise not be reached.

Abstract:The purpose of this study is to get increased knowledge of how teachers motivate and teach youth about existential questions at junior highchool. My issue for this composition is to find out how ? and how much ? teachers in fact teach about existential questions in the religious education.I interviewed four teachers at junior highschool, with various experiences. One teacher had about thirty years of experience in teaching, and one teacher was quite young and unexperienced.The result indicates that the youth were interested in a lot of existential questions. The study also indicates the teachers view of youth?s identity-work and their existential questions.The resultat is compared with studies of Dahlin, Hartman and Sjödin..

The role of religion, of religious individuals and organizations, is currently discussed within both a private and public sector of development. I have viewed documents from the World Bank and DFID where the religious presence is a growing fact and previous theories that religion would disappear with economic development have been abandoned. As a result DFID conducted a large study on the importance of religion for development work, RaD 2005-2011, under the directions of Professor Carole Rakodi. Rakodi (2011) concluded that religion was highly related to the success or failure of developmental projects, and to understand the values people had religion needed to be understood within its specific cultural context. She developed an analysis model to conduct this work.

Följande uppsats handlar om studie- och yrkesvägledares inställning till troende, främst muslimska klienter och hur deras förförståelse av religion i allmänhet och islam i synnerhet, påverkar deras arbete med dessa klienter. Den behandlar också hur de ser på religionsfrihet, frihet till frihet från religion. Den genomförda enkätundersökningen visar att vägledarnas professionalitet gör dem väl förberedda på att arbeta med troende klienter. Med få undantag uppvisar vägledarna en vilja till tolerans och öppenhet, även när deras egen livsåskådning är helt annan än klientens. De flesta vägledarna har en positiv syn på religionsfrihet, alltså att det innebär frihet att ha den religion man vill ha.The subject of this paper is how some Swedish career counsellors view their religious, mainly Moslem, clients and whether their preconceived ideas influence their work as counsellors.

This essay criticizes common theories within the three traditional perspectives, conflict management, conflict resolution and conflict transformation, for not being able to explain and/or generate solutions to the problems of fundamentalism and religious terrorism in a satisfying manner. This essay is trying to synthesize an alternative analytical framework that better can explaining these phenomena and generate potential solutions. The frameworks ontological ground is laid out using different readings of Foucault, thereby seeing the subject as formed by discourses, material processes and institutions. Fundamentalism and terrorism are seen as a violent resistance to repressed subjectivity, but the form of resistance depends on the discursive and non discursive surroundings. This gives rise to different forms of resistance; the production of discourses and founding of groups and the entry of marginalized people in these groups.

The purpose of this essay is to describe and analyze the debate surrounding the construction of the 2011 years curriculum of the Swedish schools` Religious studies. The debate is concerning whether or not Christianity should have a unique position in the curriculum against other religions. The method is to analyze the arguments by an argument analysis. The purpose is also to analyze the argumentation to see how secularization and pluralism have influenced the debate and the different standpoints. The essays material consists of debate articles from the four largest news sites on the internet.The most common argument for Christianity?s unique position is that Christianity has had an important role in the development of the Swedish society, culture and literature and is therefore important knowledge for understanding the Swedish society.

"One life in two worlds" is a qualitative study of Syriac boys constructs ethnic and religious identity in different social contexts.Based on these three questions: how do the boys describe the importance of the parents' cultural and religious background in relation to their own identity? How do the boys describe their experiences of being categorized in school? Which significance is given to religion and ethnicity when the boys describe their experiences in relation to home and school context?I did reach the aim of this essay which was to investigate by interviewing the Syrian boys how they construct or reconstruct ethnic and / or religious identity in relation to different social contexts with a focus on the home and the school.In this study, I assumed the qualitative method in which I interviewed six Syriac boys who attend grade nine. The starting point of the study was social constructivism. Therefore, knowledge in this study is seen as something that is constructed in language, social and cultural interactions. The reality and perspective of reality is socially constructed, meaning that knowledge is created through the interplay of common action.The results of this study show that all the informants are agreed that their parents' ethnic background has had and has great significance for their identity formation.

In this paper I have tried to find out the reason the medieval town of Vä was created. I have studied several different areas in witch all, in one way or another, have had an effect on the making of Vä. This areas includes topography, iron production, mill handling, religious effects, royal affliction and also if the name Vä could tell something about Väs history as a religious cult. I have also looked at two other places not far from Vä, the medieval harbour town Åhus and the big village of Fjälkinge. By comparing these three places I tried to find out what Vä had that the other places did not, which made Vä turn in to a town.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how Islam and Muslims are portrayed a) in results from studies on Swedish teaching materials, and b) in articles in Swedish media newspapers. The study was conducted through two separate studies. In the first study, five previous research reports on how Islam and Muslims are portrayed in Swedish teaching materials were analysed in order to discern the main results regarding the portrayal of Islam and Muslims. In the second study, newspaper articles from 11 Swedish newspapers were analysed in order to discern which central themes emerge in the description of Muslims and Islam in said newspaper articles, as well as which properties and features are attributed to Muslims and Islam in the articles studied. In both studies, the data was analysed inductively through a qualitative content analysis.

Fyra stycken lärares beskrivningar om hur de undervisar och definierar nyreligiositet och nya religiösa rörelser har studerats i föreliggande uppsats. Syftet med studien är att undersöka vad verksamma religionskunskapslärare på högstadiet säger att de undervisar om i undervisningen kring nyreligiositet och nyreligiösa rörelser. En kvalitativ metod med semistrukturerade intervjuer har använts för att få fram data till studien. Teorier om didaktiskt innehåll och undervisning som meningserbjudande har använts vid analysen av resultatet. Uppsatsen utgår från tre stycken frågeställningar om hur definierar religionskunskapslärare begreppen nyreligiositet och nyreligiösa rörelser, om vad beskriver religionskunskapslärare att de undervisar kring nyreligiositet och nyreligiösa rörelser och hur beskriver lärare att de arbetar kring nyreligiositet och nyreligiösa rörelser i undervisningen? Resultatet i studien visar att lärarna har problem med att definiera begreppet nyreligiositet, vilket kan vara en orsak till att området får en marginell plats i religionskunskapsundervisningen.

In 1989 the Cold War ended and in 1991 the Soviet Union ceased to exist, over night the ruling paradigm of International Relations was obsolete. What would happen now? Samuel Huntingtons answer was that in the future, cultural identity would be the most important factor behind international conflict. And that the threat of world war would come from clashes between civilizations instead of clashes between ideologies like during the cold war. Was he correct? This thesis is an attempt to find out if Huntingtons theory was right in its predictions of the world to come.

Sekularisering fortsätter att drabba kyrkan i både öst och väst. Uppsatsen behandlar sekulariseringsteorier utifrån ett bibliskt perspektiv. Hypotesen är att Jesus Kristus är kyrkan som kropp. Detta kyrkobegrepp har förändrats. Även budskapet och pedagogiken har påverkats.Fältarbete har genomförts i både Egypten och i Sverige.